Silly Crow Studios

Game Two of Twenty

Unknown — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

EDIT: Updated to reflect the change in godot-rust to a pure bevy build of the game.

Alright, here we go

Game two, check it out on the projects page. This one was a bit much on my end, and it's still not done. Filled with a few bugs, and showing some wear and tear in terms of how it plays. But overall I think I need to move on. This game took long, much longer than pong and I need to learn to be comfortable with letting things go. So for all it's worth this is it. Fly Away! a game where a crow has to fly away from their natural enemies, tree branches and great horned owls.

This game was a mit more intensive than my last. Using actual assets and sounds and models, very professional very artistic. And since I am no artist, yet, I sourced a great deal of these assets from the wonderful world of itch. This one was a bit of an experement to say the least. I started in godot-rust, make a working game that has a serious lack of polish, but then though (with the release of bevy 0.20) why not just make it in bevy. I know that godot is production ready, able to ship some amazing games already and there is a lot of skill and talent behind godot. But, I want to make something fun, and I want to force myself to actually learn to code along with all the artistic endavours I am trying out. Just wait for the pixel art travesties I will subject you all to the next game.

Now I used mostly open licence no attribution assets, but attribution should be given for these wonderful products. Such all the assets I used came from the following creators.

Background from Meowtastic
Music from FarBeyond Studio
Sfx from my partner
Sprites from SkaldingDelight for the branches, SeethingSwarm for the crow, PeakPixels for the owls.

For this game, I drew a large amount of my inspiration and guidance from marcs-sus and their implementation of the game. I do like the wizards flying around shooting particles everywhere. Now, I am no where near a state to make particle effects or fancy graphics implementations. Just getting the game to save the high score was hard enough. Working with the serde crate though I eventually bumbled my way through it. Still have much to learn though, at some point I may be good enough to make something akin to the nemisis system, or the alien isolation system, or some sort of save scumming mechanism to make future games more interesting. But that is just me waxing all poetic about a future I don't even know about or care to think of right now.

All in all, I am learning that there is so much that goes into every little aspect of making a game. From the art, to the feel, and to the essence of what the game is it all really matters. So, am I ready for the GMTK jam in 2027? No, not even close. But for now, have fun making a crow fly up and down. This game took me better part of three weeks after the first pong game. Now is that timeline to long for a jetpack joyride clone? Probably, but this is only really my second game I made start to finish. So as I prepare for the crunch that is GMTK next year, lets see if I can cut those production times down.

Flyaway

Unknown — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Source code is available for perusal below. This is why it's taking longer for game three, I wanted to move things back to pure rust for the sake of it. Enjoy!

Starting the 20 Games Challenge

Unknown — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

So I am a game developer now?

No, no I am not. That is why I have started the 20 Games Challenge that I will be trying to finish over the course of the year. Throughout my education and career I have dipped and dabbled in various forms of programming. From using basic VBA to make excel do functions that my calculator already could do (Looking at you Euler...), to using C to construct fluid dynamic simulations for under water robotics. Now, do I remember any of this? Hell no. I have been working as a systems engineer (you think I would be a good programmer with a title like that eh?) for the better part of 10 years. But I would always consider myself technology adjacent. Not quite in the weeds, but I get how things are supposed to work on a big picture kind of view.

So, why the switch you ask?

Again, I just want to make somehting. Something that brings joy. Now what better joy than video games. Between my prolific collection of various hobbies such as playing in the ocean, hiking, boardgames, eccentric pottery and a dip or a dabble in sewing. I like to find time to sit infront of a screen and pull my hair out by dying to the same boss 1000 times. Well, really I would consider myself more a cozy gamer as I am just absolute garbage at games. I like playing on easy difficulty, though I will bump it up if a game is too easy.

So, lets add to that hobby list and start MAKING games. This should be fun. Like I said, I do have cursoury experience programming things. I am familiar with command line (I run Arch btw cough cachyos cough), and can spool up a VBA script like the best of them. So, why not completely screw myself over and learn Rust game dev, the hype is worth it right?

How do you learn?

Very poorly. In this age of AI handholding and fever dreams I find it hard to learn. Well, really, overall I find learning hard. I am the type to learn from example, the kind of person that needs to be shown how to do something along with the why. And that make AI just an unbearable crutch that I should try and avoid. But oh god is that crutch just so tantalizingly sweet, sure I can just ask it for a quick example of a movement controller. No harm in that (besides the forest water table it just decimated), oh sure why not get it to integrate that into my current code base? Oh... Oh god no... it has now written the odyssey in my code and I can't read or understand anything. So yeah, on a moral principle alone, remember the forest it burned down, I try to avoid AI and actually read and understand the code I use. So that means that I have to blech read the docs. Remember how I said I am an example kind of learner? Yeah, reading the docs is not like reading my latest Fantasy or Sci-fi series I got on deck. It's boring as shit. Eventually, after I bumble through the docs, find a few human made examples (which might have AI influence who am I kidding). I can eventually create something.

