Where I Found Motivation

On October 3, 2023 my friend mentioned a free transport game called OpenTTD.  At the time I had mostly dismissed his suggestion due to someone else telling me not to play it for various reasons.  Flash forward a few weeks and I decided, this looks interesting and I should try it.  It turns out the music was incredible, the gameplay was addicting, everything about it was extremely satisfying.

When I Actually Started

The same friend had told me he really liked open source software and sent me Godot, I actually had never heard of it as my only experience was tinkering with Unity and Unreal but to no avail or progress.  After playing about 100 hours of OpenTTD I began making my own game.

Reflecting On Development

When I began this project I actually had asked a lot of people for help and general coding advice.  I had to realize what I was capable of doing as a beginner.  I managed to reach my goals and limit myself, but it still took a long time.  I struggled a lot with getting the paths to connect and had to go through many iterations of code to finally optimize it.  I spent some hours before bed brainstorming movement scripts in my head and how I could optimize them better.  The initial struggles were the toughest but I feel that is always how it goes, breaking through that barrier was the important thing.

Why I Went From Free To Paid

Now that I have technically had this project in development for such a long time, fixed many gameplay issues and am still continuing to improve it, I have decided to make it a paid game.

What Comes Next In Alpha 4

I have decided that I will begin working straight towards implementing multiplayer.  If I wait it will only get harder to do.  I will be adding multiple save slots finally, and custom map generation settings.

Ideas For Later Updates

A better vehicle order system.  Achievements.  The ability to change hotkey binds.  SFX for vehicles.  Vehicle movement / animation changes.  Custom texture packs or different game themes.  Alien Skateboarder.  Helicopter.  New desert map named Khaldoun that includes 10 new songs.

Thank You For Reading