Alright, let me tell you about this little thing I was messing with, I called it ‘Diamonds Danger Inc.’ in my head. Wasn’t really an ‘inc.’, just me tinkering away, you know?
Started off simple enough. I got this itch to build something small, a bit retro. You know the type, grab the gems, avoid the traps. Seemed straightforward. I fired up my setup, feeling pretty good about it. Got the basic movement down, made a little character run around. Easy peasy.
Getting Diamonds to Shine (and Fall)
Then came the diamonds. Making them appear wasn’t hard. Making them look shiny? Okay, spent a bit of time there, fiddling with colours and glows. But the real headache started when I wanted them to do stuff. Like, maybe some would fall from the ceiling. Classic, right?
Man, that was tougher than I thought. First, they just dropped like bricks. No style. Then I tried making it random. Sometimes a whole bunch would fall at once, sometimes none for ages. Didn’t feel right. I wanted that sense of ‘danger’, like the name says, but it just felt… broken.
- Tried timers. Too predictable.
- Tried random triggers based on player position. Mostly annoying.
- Tried coding some fancy probability thing. Got tangled in my own logic.
Honestly, I spent maybe two whole weekends just on making virtual rocks fall in a way that felt fun and dangerous, not just stupid. My brain felt like mush. Kept thinking, “It’s just falling diamonds! How hard can it be?” Turns out, pretty hard when you’re just one person trying to make it feel ‘right’.
The ‘Danger’ Part
And the dangers? Don’t get me started. Moving platforms that crushed you? Enemies that patrolled back and forth? Sounds simple, looks simple in old games. Making it work without glitches, making the timing feel fair but challenging… whole other story. Had enemies walking through walls, platforms vanishing mid-jump. Classic stuff when you’re learning the hard way.
I remember one evening, I’d been staring at the screen for hours. The wife asked what was wrong. I tried explaining I couldn’t get my imaginary spike trap to work properly. She just nodded slowly, like I was explaining quantum physics. Guess you had to be there.
Where it Ended Up
So, did ‘Diamonds Danger Inc.’ become the next big hit? Nah. It’s still sitting on my hard drive, mostly finished but kinda… janky. The falling diamonds are okay-ish now, the traps mostly work. But somewhere along the line, wrestling with all those little details, the initial fun of the idea got a bit lost. It became work, you know?
It’s funny. You start these things thinking it’ll be quick, simple. But even the simplest ideas, when you try to actually build them, they fight back. Every little piece needs attention. Learned a lot, sure. Mostly learned that making things seem simple is actually really, really complicated. And maybe that calling it ‘Danger Inc.’ was a bit prophetic for my free time.