A start of some kind:

It certainly is.  After ages of  false starts, various versions, and ideation, I finally ready to kick off working on Sap in a more official capacity.  Focusing on the positive, I have a pretty clear vision for the project and I've already started working on it.  In it's current state there's really almost nothing to show, so instead here's a watercolor I did while thinking about the game:

Neat! 

Seriously though, I've got a few things to point out.  Firstly, I did make the transition from Unity to Godot.  Although it's true that no company has a skeleton-free closet, I cannot stand by Unity with their insidious business practices.  Increasingly weak tooling, zero communication with devs, and generative AI integration all serve to produce a nope for me.  So far Godot feels a bit less powerful but far more flexible (not to mention fast to iterate upon!) Secondly, I've left any specific lofty edutainment goals aside for the time being.  The original vision for Sap includes that at least some elements be educational, but I found that I was focusing on this notion too strongly and not on producing something people might actually want to engage with.  

So now I'm just making a weird little game.  

The simplicity of this updated goal has already served me well, and I'm feel motivated rather than bogged down. 

As for the current state of the project: I've got  the basic data format set up for the tiles, and some rudimentary drag-and-drop functionality. I hear you; that isn't much to speak of, but I do have a pretty strong design document which should guide the project forward.  So long as I have anything to note, I'll loosely be keeping my updates coming once a week.  Also, starting next week I'd love to make some videos as well as these posts (where time permits), so keep an eye out for that! 

As always, I'd love to hear from you!

Eli