This morning I watched a video by the Youtuber Mike Casual and Woodstock, which inspired me to write this article. If you're a creative person currently feeling stuck or like me, frequently go through stuck phases then I highly recommend watching this video.

In 2023 I made my first game; STRANDED. A short narrative based web-game.

You can’t see the skin pores on Lena, you can finish it in about 5 minutes. It’s not going to win any Baftas, but it’s something that I finished and that I'm proud of. So in this post, I thought I'd talk about what methods I used when working on Stranded that I try to stick to today.

1. Find the fun

When I made STRANDED, I had been trying to expand my web developer portfolio by following Javascript tutorials and making various projects I thought would look good to employers and help me improve in my current role.

I really struggled back then. We all know Javascript is hard (please agree with me. (PLEASE nod your head and agree that it's hard). And on top of that I was also awaiting adhd meds. But there was also a much simpler reason I struggled to focus on these projects…

They were boring.

I wasn’t interested in them. They weren't fun for me to make and so I didn’t care about them- and it showed.

In the end, I rage-quit took a break from my portfolio and did something else. I wrote and doodled. Some of these scribbles turned into notes and concepts for a mecha-themed video game I found myself getting excited about.

Before I knew it I discovered MECH JAM, a two week mecha themed game jam on itch.io. For those two weeks, I feverishly coded a short game about a stranded mech pilot with my friend Frosted, who created the final illustrations for the main character, Lena. I had so much fun making it that I barely noticed how much coding I'd done that I previously struggled with as well as new concepts I'd learnt along the way.

Obvious as it sounds, enjoying what you create is so important (particularly with ADHD). Finding ways to tailor what you do in a way you enjoy can help with things like building a portfolio or even improve at your job. Not every part of the process is going to be thrilling, but if we never find any fun in what we do, what’s the point?

2. Limit your palette

Twine, the engine I used for STRANDED, isn’t exactly Unreal Engine. From my understanding, it’s mostly used in Game Development as a prototyping tool in the early stages of creating games that are going to have a narrative/choice based element to them. Some might argue I'm limiting myself by making games like STRANDED in Twine and they’re right. But honestly, it’s somewhat intentional.

I work as a web dev full time. Outside of my working hours, I have a very busy life juggling my two sons. I could have started learning an engine known for making more fleshed out games like Unreal, Godot, Unity, etc. But if i did that, not only would i be trying to fit in time to make a game, i’d also be learning an entire new system/language on top of that.

Twine has a few different modes, one of them being Sugarcube which allows you to have more control over customisation using CSS and Javascript. Well, those are two languages i’m pretty familiar with thanks to my career. So there goes the stress of also finding time to learn a new system! I wasn’t trying to make anything ground breaking with STRANDED. I just wanted to make- and more importantly- finish a little game idea I had (If you’ve ever tried to make a game before, you’ll know that finishing it is probably the hardest part).

So I'd advise you to consider limiting your options. It doesn’t have to be by engine choice; Many Game Jams do this with a themed prompt for each jam, which I personally feel helps reduce the chance of overwhelm greatly.

I learnt a lot from the time I didn’t limit my options for a jam, which unfortunately led to me releasing an unfinished game. Don't get me wrong, i'm still proud of what we made but it's an important lesson in scope creep!

3. Make something

Sometimes, you’ve just got to put pen to paper and see what happens. It may not be the greatest thing you’ve ever made, but every time you try means it has the potential to be something great. Easier said than done, but try and create without putting any expectations on the outcome. Just try and do it for the hell of it like when we were kids. Even if you hate it, at least you showed up and made something- and in a time where people are creating things themselves less and less, the act of “showing up” is becoming incredibly important and something you should be proud of.