Ok, I lied, I don't hate games.

I just dislike most games.

At no fault of the games. I've come to accept that I just have a very particular preference, and while I wouldn't call it "unconventional", I have yet to understand or define it.

As of now, I have exactly 56 games in my Steam Favorites list, out of 300+ games played, few of which I'd likely ever play again. it's always felt like finding games that I actually enjoy is unreasonably difficult.

So, naturally, I decided that the best course of action would be to abandon a promising career in art and animation, pivot to programming, and get into solo game development.

I figured if it's so hard to find games that I like, maybe I should just to make them myself... yes indeed... the arrogance. The foolishness.

That brings us to The Cursed Sword.

Time to make a game I hate!

This game took about four weeks to complete, and every day felt like a civil war between my frontal lobes and my subconscious.

It started when I  joined the Pirate Jam.
The theme was: You Are the Weapon.

Damn.

I don't like fighting or combat games. I don't care about weapons, or upgrading stats, or becoming more powerful.
I considered reinterpreting the theme to be something else entirely...but then I figured...

No. Its a jam. It's a learning experience. I'm going to commit to the theme as it is, as literally as I can.
I'll make something straightforward, juicy and combat centric! In the name of practice! Maybe I'll even come to understand what makes people enjoy games like that and I'll finally have friends!

Spoiler alert, I absolutely failed at all  of those things.

The initial concept

Believe it or not, the initial GDD for Cursed Sword listed Vampire Survivors as the primary inspiration.

My friends and partner had recently gotten into playing VS. While I personally found it a bit boring, I acknowledge that its obviously doing a lot of things right. What stood out to me most was that despite the player having minimal control over the characters, only controlling movement, you don't feel a lack of agency because of all the other choices you get to make.

I figured as a weapon, the opposite could be true. As an inanimate object, you don't get to directly control movement, but you can command your wielder to target and disengage, and enable or disable certain abilities and attacks.

I pictured a game with a continuous onslaught of enemies, much like VS, and the player, a sentient weapon, makes choices between a few simple abilities: Target and Disengage (obvious enough), and Bleed and Bless (increased damage, and heal).

In order to limit the scope, I decided that instead of upgrades or new abilities, you just get exponentially stronger with each kill.

It seemed simple enough. What could go wrong?

The civil war

First things first, lets make a sword, a wielder, and some targets. Great stuff.
Now, I'll make the targets approach whoever is wielding the sword, or the sword itself if no wielder. Ok it works....
But eugh, you just stand there and stuff comes at you, so boring. Lets have your wielder approach the enemies instead.

Ok, now for some straight forward levels.
Ehhhh so boring, lets just make them slightly trickier!

Ok, bleed and bless!
Well, I barely need to use bless if I'm clever about who I target. I'll just get rid of that mechanic.

So, if it comes down to tricky levels and being clever about who I target, I guess it's a puzzle game now.

That was the conclusion at the end of the two week game jam. 

Following that, I spent another two weeks reworking all the levels, the UI  and the ability stats so it was more puzzle-esque. Got rid of some numbers here, tweaked some variables there.

Then it crossed my mind... I still need to make it juicy...
But...I need to balance all these levels and I don't have time for juice and effects.
I don't even particularly care about juice in games anyway (gasp)

And now it's just a weird chimera of conflicting desires.
it's weird, making a game that I would probably never choose to play, and trying not to hate it...

Anyways 

I often hear advice like "step outside your comfort zone", and making this game has been enlightening to that effect.
Turns out, everything IS outside my comfort zone, and that's the whole reason I'm here. 
 I'm trying to carve one out for myself in the first place.

This experience has, to a certain extent, clarified further what I don't like, but I still don't really understand what I do like.

Next time  I make a new game, I'd like to hopefully get closer to that answer.

To be clear, I don't hate what I've made.
I'm actually quite proud of it, but if I came across it int the wild...I don't know if I'd like it.

I remember as an artist I used to hate my art as soon as I was done with it, but a few years later I'd look back and go, hey, it's not as bad as I remember. Maybe this will be the same.

In any case, give it a shot. Maybe you won't like it too.