I have decided to give Terrastrom a (temporary) break because it is such a gigantic endeavour, and I was starting to get bogged down, mostly with the controls.
To revitalise my passion for making games I went to TIGJam UK 4 in February which was a weekend of making short games based on themes. You can see some of the games I made while I was there (in Game Maker) here. I had a great time and met loads of cool people.
The most important thing I took away from it is that finishing games is rewarding! While I'm still really excited about Terrastrom and have loads of ideas for it, I have realised that if I want to tell my friends I make games in my spare time, I kind of need something to show them.
Following TIGJam, I made a resolution to learn Flash (using FlashPunk), so I could make short and easily distributable games my friends can play. Making smaller games will also let me benchmark my progress easily, as I can see how my games improve over time, rather than just looking at how awesome my latest Class in XNA is, which is far less rewarding.
So the plan now is, I will make my first Flash game which I anticipate taking around a month, and then alternate between working on Terrastrom and making other smaller games.
My current site for my Flash stuff is here (I'll set up a proper website at some point). I will announce on this blog when other games are complete, but will still be using this mainly for Terrastrom.
Haighstrom, signing out for now.
