So for context: I'm a programmer and I like the idea of not using a game engine, but I have no real prior experience with game development specifically.
I thought it was a good idea to make a text adventure game (think Zork) in C, since the language offers great portability, including the ability to run code on the 6502. Also a text adventure game made sense because I can't make art and idk anyone else who wanted to work on a game with me.
This was a terrible idea for a few reasons:
A text adventure game is impossible to make with a small scope
My from-scratch engine wasn't really designed with modifying the game data mid-development in mind
I have no clue what I'm doing.
I just don't know what to do now. Any ideas? @gamedev
Hey, I’d advise you to try and do a very small project on a dedicated game engine, so you can get an idea of how they structure the data and why. In my case, I had a traditional education in programming, and when I first used Unity, it was really hard to understand the logic behind game objects and why they did it that way. Once it clicked though, it made sense, and if I had to do a custom game engine today I know I’d take inspiration from it. Could help you unlock your situation. In any case, don’t despair, as you had a great learning experience! People’s first game rarely get completed.
Other people have already suggested starting with an engine, I’d like to go a bit further and suggest you start with Raylib. It’s an open source game engine that fits into a single header file, written in C.
I think it would allow you to build a couple of small games, while inspecting engine internals in your favorite editor at the same time to learn the ropes.