a retrosepective on a game i built in 2 weeks
(ill insert the media and links at a later date)
Recently over the summer I’ve been getting into video games again. I used to love playing games as a kid and all the way up till I was around 15-16. it just stopped being fun. maybe because of the pandemic or maybe because of my mental health but the enjoyment I had from video games just ceased. Every attempt after would be a futile endeavor to ignite the same passion through nostalgia but it was never the same.
But as I was exploring various arts and the output of human self expression, I found my way guided back to video games. Maybe it was the nostalgia. I booted up my Nintendo Dsi XL (I’ve had it since 2009 and have kept it well since) and started playing Pokémon games. a lot. Luckily this was after I demo’d at the NDRC so I had a bit of time freed up. I replayed my first ever Pokémon game, Pokémon Diamond, and as a nod to my first ever playthrough, I chose Turtwig as my starter. Despite playing this game and region for the millionth time, I somehow had the same enjoyment I had as a little kid.
I progressed through the various games and halted halfway in Pokémon Black as I started to get curious about the more recent games. The story of Pokémon in my eyes came to a stop after the Unova region. We didn’t have the money to spare on a brand new 3ds at home and I never ended up playing the games on these later consoles ( i tried emulation but 8 year old me struggled to do it on my tablet and I just let it go). As I looked through the more and more recent games, my heart shook more and more in terror - what the flip happend to the graphics???
I mean, from the 8bit gen 1 to all the way to the amazingly beautiful gen 5 games, the evolution and progression through the graphics was one to admire and appreciate. So then what the fuck is going on in Pokémon Scarlet. A quick Google search proved that I’m not the only one that’s at dismay here.
Fortunately, I was exploring a few other games at the time, some at a recommendation from my friend Will (who also shares the same ideals that video games are art) and others which I simply randomly pick and chose. One of these games was Octopath Traveller 2. Wow, and I mean wow. The graphics, the story, the battle, the graphics. It felt like I was playing a movie. Absolutely mind blown. And as I slowly thought about it, I wondered why gamefreak wasn’t building a game in such a magnificent style. It would rekindle the embers for so many people and bring along with it, a new audience that has so much love for simply beautiful games.
This curiosity got me looking into game development a bit more and there happened to be a video on my YouTube homepage about some guy making a video game all by himself (it was stardew valley) and I was enthralled. I watched more and more videos and delved further and further into the industry and studied it: from indie Devs, to publishers to distribution platforms etc. This germinated a seed in my mind that maybe I should make a game. I’ve been exploring other forms of human expression such as food, music, language, film and literature - why not explore this form of art too?
but no, I’m way too busy. I’ve to manage brigaid networks, and make sure we can get more funding before we run out of runway and the amount of no’s I’ve heard has been a harrowing experience, so I shot that idea down.
John Collison was at Dublin again, turns out he’s giving a fireside at dogpatch. it was the first time I’ve seen him in person since I won TECS (3 years ago now) Fireside was inspiring. Wasn’t able to say Hi, but I’m sure our paths will cross again. I resolved more so to be a better founder and builder. After the event finished, a friend and I got some steak. There I was telling him about the day, how I was feeling, the past few weeks and the whole game thing. He encouraged me to flesh out one of my ideas
I don’t know what it was exactly, maybe because of John earlier in the day, but I took the leap and said that I’d make a Pokémon inspired game. DemosAnon, a meetup for technical builders, is set every fortnight and I immediately texted Tim (one of the volunteer organisers) and told him that I was making a game, and that I’ll do a demo for the next meetup. Tim gets back to me and seems excited about it. I am too.
The next day I start writing various storylines and plot and lore and worlds. I get really into it and I spend 3 more days doing it. I call Bastien, I tell him that he should do a demo at the same time as me. The both of us might as well demo the same day giving us a much needed break from BrigaidNet (Looking back, maybe it wasnt really a break for Bastien if he ended up doing a FSO demo anyways)
Then I start learning Godot. it’s free, it’s open source and a lot of people swear by it. The nodes feature was super intuitive and I really enjoyed it. I followed a 2d RPG tutorial to give me some basic proficiency in Godot before I moved into the actual game and then I stumbled across a bit of the cons of using that game engine. It’s a lot newer, so certain features may not have been implemented yet nor have been fully implemented. The community, although growing rapidly, was not big enough for a project like mine. and most importantly, the latest update of Godot rolled out and 95% of the tutorials about it on YouTube just went out the window. I love Godot but it’s not for me right now.
So I switched to Unreal Engine. It’s what SquareEnix used for octopath traveler so it shouldn’t hav been problem. Except it was. Going from the lightweight and sleek Godot to this clunky and large software made me feel like a sheltered princess being forced to work manual labour - very uncomfortable.
As I learnt more about the engine, the more I learnt that I knew nothing at all. Why on earth did I spend so long writing?? At this rate, I’m regretting every decision I’ve ever made. This game dev making thing is actually a lot harder when you’re doing everything by yourself huh. Maybe I can’t get this done in two weeks.
I take a 2 day break to get my mindset right, and I go straight back into development - but with Godot again. I immediately start to hate it and start missing the features and resources that unreal has. I’m going to switch back to Unreal and this time for good.
I decided to borrow a lot of assets from the internet which saved me a lot of time. One day I spent all my time on trying to get character movement to work (2d sprite in a 3d environment) and it just wouldn’t work. So, I found the developer of the 2D plugin on unreal, PaperZD. Joined their community and found out that they did some type of partnership or collaboration with a YouTube channel called Cobra Code (He’s great, go check him out). After some research I find out that this channel has a few basic stuff for things that I’m looking for: movement and depth of field. I support his patreon, download a movement template, insert it into my project and start steamrolling.
It took me 3 days to import this tree by the way. I’m not going to rant about it just to save you 30 minutes of reading time. I just wanted you guys to take a look and appreciate this tree I drew on aseprite and imported.
I learn some more cool features, start setting everything up and now it’s adequate enough to be a demo. I wanted so much more, but I let it be.
Game development is hard (but super fun). Reminded me of working in start-ups. A lot of overlaps. It’s 5am, I can barely open my eyes and I record a little demo on OBS, put it on YouTube and go to sleep.
I demoed it later that day. It was super fun. I made an unserious presentation with humour. I’m not really funny so it’s a little refreshing to see people enjoying what I made.
Knowing what I know now, I can probably make this demo in about two days instead of the two weeks which is a great improvement in my eyes.
Here’s me at demos: 
P.s my eyes were totally gone. Nonstop work on the pc; day in day out for a few days really has it’s affects. Gotta make sure that it never happens again.