Practice Projects
Build real games while learning. Each project is mapped to specific roadmap milestones and includes a checklist to guide your development.
Game Jam Log
Track the game jams you've joined and reflect on what you learned.
Saved locally
Mini Game: Mood Creature
A tiny character that reacts emotionally to player input. Focus on animation states, transitions, and juice.
- Create idle, happy, tired, scared animations
- Implement animation state machine
- Add smooth blending between states
- Create particles for special actions
- Add screen shake + hit flashes
- Polish timing and personality
Mini Game: Chaos Lab
A physics toybox where players experiment with objects, forces, and puzzles. Focus on fun emergent behavior.
- Create stackable and destructible physics objects
- Implement push/pull/launch mechanics
- Add interactive elements (buttons, levers)
- Design 3 small physics puzzles
- Add impact VFX + sound feedback
- Experiment with friction, bounce, mass
Mini Game: Dash Lab
Goal: Make movement feel good.
- Implement dash ability (cooldown)
- Add trail particles
- Camera shake on dash
- 1 simple obstacle course
- Timer (speedrun feel)
- Restart button
Practice Game: Tiny Platformer
Create a simple 2D platformer with a player character that can move, jump, and collect items. Focus on basic movement, collisions, and level design.
- Set up player scene with CharacterBody2D
- Implement horizontal movement and jumping
- Create a simple level with platforms
- Add collectible items
- Implement basic camera follow
- Add simple UI for score
Polish Sprint: Game Menus
Focus on creating polished, professional game menus. Build main menu, settings, pause menu, and HUD with smooth transitions and consistent styling.
- Design animated main menu with transitions
- Create comprehensive settings screen (audio/video/keybinds)
- Build in-game pause menu system
- Implement consistent theme and typography
- Add smooth screen transitions and animations
- Test responsive layouts across resolutions
Practice Game: Rooftop Farm Prototype
Build a farming game prototype with planting, harvesting, and inventory management. Practice UI design, state management, and data persistence.
- Design farm grid system
- Implement planting and harvesting mechanics
- Create inventory UI
- Add day/night cycle
- Implement save/load system
- Create crop growth system
Practice Game: Top-down Explorer
Create a top-down exploration game with character movement, world interaction, and simple quest system. Practice camera controls and world design.
- Set up top-down character movement
- Create explorable world with multiple areas
- Implement interaction system
- Add simple quest/objective tracking
- Design world with tilemaps
- Add minimap or world map
Capstone: 2D Shmup / Brawler
Build and ship a complete small game. Treat this like a real release: gameplay, UI, audio, saves, and export.
- Design tight 1-core-loop game concept
- Implement all gameplay systems
- Build full UI (menus + HUD)
- Add music + sound effects
- Implement save/load
- Polish + bug fixing pass
- Export and test builds
- Create itch/Steam page