I started working full time on a game in Jan 2021, minus vacation I have probably spent a 1 year on it. I also have a side hobby job, doing some data science co

I started working full time on a game in Jan 2021, minus vacation I have probably spent a 1 year on it. I also have a side hobby job, doing some data science consulting. I started with big ambitions the initial inspiration was Battle Brothers, Underrail, Jeff Vogel's old Exile RPGs and Caves of Qud (never played but seen lots of talks and material on it). Now it's evolved (devolved?) into a procedural simulation game of sorts. I wrote lore and world building. I want to do something deep and engaging that has high replay value - even with shabby graphics for years and years and something that I can continue to add content over time and expand the depth and scope of. A big decision at the beginning was to build using C++ from scratch and not use an existing engine. So really I would say up about to the 10 months mark was just me figuring out application and software development - I come from an analytics background so in the beginning it was basic baby steps - like wrapping my head around doing everything in a giant infinite while loop, understanding how to manage memory, profile to figure out where frame rate is slowing down...not so much touching any content. The hardest part was and is the architecture, how to add components, assets and generally organize the code so it doesn't become spaghetti as the game complexity grows - I started using a ECS early on but even still, I refactor the code structure a few times already and have simply come to accept some degree of chaos is inevitable. Next to that the UI is completely vectorized and drawn in-game so as to scale to any resolution and that has been a huge pain in the ass. There is a surprising amount of complexity in UI and I am devoting a lot of attention to it. So now after 12 months I am finally close to the point of dedicating myself to mostly content creation and working on the game as opposed to the engine. After that I probably have to make a decision on whether to continue full time or devote some time to making some money elsewhere.