Short answer: homework and midterms this week. That about sums it up.
So down to business then, shall we? So first, the October Challenge. I can’t say I’m overly thrilled to say this, but I’m just not sure it’s going to happen. I have quite a few big things coming up school-wise near the end of October. As is often the case with LD, never seems to be enough time, eh (though timing is only half the issue; read on)? But that being said, I’m still planning to work on SOMETHING; I just don’t see it coming together before the end of October,and whether I continue this current idea or not is up in the air.
Which brings me to my next point. Why would I want to drop my idea? Actually, I’m not convinced it has to do entirely with the idea. I’ve come to a bit of a conclusion lately: I’m just not enjoying game-making like I used to in Stencyl. As a nitty-gritty programmer type, a part of me WANTS to work with hard code. And simply put, I’m just not sure Stencyl is at a point where I can really flex the power I want. Particularly, its the data management quirks that really get to me. Obvious things (define my own classes, stronger data scoping control) I can do with hard-coding don’t appear even remotely simple/obvious with Stencyl. Ultimately, its the trade-off of using a particular engine, of course; I want to be sure that I highlight that Stencyl is an incredible piece of software and its some of those streamlined features that kept me around, but for my personal tastes I’m just not sure its cutting it anymore. It’s just not as enjoyable for me.
So what’s the plan then? At least initially, I’m going back to my roots with Python and Pygame. Though I know that may raise the question of speed and performance, at this point and time I’m not too concerned about it. I’m going to try and build a personally-coded library on top of Pygame for my game-making needs and see how that goes. I’ve learned quite a bit, actually, from using Stencyl, and I feel better equipped to start more from the “ground-up” approach. And who knows? There are a lot of opportunities: in the future I could look into learning C#, as I know the popular Unity engine runs off of that. I think, at least for now, Python will suit me just fine; I know how to work with it and I have designed two rough games in it before.
So in short, I’m not going away. I’m still in the rough design phases with my Python coding (per my school and personal experience, I’m trying to get this whole “planning” thing down a bit better), but the gears are turning a bit more vigorously than they were before. And if you like Stencyl, don’t worry! I’ll probably still be around the forums and may still post some Stencyl-related materials on my blog here and there.
So there you go. Photon out. 🙂
Photon Game Development 
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