Going back to the start

I have an unhealthy obsession with a particular set of game project files on my computer.

Almost once a year, for the last fifteen years, I have opened up a text editor or development environment and loaded this project—which can only be described as my guilty pleasure. I’ll add a few small features to it or tweak the layout of the levels, save the files and then close it again to leave it to rot for another few months. If I’m feeling smart, I might rename the project to reflect its state but it honestly never gets much further than that.

Project Vestige – what it’s called this iteration – is what I refer to as my Forever Project: something that I’ve started, have never really put down but that also never really gets anywhere.

Vestige | ˈvɛstɪdʒ |

A trace or remnant of something that is disappearing or no longer exists

It seems fitting that I renamed the project “Vestige” back in 2015 – perhaps as a lighthearted nod towards the way this project has been kept on life support far beyond what anyone would have thought was sensible. The game style it is modelled after stopped being popular a long while back and technology has moved on so far since then that it’s not really that much of a challenge to do the things that were problems back when the project first took off.

Anyway, enough reminiscing.

Earlier in the month, I decided to try something new when it comes to the code. I reactivated the source code repository for the project, took a brief look at everything there and then I did what I should have done a few years back. I obliterated it.

Normally, that’s where the story would end. However, I’d not be writing this post if that was the case.

Vestige was started back in 2004 – at least, that’s the earliest copy of it I can find – and has pretty much become part of me since then. At one stage, the underlying code was complete and it was just looking for a storyline, however I’d just gone to university and learnt how to program properly. The code has been in a constant state of flux since then. Three of the characters that I use in original artworks on this site have all come from one of the many iterations of the story: Sandy, Paige and the more recent Skye are all pretty much the same character but after the game world was overhauled yet another time.

So as I hovered my mouse over the delete button, a different set of thoughts struck me. What if I wipe everything and just start again? I could just toss the excess baggage that I associate with this project and begin afresh.

So that’s what I did.

I have no idea what the future holds for Project Vestige this time round: it could simply disappear back into the realms of forgotten and corrupted data, or I could actually keep the motivation level up to build something interesting. I’d like to break the mould and turn this into something worthwhile this time around and prove to myself that I am better than I was last time I tried. It’s a big ask but after fifteen years it would be a little sad to just give up on it. Sure, there’s no code left over from the last iteration this time around, but that actually means there’s nothing holding the project back when it comes to building it.

And hey, we might even get into a situation where the three iterations of the same character get to meet each other. Who doesn’t want to see that?

You can follow Project Vestige’s development over at the official GitHub repository. Alternatively, come discuss it on my Discord server!