I’ve been building things on the internet for over 20 years.
Websites, apps, systems, all sorts. It’s been my world for as long as I can remember. You get used to the rhythm of it. Build, fix, launch, repeat. Late nights chasing bugs, early mornings pushing updates, learning new tech because everything moves so fast.
It’s familiar. Comfortable even.
But there’s always been something else in the back of my mind.
Games.
Not just playing them, but making one. Creating something people don’t just use, but sit with. Something cosy. Something they come back to without even thinking about it. Something that feels like a little escape.
For years it stayed as one of those “one day” ideas.
And like most “one day” ideas, it never quite happens unless you force it to.
So about four years ago, I did.
I opened Unity, had absolutely no clue what I was doing, and just started.
And yeah, it was rough.
Proper rough.
Coming from web development, you think you’ve got a bit of an edge. You understand logic, structure, problem solving. Then Unity hits you with a completely different way of thinking. GameObjects, components, transforms, physics, animation systems. Everything is moving, updating, reacting.
Half the time I didn’t even know why something was broken.
The other half, I’d fix something and break three other things in the process.
And if I’m being honest, one of the hardest parts hasn’t even been technical.
It’s been discipline.
Forcing myself to actually learn Unity and C# properly instead of leaning too heavily on AI to do the work for me. It’s so easy to shortcut your way through things now. You can get something working without really understanding it.
But that catches up with you fast.
At some point, you hit a wall where you either understand what you’ve built or you’re completely stuck.
So I had to slow down. Dig into it. Break things on purpose. Rebuild systems properly. Learn why things work, not just how to make them work.
That shift made a massive difference.
Somewhere along the way, this project stopped being just a learning exercise and started becoming something real.
The game’s called The Great Flock Off.
It’s a cosy chicken drafting game, which still makes me laugh a bit when I say it out loud.
You draft chickens, build out your little deck, and take them through a series of contests. Each run is quick, but there’s always that pull to go again. Tweak your strategy, optimise your choices, push just a little bit further than last time.
That loop became the heart of it.
But it didn’t always feel that way.
For a while, the game felt a bit… flat. Like it was missing something. The mechanics were there, but it didn’t quite click. It didn’t have that pull.
Then I added the journey.
That moment changed everything.
Suddenly it wasn’t just a set of systems. It felt like a run. A progression. A reason to care about your chickens and the choices you were making. It gave the whole thing shape and purpose.
That was the first time I properly sat back and thought, alright… this might actually be something.
And that feeling is hard to describe.
It’s part excitement, part relief, part disbelief.
Because this isn’t just a quick side project.
I’m building this solo.
Every system, every bit of logic, every decision. It’s all on me. And while I’m leaning on some incredible assets made by the game dev community, pulling everything together into something cohesive is its own challenge.
Some days it flows.
Other days you spend hours stuck on something that turns out to be a tiny mistake. A missing reference, a wrong value, something simple that completely blocks you.
But then you fix it, hit play, and it works.
And that feeling never really gets old.
What I keep coming back to is the player.
Not in some big, abstract way, but in a really simple sense.
I want someone to open The Great Flock Off, play a quick run, and think, “go on then, one more”.
Then suddenly it’s been half an hour.
They’re trying a different approach. Swapping out chickens. Figuring out little synergies. Getting slightly better each time.
That loop. That feeling.
That’s the goal.
Not massive scope, not overcomplicated systems. Just something tight, replayable, and genuinely enjoyable.
And the idea that one day this could be sitting on Steam, with people actually playing it… that’s still a bit mad to me.
After all these years building for the web, this feels different.
More personal.
More risky.
But also way more rewarding.
It’s not a “one day” idea anymore.
It’s happening.
And I’m all in on it.