Technology

Obsidian note taking app is available for pretty much every platform including from the google store. There are a few great video tutorial on how you can leverage some of the advanced features.

Personally i tend to do a thing with reference notes which act as a summary of a topic wich links to more detailed pages where stuff is explained on a deeper level.

It really helps to get an overview of your world and its balance, if your like me its easier to write 5 papers deepdive about the logic used for the fictive technology and science then it is to explain what the main stories are actually all about. The method I mentioned allows you to get into those long vast details in their own notes and there just Linked on the reference note with a short summary of what the file explains. You can also put ideas you have yet to detail on the reference note so it always provides an overview everything and what still needs work.

When world building gets bigger you will want reference files for your reference files and thats where obsidian pretty much seems made for.

https://obsidian.md/download

About Arch, I actually forgot how easy i had it. 15 minute install, had only little experience with Ubuntu before but i saw a video of a hyprland rice and just got sold in an instant. This very easy to install config entails all you need for a very functional, fun and pretty OS. I now cringe when i need to log in windows for my job.

https://github.com/prasanthrangan/hyprdots

This has been my main dekstop since spring and i wouldn’t want to go back for any gold in the world. Admittedly though my decision to jumpt the ship from windows was part trough the confidence enabled by how good gpt4 is in guiding me through linux issues.

I would still vouch to start small on the gaming. I absolutely understand the desire to work on “the one” you have been cooking up in your mind. I am not any different myself but you will risk getting burned out.

Split your ideas up in its biggest challenges.

• navigation in 3d space
• multiplayer function
• procedural generation
• reactive mechanics

Then make a small game for each of those challenges, it doesn’t need to be good, you don’t need to publish these.

An example for multiplayer: start with a simple 2d plain. Players, each represented by a black cube can connect and login using a host ip. They can Move along the 2d space and posses 3 inventory spots.

Periodically an item (blue circle, green triangle) gets dropped inside the room.

Players can pick these up and also drop them again.

Thats your game, it doesn’t need more for now no matter how boring it seems. By succeeding you will have overcome multiple challenges, you now know how to connect to people to a game and you may have some early experience in the many bugs that can occurs when items/players get desynced. You can test stuff out and experiment safely without worrying that a bug with your faction system for example is interfering, because the faction system is something you try in another 2d, offline game.

Eventually you’ll get a good grasp of all the challenges you face and how you can solve them. Only then would i make a proper plan for starting a game i know i will be a perfectionist about.

Though probably the best advice of all in game development. Have fun with it, it wont be some times but you must take active care of yourself and the manageability of your project. Go a few steps back, do something else for a while to change things up. Burn out is game designs worst enemy so you do you to stay motivated.