How is it going you ask?

Well, I made pong. That's step one right? I started out using the Godot-Rust Library cause sure everyone says to use Godot, but I like being different. Now the godot rust library is quite well flushed out, I would say it is indeed production ready! But then I tried to make an itch.io web release using Godot-Rust, and that shit is experimental for sure. The RUSTFLAGS for the web release are behind the nightly toolchain for rust since the nightly incorporated one of the flags already. But then the Godot-Rust crate really needs that flag stated, or something, I am sure it is gonna be fixed at some point. But I started this challenge with the idea of making a game for GMTK next year in 2027. Now I could just submit a linux, mac, and windows release to that jam, but the web deploy is oh so sweet. So, let us now try bevy, which I have been using for the past year or so off an on. Never actually got to make anything with it worth while, but then the lovely Tainted Coders Pong was screaming my name. So I went through that, and made pong again. Though I must admit, this tutorial is well put together and thuroughly explained, the game does need some expansions for funs sake. So, like it suggests at the bottom of the tutorial, I added Avian 2D physics to handle the colliders and the like. Now, as a first pass this game is pretty rough. I don't have any custom assets for it or any sort of sound design, menues, UI and the like. Though at this state, I am quite tired of pong as revolutionary as it is. So, I think I will leave it here for those interested and move on. The Rusty Pong source is here for anyone interested.

The Beginning of whatever this is

Unknown — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Let us set the scene

What do you want to do? It's a big question really. Long, long, veeeeery long are the days of hunting gathering and fighting to survive. Hard to enjoy down time when down time is time spent not surviving. Sure there may have been moments around fire and a deep set sense of community or beloning in a more primative time, but it was quite a hard life. Beyond hunting and gathering, comes society. One in which we all live. The vastness of cultures, peoples, and opinions is almost immesurable. From the advent of agriculture to the specialized industries of today, there has been work. Replacing our hunting, gathering and overall fight for survival with steady and measurable progress, right?

Well this humble human would say not really. Sure, work has driven humans to a pinnacle of society, multiple times. When humans as a species think we have accomplished it all someone somewhere says "Hold my beer, watch this." and goes of an lands on the moon. Surely, work and progress is good as it feeds us and gives us passion and a sence of beloning in society. Afterall, we're all contributing to the common good? But are we though, are all our endavours feats of passion? Undertakings of pure love and determination to see a result that will benefit us all? Most definately not.

I do not doubt, someone somewhere holds a deep passion and love for sewer line repair. Or a wild and unbridled appreciation of the taxonomy of the wild field mouse of Manitoba. People who love their work, never work a day in their lives. Sure this is true, but then times change, personalities shift and people change. Passion and drive cannot sustain a society. Where does one go when passion is lost, when their drive to do best for society is lost amongst a million choices?

They Make a Website and Write About It, Obviously?

So now we're here. Millions of years of evolution, fight, and struggle. Just so this wee little crow could complain that they don't like their job right? WRONG. Sure, my job isn't a passion. I don't believe what I do benefits society in any concievable way. But, it pays the bills, it puts food on my table and that of others, and ultimately it feeds passions. If you love your work, you'll never work a day in your life. Sure that makes sense but then I should ask, why would anyone live to work? Society has evolved leaps and bounds from the days of old. There is still struggle and strife, millions of methods of distraction and manipulation abound. Instead, working to live is a better way to frame our society. To some, this is a hard truth, where lives are intrinsically tied to a fixed income. Others, work funds lifestyle, funds events, and funds passions. This vast dispora between living a life, and making a living is where we find today. Now, I have no concrete solution to wage disparity, marginalization of under represented groups or any other social injustice of today. I do not pretend to be a messiah preaching of a one true solution to the worlds problemns. I just wish to help others when I can, regocnize that everyone is an individual with rights and passions of their own, and to respect the world that I call home.

So All That and We Still Don't Know What This Is?

You're quite right. I don't even know what this is... That is probably why I went on a tirade of whatever that was before. All I can say for certain, is that I am trying to find passion. With that, let this little studio endavour showcase passion. Showcase belonging within society and a discovery of self. And may you enjoy the journey as much as I do.

Silly Crow Studios

Game Two of Twenty

Alright, here we go#

Flyaway

Starting the 20 Games Challenge

So I am a game developer now?#

So, why the switch you ask?#

How do you learn?#

How is it going you ask?#