Dev Log - Final Log

So this project did NOT go how I planned. At all.

I started out building Thunder McKing in Python. Made a whole Pet class, got the stats working — hunger, happiness, energy, health — even had a game loop ticking away. Spent a good few hours on it, honestly thought I was close to done.

Then I hit a wall. Python is great for logic but the moment I wanted to actually show the pet on screen with images and buttons and stuff, it got complicated fast. I had these five custom illustrations of a little race car — happy, sad, hungry, sleepy, sick — and I really wanted them front and centre, not just some text in a terminal.

So I made the call to scrap the Python build and switch to JavaScript + HTML. Bit of a painful decision after all that time, but the right one. JS just made way more sense for what I was actually trying to make — a proper interactive game you can open in a browser, tap buttons, see the car react.

The rebuild went quicker than expected. I carried over all the core logic from my Python project — the stat system, the decay loop, the health penalty when hunger gets too low — and rewrote it in JS. Then built the UI around it: four action buttons (Refuel, Race, Rest, Fix Up), animated stat bars that pulse red when critical, and the car image swapping dynamically based on whatever state he’s in. If he’s hungry you see the hungry car. If he’s about to die you see the sick one. Little details like that make it feel alive.

Got it running with Live Server in VS Code which was a nice workflow — save the file, browser updates instantly.

Biggest lesson from this whole thing: don’t get too attached to your first approach. The Python version wasn’t wasted time — it helped me figure out the logic before I built the real thing. Sometimes you have to build it wrong first.

BUT….

After an initial review after shipping I received feedback to change that overly AI generated look, and to change that up I decided to make the UI a bit more “Radiator Springs” vibe with that rustic Route 66, dusty desert, neon signs, cracked asphalt, the whole look to bring the simulator together. I tried to make a small mini game inside, and instead of an infinite road sim, i made a small track where you have to control a small 8-bit version of Thunder around the circuit and race him to victory!