BlackBoxGames

About

I have had an interest in game development for my entire life. I made my first indie game projects when I was in high school, and I have continued to dabble in it ever since. Over the years, I have accumulated plenty of ideas, half-finished design documents, strange mechanics, and little concepts that never quite found a home. The main goal of this page is to finally give me a place to showcase some of those projects that have been rattling around in my head for far too long.

Most of the games here will begin as small prototypes. Some may be built in a day, while others may receive updates over several weeks or months. I am interested in seeing how quickly an idea can go from a rough concept to something people can actually play. Not every experiment will become a complete game, but every project should teach me something useful about design, programming, balance, or presentation.

If one of these prototypes feels right, gets an enthusiastic response, or simply refuses to leave my imagination, I might build it into a larger project. That is part of what makes small-scale game development interesting to me. A simple mechanic can sometimes reveal a much larger game hiding underneath it.

I grew up using Unity3D, but I am currently challenging myself to learn Godot. Moving to a different engine has forced me to reconsider some old habits and learn new ways of organizing projects, building interfaces, and developing games for the browser. I am trying to create projects that are easy to expand, adjust, and experiment with rather than treating every prototype as a disposable one-off.

I enjoy all sorts of games, but I have a particular fondness for simulation and strategy games. I like games that give players a collection of understandable systems and then allow unexpected situations to emerge from the way those systems interact. Resource management, autonomous characters, competing priorities, difficult decisions, and unusual strategies are all areas I would like to explore.

I hope to bring some of the strategy mechanics and design ideas I have always wanted to test to life through this platform. Some experiments may work immediately, while others will need substantial revision. Occasionally, an idea that sounds great on paper may turn out to be confusing, unbalanced, or simply not much fun. That is part of the process, and I would rather make those ideas playable and learn from them than leave them sitting in a notebook forever.

Everything here is made for fun, learning, and iteration. Expect prototypes, unusual ideas, short game-jam projects, and games that may change significantly as I continue working on them. Features may be added, removed, rebalanced, or completely redesigned as I learn what works. Older projects may also be revisited when I have a new idea or a better way to approach them.

Feedback is always welcome, especially thoughts about balance, clarity, controls, difficulty, and unexpected strategies. If something is confusing, frustrating, surprisingly fun, or completely broken, I would genuinely like to hear about it. Some of the most useful feedback comes from players doing something the developer never anticipated.

Thank you for visiting the page and trying these experiments. I hope you find something here that is entertaining, interesting, or at least a little unusual.

AI Disclosure — I know many people have strong feelings about AI, so I would rather be up-front and honest about how it is used in my work. I am a working professional and do not have unlimited time to create projects like these. Although I have been making games since long before modern generative AI tools became widely available, I recognize that they can allow an individual developer to work at a dramatically faster pace. AI is used in some of the projects on this page as part of the development process. Depending on the project, that may include assistance with programming, debugging, placeholder content, visual development, sound effects, documentation, or rapidly testing different versions of an idea. Without that assistance, many of these small projects would not be realistic for me to develop within the time constraints of my life. I also understand that people may make their own decisions about whether they want to play projects developed with these tools, which is why I believe clearly disclosing their use is important.