I knew it was only hitting a button in Steam with a single screen prompt after. Leading up to releasing my game, I was tempted to delay again but I thought I had delayed it enough and could make it this time. With Carpoon within the two week window to launch on Steam, there was no turning back and it was time to accomplish my goal of creating a video game. 

I started Carpoon with the goal of finishing it to be released. There were many times, especially in university, where I would be making a game and get distracted and stop. I did finish many “game jam” size games with friends during university for projects, but I underestimated how much time and effort it took to make one.

After university, I missed out on game testing jobs at EA, but my friends did not make it sound like a fun experience. I applied to Rare and received a letter back (saying I didn’t get the job, but still)! I was a little full of myself compared to my true ability and hadn’t learned yet.

I ended up as a computer technician, and after two years was given the opportunity to create weekly sale banners. This was thanks to doing the next best thing to making games around 2004: I started drawing a bad web comic at home about games, initially creating art with a mouse, then using vectors in Illustrator and then in Photoshop with a tablet.

While making Flash sale banners at work, I was lucky that I had animated hearts floating upwards in a Valentine’s sale and the marketing manager asked “Can you make Pong next week?” From that point, I could make Google Doodle-like banners from time to time. My “biggest” (most complete?) game before Carpoon was a match-3 puzzle game that I did as one of these Flash weekly sale banners for NCIX. In that game, you could click a block in a stack, and slide the top stack to another column. 

Fast forward and Flash slowly died. I had made a small C++ DirectX game once but that was tough.  It was a long time until I stumbled on another engine to use until Tom Francis started a free series in 2015 on YouTube called “Make a Game with No Experience” using GameMaker Studio. I saw GameMaker could do web versions of games, and decided it would be an ideal Flash replacement.

My job making banners ended in 2017 and I came across “Finally Finish Something 2018.” It was a less gruelling one-month game jam than the traditional 2-day fare, and was the perfect opportunity to make a game again, this time using GameMaker. I put together a simple one-player version of Carpoon that was gameplay and not art-focused. I played it again today and it has a decent arcadey-feel and momentum, but I am no longer a fan of its tank controls.

Looking back, that game jam ended February 18th, 2018 and means it took me seven years to reach 1.0 (spoilers!) Lucky that André gave me the idea to add googly eyes on the cars like Stunt Race FX to make the game more entertaining to stick with. I would not have finished Carpoon without that feature.

I don’t think I could have released Carpoon on Steam without little steps like finishing the game jam along the way. Steps such as getting a build of Carpoon ready for indie meetups, applying to different festivals or getting ready for a tournament all helped building momentum.

At one point along here there was the pandemic, which everyone was affected by in some way. It did slow down development of multiplayer but there was Parsec to play Carpoon online with friends, and Steam Remote Play eventually came along too.

In 2023, the tournament at LTX’s Whale LAN was one of the harder goals. I had asked Linus, whom I had worked with at NCIX, if I could have a spot to demo Carpoon at the expo and he replied saying it would be perfect for a tournament. At first I thought “Awesome,” but then realized Carpoon could not crash during a tournament. I had to dig deep, rebuild some of how harpooning worked, and fix the rare crash bugs that did occur. It took a while to figure out and was related to null pointers. I had built Carpoon to work, but if you look under the hood the early harpooning code was messy and spread across different areas because I barely knew how to make objects communicate with each other.

I felt that I had fixed Carpoon with about a week to go before the tournament, and it didn’t crash! I did see that the game explain the goals and controls better though without myself being there. If you are making a game, I highly suggest demoing without explaining it. If a player is stuck and asks for help, first ask “What do you think you should do right now?” and hear their mindset.

Fittingly with how long Carpoon took, I don’t fully understand how a video game producer does their work. I know there’s the concept that they set timelines and help decide what features can be done or have to be cut. I’ve never worked with a producer but I know the experience would benefit me. Working on Carpoon could be overwhelming in having too many things to do, or not knowing what to work on next. In the final two years, I set goals and milestones to aim for, and started cutting features that weren’t needed to finish a game. 

I want to stress that Carpoon wouldn’t have been possible without my friends and playtesters taking the time to play it and give feedback. Some of my friends were there every time I needed a hand, even to drop a hot dog on my head for a devlog. I am very thankful for their support, and at the same time didn’t want to let them down by not finishing.

When I pressed the button to launch Carpoon, I knew what the end would be like from running marathons. I’d likely be tired and not have too much energy to celebrate right away. One of my game developer friends says it’s important to celebrate the milestones along the way. I did have a celebration dinner with Yoshiko, and finally got around to playing “Jamba! Safari” that helped inspire Carpoon. 

Fully appreciating it is a little fuzzy because I’m still working on Carpoon before picking the next adventure, but I can say I made a video game and don’t have to regret not doing it.

If you have a goal, I hope you can accomplish it like I did, and be faster at doing so than I was. Just start and keep at it!