First Journal Entry (Feature Complete?)

I started this project like lots of hobby game projects start, with an idea of merging 2 games I liked. Kerbal Space Program meets A Short Hike. They are 2 completely different and great games. I wanted the casual simplicity of A Short Hike, with it's beautiful miniature world set in a miniature planetary system with semi-realistic physics. At the time of this devlog, I have a miniature planetary system, where the player is taught how to fly a spaceship in order to deliver packages.

I took the general advice I read online to heart and made sure I wasn't trying to make a dream game. I made sure the scope was realistic and achievable within a year on zero budget. I had 2 real goals. First, make a game I would be proud of. Second, learn as much as I could about game dev along the way. For the first goal, I'm proud of where I've gotten to but I would like to polish the game as much as I can before calling it done. Regarding the second goal, I covered a lot of general and Unity specific game development topics so I at least have a rough idea of the breadth involved for making a good "real" game.

My first commit was technically on April 4 2022, but I really only started in August 2022. I had a few months where no work was done (family, travel, sickness, etc.). For the weeks where I was working, I probably averaged about 5-10 hours per week if I had to make a guess.

Where the game stands now:

1. All key content is done and a full play through can be completed.
2. There is no audio other than a few placeholder sounds. (I am working with someone who graciously offered some free custom music tracks.)
3. The UI artwork is all my own or free placeholder icons. (Yes, it's rough and ugly and doesn't match the game visuals.)
4. The 3D assets in game are good enough for me. (A mixture of self made, cheap/free assets online, and another hobby dev who provided some awesome assets, one of those being the ship itself.)
5. The game needs some significant polish before I would consider it "decent". Lots of UI issues, minor bugs, or just annoying things like the camera being obscured by a planet.

I'd like to try decide what things I can reasonably polish soon and wrap up the game in the next 2 months. One big thing I want to add are some embedded tutorial videos that come up with the dialog. Teaching orbital mechanics is HARD and I think this will help.

All in all, I feel pretty proud of this being my first game. I learned a heck of a lot along the way, and I'm hoping that at least some people get a few minutes of enjoyment out of my game!