As I've been digging through my archives of past projects in the process of remaking my personal website, I came across the source files of a very, very unfinished (more accurately, barely started) video game of mine from 2020 called Rhythm Game!, written in assembly for the Nintendo Game Boy Color (1998). The title screen of Rhythm Game!, the only completed part of the game.
I just want to reminisce about it a bit.
Side Project Galore
During this time, I remember constantly jumping at opportunities to code things. If it seemed sufficiently interesting and doable, I'd start making it right away.
This excitement for making things was probably at an all-time high around then, when I had tons of free time and few obligations as an elementary school student1. It spawned a lot of silly and small yet diverse projects, and I don't think that was a bad thing.
It was fun to explore so many different ideas and I definitely learned a lot. I look back at this time quite fondly because of how excited I was about making things.
For the Love of Making Things
It's why my profile pictures on several online platforms are icons that come from the Rhythm Game! project. It reminds me of the pure, unobstructed excitement and joy that came from playing with technology in ways new to me in order to simply make stuff.
Even if Rhythm Game! development was executed terribly and never finished, it has a special place in my heart for being the most impulse-driven out-of-the-blue project I've taken on just for the fun of it. I want to remember that being excited to make something is a very good sign of growth to come: that even if it sounds dumb, it might just be worth it anyway.
Silly But Technical
The fact that I had only completed a title screen isn't as sad as it sounds. That title screen was complex: raster effects and palette fading synchronized with music. In fact, having the experience implementing the scaling effect on this project was the sole factor allowing me to do a similar thing and build on it for the Skater Dude minigame in Rhythm Land, which I'm sure boosted the game's score for technicality.
So when I look at it like that, this silly endeavour directly influenced my success in a very tangible way, simply for the reason that I tried something. I think that's pretty cool.
Footnotes
File modification timestamps suggest I began making Rhythm Game! in April 2020, when I was in Grade 8. ↩
