What Happened

gameplay Latest version gameplay

I probably should have wrapped this up a bit earlier, but I’m writing it now because I’m sure of my decision. Waybound was a project I started out of ambition to try new programming patterns and some fresh presentation techniques. I was attached enough to write three development logs about it, and there were some development achievements, but in the end, I decided to stop development.

An Honest Self-Reflection

What I felt during the final stages of development was obligation and boredom. Even though it was something I had started myself, toward the end, typing at the keyboard felt somewhat burdensome.

Looking into why this happened, the first reason is that — more than lacking skill — I simply didn’t feel like continuing to make it. After all, it was practice. When I weighed the opportunity cost after reaching a certain point, I started questioning whether finishing this project well was the best course of action, and I couldn’t find an answer.

What tripped me up the second time was wrong direction-setting and the absence of long-term planning. Since I wasn’t approaching it with genuine seriousness, there were no deadlines or concrete achievement targets. I was still frequently solving problems on an ad-hoc basis. When faced with a problematic situation, I rarely put in the necessary effort — defining the problem, finding the best solution, and so on.

Third, there was no concrete development routine or mechanism. These problems occurred frequently during the process of creating image and animation assets — more than during programming. The biggest goal was to create natural scenes like a movie still, but each individual task required to draw images demanded far more effort than I had anticipated. To be honest, I was baffled.

In the end, my motivation faded. Rather than dragging it along with a semblance of attachment, I decided it was better to bring the short development schedule to a close — setting aside the need for smart problem-solving skills and reflections on improving work inefficiency for another time.

How Far It Got

For more details, check out the GitHub repository!

Here’s a comparison between the light GDD written during the planning stage and what was actually developed. Items that were not implemented have been struck through.

  • Basic Description
    • Name: 행선지 (English: waybound)
    • Genre: Side-scrolling adventure
    • Format: 2.5D mobile
  • Gameplay
    • The player becomes a creature that makes up the environment — a person, dog, cat, ant, etc. — in a suburban setting and performs the interactions available to that creature. For example, a person can take a drink from a vending machine; a dog can sniff a bench on the street.
    • Even when the player isn’t specifically controlling a creature, creatures interact with each other and shape the suburban atmosphere. Each creature has visual individuality within a given range.
  • Key Features
    • Various interactions between objects
    • Hand-drawn images and cut-out animation
    • Changing experiences based on weather — rain, snow, etc.

Interactions were implemented for people and pigeons, but the struck-through items like dogs and cats were not. The interactions that were created cannot be called diverse. The weather system was also something I wanted to implement using the particle system, but it wasn’t realized.

Still, I consider it a small harvest that I managed to attempt 2.5D — neither 2D nor 3D — and reach the stage of producing results, and that I partially used both hand-drawn images and traditional cut-out animation.

I Need to Do Better Next Time

In any case, the development process was unsatisfactory, and this project was a failure. The main causes were a lackadaisical problem-solving process and the abandonment of improving work inefficiency. First, I think I should look into how others have solved similar problems.

I originally wanted to create something truly impressive, so stopping here leaves a bitter taste. Honestly, it’s a bit frustrating. I need to review even the small details I didn’t include in this post and prepare well so that I can see the next project through to completion.