What's next? - Prototypes and cross-platform game engine

Hi all, how's it going? Lately I've been gardening and learning about Missouri native plants, as well as bird, squirrel, and chipmunk watching in my yard, so I haven't done any heavy development work yet. I'm also working on my C++ course textbooks, which I eventually tend to "agnostisize" so that it's not specific to my college and can be followed by anyone wanting a set of CompSci style topics they'd learn in the first 2 years of college.

Anyway, the programming I have done lately has been to write a small, cross-platform engine in C. It uses the Playdate C SDK for building for Playdate and SDL2 for building for PC. (I might look at SDL3, haven't decided yet.) The video I linked to this post is one of the vlog updates showing off the engine. It's also open source and you can view its progress as I develop it, here: https://gitlab.com/moosadee/omelet-engine

Otherwise, I'm trying to think of what kind of game I want to make next. I've mostly been writing in notebooks and making screenshot mockups. I'm mostly thinking of picking up an old abandoned project and completing it, or just focusing on making some prototypes at first and putting the prototypes out there ("Rachel's Prototype Game Pack"??) and seeing what the response is to each. I like all of these ideas but it's hard to really know if the gameplay will be a lot of fun without making a prototype, and I don't want to commit to a year-long development for a game that might not be enjoyable!

Anyway, here's a rundown of some of the game ideas. Feel free to comment on what you'd be interested in, that will definitely help motivate me to work on its prototype before the others.

• Undead Debt - I originally started this game in 2018 (https://moosadee.itch.io/undead-debt) and prototyped it in Python, though life likes to get in the way of game development ;) The game is kind of like Death Stranding, honestly, and this was before Death Stranding's gameplay was really revealed. It's post-apocalyptic U.S.A., there are small outposts across the country, and you're taking on Gig Economy jobs to earn money - to pay off your student loans. As time passes, your student loan amount increases based on the loan interest. If you get knocked out (to a Zombie or something) you then incur medical debt. If you purchase a vehicle, you're probably taking on vehicle debt.

• Mupoa Bo Pu - Originally started in 2021 (https://moosadee.itch.io/mupoa-bo-pu-to-the-unknown), barely did any coding on it. I've been wanting to create my own world to create game settings in, and I started with the early primordial days of a planet - no dry land yet, all ocean. A type of cephalopod-inspired animal is the first sentient life, and this game would be mostly exploration as you venture out from your cozy home "village" surrounding a warm geyser. I was going to render all the graphics with primitivies - triangles and stuff - so that everything feels unknown, strange, other-worldly. I've also developed a language for the cephalopods because I'm a conlang enthusiast. :P Languages are an interesting part of world building for me. I figured if I did this game, each subsequent game would be a bit in the future, showing the evolution of several different sentient species and eventually how they interact with each other.

• Prismages - I like to make public domain knockoffs of properties (https://moosadee.gitlab.io/web/more/public-domain/index.html#org70a333b), mostly because I'm afraid to make fan games of anything. (I grew up when everyone was buzzing around the 3D Chrono Trigger fan remake and that got Cease And Desist-ed.) Prismages are my version of magical girls. Every time a new super hero movie or game comes out I'm salty because where are my dang magical girls?? We still get Dragon Ball Z games, Sonic games, comic book games, etc. etc. but where's the Sailor Moon?! I hate it. :P Anyway, I was thinking this would be kind of like an action RPG / roguelike, where each run is a night where your magical girl/boy/enby/etc. is patrolling the city for baddies, and each "season" has its main henchmen and its big bad. Perhaps you could select a different Prismage for different elemental magic to work with, IDK!

• Open Source Farming Sim - There's nothing really to this except being a farming sim that anyone can add onto without mods. Add whatever features you like from Your Favorite Farming Game™. For me, this would be like, create some features, then when playtesting figure out what I would want to see next in a farming game. So less ahead-of-time planning, more "vibes-based" game development? :)

• Rawr Rinth 2008 (https://moosadee.itch.io/rawr-rinth-2008) - Trying to port this old game? Seeing how the Playdate handles multi-screen-sized maps in C? (Didn't work so well in Lua for Deskapades :) or figuring out how to adjust its design to work with Playdate.

• Rawr Rinth 2022 (https://moosadee.itch.io/rawr-rinth) - Me and some friends began working on this reimagining of Rawr Rinth, originally intended to be a Playdate game, though I wrote the engine so far in C++/SFML so I'd have to retool it. Basically, Sokoban-like gameplay, but with gay dinosaurs.

• Lenxion 2008 (https://moosadee.itch.io/lenxion) - Another port attempt at an old game I made, basically the only platformer I bothered making. :)

• Lenxion: The Cursed Castle 2019 (https://moosadee.itch.io/lenxion-the-cursed-castle) - I tried making a prequel to Lenxion but then COVID happened. Also I got bored. Have I mentioned that I got myself officially diagnosed with ADHD this summer? :P

Anyway, that's all I have for now. I have one online-based class I'm teaching this summer semester but mostly have been avoiding my computer and computer desk ;) But I'll get back to this once the ADHD current brings me back to my computer again. Let me know what you think!! <3