Revisiting An Old Project: Untitled Egg Game

While I was battling burnout with my current project, I began looking back at unfinished and old projects to reignite the game-dev engine after months of schoolwork. I eventually found a technically unfinished project, named KnyteBangers on an old hard drive.

First Steps

Back in early 2023, I began a project that would be a fangame for one of my favorite budding Twitch streamers, EggKnyte, who played Minecraft and other multiplayer games, which allowed him to build a recurring, medium-sized community. I had nothing to do around this time, and I had just began learning C++ using raylib, so I decided to create a fangame to build my skills.

I wanted to build a game similar to Minecraft, Terraria, Starbound, and other sandbox games, with a twist. Of course, I had no idea how to build a game like this, so I ended up learning how to create one using a tutorial by a Unity programmer named ErenCode.

While the series was immensely cohesive and helpful, a major issue arose as soon as I pressed play on the first episode; I wasn’t using Unity. This provided a great challenge for me, to develop my own Entity Component System, Physics System, Tiling System, and much more to replicate the tremendous amount of tools that Unity provided.

On February 20, 2023, I had the basics of the game completed, with the map generation, player controller, and much more. Using basic placeholder textures from Kenney, I made a basic playable prototype and posted it to Knyte’s Discord server.

Translating from Unity to Raylib was somewhat difficult, as if there was a system that Raylib did not proivde, I would end up having to implement it myself, such as a tilemap system (which ErenCode did not use in his tutorial, but would have been insanely helpful)

Speeding Up Development

After I had the essential features implemented, development sped up exponentially, and I would spend all of my time working on this project, with little to no breaks, even if I was immensely exhausted.

10 days later, on March 1, 2023, I implemented block collisions, and the game faced a major visual rework (with some familiar sprites)

12 days later, on March 13, 2023, I added NPCs, using sprites of some familiar people.

12 more days later, on March 25, 2023, I added animals.

Eventually, on April 1, 2023, I added water and tile-based lighting.

In the span of ~40 days I had created a game that I was passionate about, but I was beginning to feel extremely exhausted. Development staggered, and on April 9, 2025, I stopped development on the first version of this fangame, which I had named, KnyteBangers.

Burnout Part 1

The main part that caused me to feel exhausted was mainly the tile-based lighting feature, which I technically should not have focused on this early into development. I hadn’t even had most of my gameplay implemented, and I had no structure to what I truly wanted this game to be.

People were expecting me to finish this game around Fall 2023, and I claimed I was “working on it”, but in reality, I couldn’t bring myself to even open the project without immediately closing it, and losing motivation.

Changing Course

After about 10 months of working on other projects, my motivation came back swiftly after playing a unique game, Pikmin 4.

I liked the concept of having hundreds of mini creatures wandering around a small world, doing tasks for you, and I felt like I could replicate the same feel in Unity. However, there was one major issue; did it fit with the original concept?

Pushing this main concern to the back of my head, I began work in early January 2024, and had the basics done around January 17.

This video shows how I literally replicated (plaigarized) the entire feel of Pikmin, and disregarded the original concept, making the entire project my own, without including any reference to the community I was making this for.

Looking back, I really shouldn’t have done this, as it caused a major detour, and while I still like the concept of the game, it just doesn’t fit with the current concept I’m trying to create.

I went as far as creating 3D models and new characters for this game, which I had just began working on out of nowhere, with no plan, just that I wanted to create something like Pikmin.

Burnout Part 2

Once again, I had overloaded myself with work and quickly burnt out, as I lost interest less than 2 months after creating this prototype. I was beginning to find a common denominator, as I ended up burnt out after implementing complex systems, but I still didn’t learn. In early March, I deleted the project, and forgot to push anything to GitHub.But thanks to Backblaze, I could find the final version of this project, and I was able to make a playable web build for anyone who would like to play.

Switching Engines Once Again

About a year later, while I was working on my custom game engine, Project Tomato, I wanted a tech-demo to show if my engine could work with 2D games.

While I didn’t document much about this version of the project, I have a multitude of unused assets, from 3D models (that would be rendered) to player sprites.

This version was somewhat unfinished, but it showed how my 2D engine worked, and I wasn’t expecting it to be complete or polished.

Burnout.. Kinda?

While I didn’t do much, I still lost motivation for this project, mainly because I had to implement engine features at the same time as game features, like what I had to do in the first version. Around this time, I began preparing for exams and finals, so I had no time to work on this project. The load was light, but I just ran out of time.

Back To Unity

The main reason why I kept retrying, was because I wanted to do anything but use Unity to create the original concept. 2 years later, I’ve caved and now I’m creating the game, with new knowledge of what to and what not to do.

This version of the project will be a mix of the last versions, remaining true to the original concept, while mixing the second version’s Pikmin-like creatures with a cohesive story.

Mini-Synopsis

The main character crash-lands onto an unknown planet, where many other people have also crashed into. On this planet, there are thousands of creatures, named Lumins. These oval-bodied, small creatures hatch out of eggs, and are seen in numerous different types.

The player can tame these new creatures with flowers, and certain flowers tame specific types of Lumins. Some Lumins are agressive, some are friendly, and some are shy. Once the player tames them, the player can build mines, farms, and shops that will be ran by Lumins.

As I said, there are other people that have crashed into the planet, and these people have built homes, dungeons, and sky islands, where they can be found. Some of these people will be curious, and help the player. However, some of these people will be immensely ravenous and battle the player. (These people would be the community members seen previously)

I’m still trying to find out what I want to do with this game, but the entire point of the game is just to survive and have fun.

Preview

I started working on the game ~10 days ago, on June 6th, and I’ve created the essential features of the game, like breaking and placing blocks, and inventories and crafting.

Right now, it looks very similar to the first concept (which is the point), but I have made many changes, from the new Lumins, to a new crafting system.

Release Date and Info

The game has no release date yet, and I don’t want to have a concrete release date, I would rather have a series of public data tests where I can grab analytics of what players are doing, and feedback.

The name “KnyteBangers” isn’t fitting with this version of the game, and while it was a joke in the community, I still don’t want that to be the game’s name. I’ll be sure to make a reference to it somewhere in the game.

Making this game has been so much fun, and I hope that I continue in moderation, to prevent further burnout.

The game has an Itch.io page, no Steam page (yet).

Notes to Self

• Take breaks!!
• Don’t overload yourself
• Plan out projects before going in depth
• Backup your projects