Ok! I never thought that I would make it this far, but here I am. I have uploaded the first playable version of my first game as of 5/11/21. I don't really expect anyone to play, or let alone beat the game in its current state other than perhaps some of my friends or peers, but it still feels like a big deal to be moving towards being a real independent game developer. To have a game available for people to actually play online, has always been a stretch goal for me, but by taking this first step, I feel like I can now fully move the goalposts. I have included a full playthrough video of the game at the bottom of the page, for those who are interested, but can't or won't play the game.
Before I talk further about my intentions, I will quickly cover the progression of the project so far. Back in January of 2021, I picked up Game Maker Studio, in an effort to make a bigger stride towards independent game development. Prior to this, I had been using Unity Playmaker in my classes to make very simple, short, arcade style and incomplete games. Though I was happy using that program to make 3D games, like a game about a ball climbing a tower of cars in space, I found that for a 2D game, the software was not ideal. I found it clunky to load projects, and I didn't love how unoptimized the software was for 2D development. I was initially drawn to Game Maker Studio because Undertale was developed with it, so I felt like I could do whatever I wanted to do with the software, as long as the game was 2D. I picked it up and decided to return to my roots by making a simple platformer, the type of game I played the most as a kid.
I figured the linear nature of the genre, as well as the well established experience I had, would allow minimal interference with learning the software, in that, all I would have to learn was Game Maker Language, and to use the software, and I could rely on my existing knowledge of Platforming Game Design. Also learning from my past mistakes, I decided that the game should be quite small, in order to actually be able to bring the game to a state where I could be proud of it. As I learned about the Room System and how it interacted with Persistent objects, I realized that the most efficient way to bring the game to a functional state, would be to try to contain the entire game into a single room. Because of this it felt natural to set the game inside of a large castle dungeon.
There were a lot of setbacks along development, because of having to learn the program while making sure that all aspects of the game worked together, but things were going along, slow but steady. I learned a lot about project optimization and organization, and the more I built the game the more I wanted to start over so that I could perfectly match the vision I had in the beginning of the project, however, I realized that it would be a better learning experience to push through to the end, despite my wish for the release to be perfect.
Where the game stands currently.
The bulk of the programming is totally finished. There are some key features missing, namely, a pause menu, but the game can be played from start to finish without bugs and without any crashes. For me, this is a big deal. I did all of the programming without using drag and drop, so I had to learn Game Maker Language to make everything work. I am not a great programmer, but I can tell that I have improved a lot. The area that best shows this, is the difference between the basic enemies, which were all coded early in development, and the final boss, which was the final major feature that I coded. The simple enemies move from side to side, or bob up and down, and are limited to striking when you are close, or shooting projectiles straight at you. The final boss has 8 different attacks that it can do, all of which involve it moving at variable speeds, stopping in different places in the room and launching multiple different projectiles. I was quite proud of how well the final fight works.
The soundtrack is mostly complete. If possible I would like to add many more sound effects as well as several more songs before I stop development. All of the songs were made or arranged by me in Ableton Live using 80's era Moog synthesizer presets, as well as some free modern chiptune sound fonts that are readily accessible online. I wanted the game to be as much a showcase of my programming ability as well as my music making ability. In the end there are 7 songs, each of which I feel encompass different genres while all feeling like they belong together on a soundtrack. I had a lot more experience making music going into this project, so it wasn't too much of a major obstacle for me, but it was still definitely a learning experience to try to make a more cohesive project, compared to the more experimental, and random music I have made before this point.
The artwork is where the game is most lacking. Not that the game looks entirely horrible, but, as is the nature of game development in general, this is the last thing that needs to really be worked on. I have used a lot of mixed art, some of which were free assets from various websites, or assets from paid pixel art that I happened to own from past humble bundles. The game functions in this state, but I do feel that a lot of work needs to be done before I will be happy in this department. This was the most surprising and difficult obstacle that I have dealt with during the last few months of development. I had never really dabbled in pixel art before, and I found the minimalist nature of the medium to be very difficult to adapt to. Additionally to this, drawing had never been my favorite activity, and I still haven't gotten used to using Aseprite at this point.
As far as the game itself is concerned, from a design perspective, I am pretty happy with it. It is deeply flawed, but I still think it is fun to play. I think the combat system and platforming work nicely, even though I feel it doesn't really reach its full potential until the final boss, in which you must use all of your abilities in tandem to succeed. I like the games' lighthearted and satirical tone, and the story fits the the short game well.
What's next for the game
Going forward I will be putting the bulk of my effort into overhauling the visual design of the game. I would like the game to be a showcase of my artistic abilities as well, and for that to occur a lot of changes need to be made. As it stands, I would like to take much more care in the visual design of the castle, I am not too sure exactly what changes I will make, but there is much to be done. I would like for the final boss area in particular to be strongly overhauled. Currently the boss chamber is a boring blue room, and the monster itself is a simple two color, eight frame sprite. I would like, at the very least, for this area to look and sound much more impactful. I will be redrawing the boss in more detail, make a much more visually engaging arena to fight it in. I will also definitely be drawing simple illustrations to accompany the text at the into and outro to the game. Currently it is just simple text, and even average quality illustrations here will add a lot to the feel of the game. This will mean getting much more familiar with Aseprite, something I consider to be inevitable if I ever want to release a product that I intend to profit from. Additionally, I would like to revamp the look of the overall castle, as I was pretty careless with my tile placements, leading to a fairly ugly game map. This will probably be the easiest part of the process, but will have great impact if I can be successful. The UI and writing of the game needs a little polishing, but I don't think that I will be putting too much time here, as I think the overall impact of those changes will be fairly small. Finally, adding a functional pause menu and tutorial area to replace the controls section in the menu will be essential to completing what I would consider to be the bare minimum for the game to leave a "early access" state and enter a more public free release online.
My current goal is to accomplish as much of this as possible before June 10th, so that I will be ready to enter the GMTK 2021 game jam. Expect another release of the game around that time, this time more publicly available. Around then is also when I hope to have the soundtrack fully mixed and mastered and arranged, depending on how I am feeling about it I will possibly open that up for download / purchase.
And what's after that?
Well, its hard to say exactly, but I do have some loose plans. I have a very busy year ahead of me, as I still intend to work full time at my job, and I also have plans to get married at the end of the summer. But, I am more motivated than ever before to get working on my next project. I have some very abstract, but exciting concepts that I want to get started on using Game Maker. I won't go into them too much right now. But if I can get a good plan together, and possibly some other team members on board, I am hoping that that game will be my first serious release, a game to really launch my indie game dev career. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this, it means a lot to me, and I am really excited for the future!
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