When you don't know how to approach making something — start with the minimum.
The idea of expanding my skills through my own little games has been lodged in my head for a long time. A few years ago I tried starting with Love2D; now I've realised the best option for me is three.js. The path from prototype to "release" is faster, you can build interesting things with it, it's available in the browser and it generally copes with what I want.
I have two notional worlds that I work on at a leisurely pace when there's time: from setting and concepts through to lore stories.
The first world is an alternative mid-19th century — islands, secret societies. The second is the near future — a polar expedition, bases in the north. Both are dear to me and I pick at both now and then.
For the second one I decided it would be fun to build a minimal game in three.js, to learn how to interact with the engine, understand the toolset and the limitations, and at the same time test at least statically everything I want to expand later.
And so "Signal" was born. First as a frequency-search prototype, then it grew a concept, and then I spent a couple of weekend evenings modelling everything and making it work the way I wanted.
The premise is as simple as possible: a hyper-casual where you press a couple of buttons and turn a dial to catch the right frequency.
Under the hood, though, is everything I'll need later: buttons with states, self-illuminating materials with textures, sounds on presses, looping ambience, floating particles, a lore page triggered by clicking an object, a HUD overlay, geometry with textures, light sources and even some post-FX.
Naturally it wasn't done without Claude's help, but by the fifth version of the page I understood pretty well what needed doing and was using it more as a reference. Truly, understanding and finishing it yourself is far easier and faster than correcting its output ten times over.
Having grasped the principles and tested things reasonably well, there isn't much left that I still need and haven't touched: animation, physics and FX.
