I managed to wrestle myself away from playing Pokemon long enough to download the TIC-80 fantasy console and give it a go today.

Like the Pico-8, the TIC-80 is an all-in-one lowfi game-dev system with a built-in text editor, sprite editor, SFX and music editor all in one. They're both neat, but TIC-80 is open source and supports Javascript. I know Javascript.

Because I know javascript I had a super easy time getting a basic game working within an hour of downloading. There was next to no friction in getting the little engine to do what I wanted (not that I asked much of it). It was a real breath of fresh air; my usual game-dev attempts are several-hour long slogs through coding patterns or Godot tutorials without much to show by the end.

I realized that part of the friction I'm getting from Godot is that I'm just not used to UI in my workflow. I spend my days in text editors and terminals; Godot's dropdowns and nested menus and mouse-driven interfaces are wildly alien to how my brain chews on programmey tasks. These system are obviously super powerful and valuable in large projects, but the TIC-80 let me make a tiny project that was almost entirely code and got out of my way. (The little music editor was neat, too)

The experience also really highlighted how much easier gamedev is in a language you already know. Every serious attempt I've made into game development I've self-imposed a significant language-learning component.
"Oh, I'll make a CHIP-8 game... by learning enough Rust to build a CHIP-8 emulator from scratch!"
"I'm going to make a small proof-of-concept RPG!.. but in Zig and I'll cross-compile ImGUI and GL and compile it to WASM!"

It's kind of like trying to write a novel in a language I don't know. I should probably get some experience novel writing in my native tongue first.

All that said, I'm not going to give up on the Godot and GDScript. I am, however, going to try to take more detours into things like TIC-80, and perhaps do some more tiny games in python / JS. Learning game development isn't going to be a quick process, and I need the occasional quick win to keep my motivation up.

On that note, here's a clip of my TIC-80 game. I feel like a child holding up a shitty drawing and beaming with pride -- it isn't good or unique or impressive in any way, but I made it myself so it goes on the fridge.