Starting Point — Why I Built the Website Before the Game

Wait, Shouldn't You Be Making the Game?

Fair question. The game isn't done, yet here I am shipping a website first.

Here's why.

I'm a Web Developer

Before game development, I built web apps for a living. Standing up a Next.js site with Supabase is genuinely fun for me — it's familiar ground. When everything else about this project feels uncertain, starting with something I'm confident in felt like the right move.

I Needed a Place to Share

Building in silence doesn't work for me. I wanted a platform to document the process, share updates, and hopefully build an audience before the game is anywhere near done. The website is that platform.

The Game Data Viewer

There's also a practical reason. As I develop Talisman Codes, I generate a lot of game data — cards, stats, balance numbers. I needed a way to view and inspect all of that cleanly. A web-based data viewer made perfect sense, and building it into the site killed two birds with one stone.

Play to Your Strengths

There will be plenty of hard things ahead — game logic, AI, balancing, art. But I've learned that momentum matters. Starting with what you're good at builds the confidence to tackle what you're not.