Circus Broadside

Sometimes I imagine: I’d have to physically store my small hobby projects. Git repositories would materialize as loose sheet collections, dusty binders, and entire moving boxes full of source code. They’d pile up on my desk, or sit decaying in some storage space. They were all interesting at one point, but sooner or later fulfilled their purpose. For a while they probably still lay on the desk, increasingly buried under new, super-thrilling ideas. When the piles get too large, then the bottom layer moves to the attic or basement. Somewhere between the retired snowboard and the box of old charging cables. Over time, the paper yellows, and the file folders bulge under the musty humidity of outdated dependencies.

But there are also those projects that simply refuse to give up their place on the desk. Every now and then I dust them off, update the dependencies to the latest version. Maybe I fix a small bug, or I get inspired and eagerly build on them for a few days before other things become more important.

2011 - Trial Runs #

One of these projects has been accompanying me for quite a while. Since 2011. It’s a small game where you control a sailing ship from a top-down perspective. Out of necessity, I got into Python: I was a sociology student and desperately needed more ECTS credits. The Python course was worth two of them. My career took a different turn: I started working as a programmer in 2013. The more I learned about software development, the more clumsy I found my first attempts at programming a game. At some point, I set the project aside. For a few years.

2019 - Back in Drydock #

In 2019, I got a new skateboard. I used the subsequent forced pause, caused by a broken leg, to start the game fresh. By then, I was a Java developer. So I was looking for a way to develop games with Java and found LibGDX. Shortly after my cast came off, I was able to supplement my geography knowledge with the startling news that a Chinese megacity named Wuhan even existed. As a result, I had plenty of time at home again, which I could dedicate to game development.

2026 - Launch? #

A few more years later and the game has gone through its developments. Initially, it was supposed to be a small multiplayer game with short matches. Something with pirates. Death match on the water. In between, I had big ideas with an open world and other nonsense. Now I’m back to the initial idea.

And here we are in 2026, and I’m still at it. I’ve created a page on itch.io and shown it to a few test players. There’s still a lot to do, but it’s somehow fun (at least to me and a few others). Also, I’ve finally found a name for it. For the past 15 years, I mostly just called it “this ship game”. But as of recently, I have an itch.io page for it, and there it’s called: Circus Broadside

There are a few small changes I want to make before releasing the game for download to the general public. And I hope it won’t take another 15 years.