I had my first build.
Someone was actually helping me bring my idea to life. For the first time in my life, I was going to make a video game. And not just any game—a wonderful, chill, relaxing experience where you learn chess simply by teaching it. Think character progression and a league system, just like Football Manager.
But unlike Football Manager, my Chess Manager would actually teach you real-world skills while you played.
What more could I ask from life? Every chess player would want to play it. Every coach would want to test my teaching mechanics. Every parent would want to use it to introduce their child to the wonderful world of chess.
Life can be beautiful sometimes, can’t it?
Then Came the Grinding.
It turns out, Heaven doesn’t last long in game development. But Hell? Hell lasts a lot longer.
Suddenly, every “simple” idea I had required a grueling, hours-long interrogation from my programmer. He wanted details I didn’t even know existed. Basic, intuitive in-game interactions suddenly demanded 10-page design documents detailing every single micro-scenario:
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What happens on screen during this interaction?
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What happens behind the curtains?
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How does every single pixel appearing on that screen actually work?
I didn’t have the answers. I never knew I’d need to map out the microscopic anatomy of a menu click.
God’s not in the details. The devil is. And this little devil was growing bigger, meaner, and stronger with every new build we compiled. Every week felt like one step forward, two steps back.
My time in paradise is officially over. Welcome to the grind.
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