Player 1 has entered the forge

Eli's Game DevQuest

Eight worlds. Real tools. Zero cost. You start with a Scratch cat and finish with a dungeon crawler that strangers on the internet actually play. Every tool here is free and runs on the family laptop.

Your sprite. Redraw it in Pixel Studio.

1 · Find the glowThe world with the orange border is your next one. Open it.

2 · Clear questsDo them in order. Tick each one when it's really done. Each gives XP.

3 · Beat the bossEvery world ends with a boss: a finished project. That's how you level up for real.

4 · Check in dailyBuilt something today? Hit the orange button up top. Keep the streak alive.

Nobody is going to make you do this. That's the whole point. You have more free time than most adult game developers ever get. Spend 90 minutes a day here for a year and you will be better than most people who say they "want to make games".

Trophies

The Map

Side quests run alongside the main path

Save Crystal

Read this once

Your progress saves automatically in this browser on this laptop. But browsers forget things, and it's a family laptop. Once a week, copy your save code and paste it somewhere safe: a text file in your GameDev folder, or an email to a parent.

Your save code

Load a save code

World 3 training room

Game Feel Lab

Why does shooting in Halo feel amazing and shooting in a bad Scratch game feel like nothing? Same idea, different juice. Juice is all the tiny feedback: screen shake, a freeze frame when you land a hit, enemies flashing and flying back. Click the arena, play, then wreck the sliders and feel the difference.

Move WASD or arrows · Aim with mouse · Hold click or Space to fire

Presets:

Your mission: load Mushy, play 30 seconds. Load Juicy, play 30 seconds. Then build your own preset from Mushy, changing one slider at a time. Write the 3 sliders that changed the feel most in your dev journal. That's a World 3 quest.

This is the same movement in real Godot code. Your slider values go straight in.

World 2 workshop

Pixel Studio

16 by 16 pixels, 4 frames, 16 colours. That's how a lot of the best indie heroes started. A slime is loaded so you can see how animation frames work. Wipe it and draw your own hero. It shows up animated on the Quest Map.

Speed6 fps

fps = frames per second. Walk cycles look good at 6 to 10. Idle breathing at 2 to 4.

Onion skin shows the previous frame faintly so you can line things up. Mirror paints both sides at once, great for faces and front-facing characters. Pro trick: draw the silhouette in one dark colour first, then add detail inside it.

Idea generator

Idea Forge

Ideas are cheap. Finishing them is the hard part. Roll until something makes you grin, lock the parts you like, re-roll the rest. Then squeeze it into a 10-word pitch. If you can't pitch it in 10 words, it's not clear yet.

Click a card to lock it

Your 10-word pitch 0 words

Idea Vault

World 5 blueprint

One-Page Design Doc

Before you build your dream game, you plan it on one page. Only one. Real studios do this too, they just call it a "pitch doc". The scope-o-meter on the right gets angry if your game is getting too big to finish. It saves as you type.

Scope-o-meter

Empty. Start with the pitch.

Rule: the "NOT making" box matters as much as the rest. Multiplayer, open world, 50 weapons, crafting: write them there for now. Version 2 can have them.

Read before World 1

The Codex

The rules, the toolbox, and what to do when you're stuck. Come back here every time something breaks. Something will always break. That's the job.

Rules of the Forge

Finish small things. A tiny finished game teaches you more than a huge unfinished one. Every pro says this.
Ugly first. Build with grey squares until it's fun. Art comes after the fun.
Type the code yourself. Copy-paste teaches your clipboard, not you.
Copy to learn, never to publish. Remaking a mechanic you love is great practice. Using someone else's characters, art or music in a game you share is not okay.
Playtest with your mouth shut. Watch someone play. Don't explain. Every time they get confused, write it down.
Back up every Sunday. Copy your GameDev folder to a USB stick, and copy your save code from the Quest Map.
Shared laptop, shared rules. Close Godot and save your work when someone else needs the laptop. Don't fill up the disk.

How to get unstuck

Read the error out loud. It usually says the line number and what's wrong.
Print it. Put print(my_variable) in your code and see what's actually happening.
Rubber duck. Explain your code line by line to a toy or your journal. You'll often hear the bug.
Search the exact error plus "godot 4" (or "scratch").
Check the docs. In Godot, hold Ctrl and click any word in your code to open its help.
Shrink it. Make a tiny new project with only the broken thing in it.
Walk away 15 minutes. Skate, kick a ball. Your brain keeps working on it. This really works.
Ask a human (with a parent's OK): say what you expected, what happened, and what you tried.
Stuck for a whole day? Cut the feature or make a simpler version. That's a real pro move, not giving up.

Using AI the smart way

Tutor, not ghost. Ask "explain this error" or "give me a hint, not the answer". Don't ask it to make the game for you.
The line rule: if you can't explain every line of your code to someone, you're not done.
AI makes mistakes. Especially with Godot 4, it often gives Godot 3 code. If something like KinematicBody2D shows up, that's old. Use CharacterBody2D.
Be honest. If you use AI art or music in something you share, say so.
AI can't playtest. Only real people can tell you if it's fun.

Staying safe online

Never share your real full name, address, school, phone, or photos of yourself in games, comments or devlogs.
Make accounts (Scratch, itch.io, YouTube) with a parent. Under 13 needs them anyway.
No private chats with strangers. If anyone asks for personal stuff or makes you uncomfortable, tell a parent.
Only download tools from the official links in the Toolbox below.
Discord is 13+. Wait for it.

Your daily loop

20 min: Draw. Anything. Sprites, characters, weapons, maps. This is how you get good at art and animation.
30 min: Learn. The next tutorial step, a docs page, or a GMTK video.
60–90 min: Build. Work on the current quest. This is the main event.
Break: Skate or soccer. Seriously. Stuck bugs get solved on the skate ramp.
5 min: Dev log. One line in your journal: what you did, what broke. Then hit "I built today".
Saturday: Playtest day. Show someone what you made this week. Watch them play.
Sunday: Play like a designer. Play a game you love with your journal out. Why is that bit fun? Then back up your folder.

The Toolbox

Everything here is free. "Browser" means nothing to install. "Light" means it runs fine on an older laptop.

Tool	What it's for	Runs	World

Eli's Game DevQuest

Trophies

The Map

Save Crystal

Game Feel Lab

Pixel Studio

Idea Forge

Idea Vault

One-Page Design Doc

The Codex

Rules of the Forge

How to get unstuck

Using AI the smart way

Staying safe online

Your daily loop

The Toolbox

Words game devs use