1) Have an idea for a game.
2) Daydream about said idea for days.
3) Try to make the game for a few months.
4) Slowly lose interest.
5) Abandon the project.
6) Do nothing gamedev related for a few months.
7) Came up with a new, simpler idea for a game.
8) Go back to point 2.
It has been three years, with five games that I haven't finished. Remember the little platformer I was making? (The one with the sepia tone, you can find screenies on previous entries). Yup, even that game, as simple and short as it was supposed to be, was abandoned. I just lost interest in it, I can't help it.
I came up with a new idea a few weeks ago, and I already started working on it. Will this be the one that I'll finally complete? Probably not, but I'll make the attempt anyway.
So, what's up with the game, then? Well...
When I was a kid, I had a SNES, my very first console. I had six games: "Super Mario Brothers", "Primal Rage", "Operation Logic Bomb", a racing game about Lamborguinis, an NFL game whose name escapes me from the moment, and "Urban Strike", and loved every single one of them and played them non-stop, even if some of them were never considered good games, or even decent ones. Eight-year-old me didn't care.
All those games were simple enough for me to play them without trouble, except "Urban Strike"... Goddamn it, that freaking game. For the guys that don't know about it, it's a top down game in which you control a helicopter and complete various objectives while managing your ammo, armor and fuel.
I hated it at first, because unlike my other games, this one required following instructions, you just can't shoot everything and win, and I was completely lost because I didn't know english back then. I was stuck in the first level for years... until I discovered that if you pause the game, it shows the map and your objectives. Using a Spanish-English dictionary I managed to follow the instructions and finally, FINALLY, completed the first level. A few weeks later I completed the game, and I loved it.
I wanted to make a little homage to said game (even though the SNES port sucked), which brings me to this new project: a top down shooter where you use helicopters to shoot things (pew pew!), while having somewhat of a plot, no matter how silly.
Some notes about the game:
- Three playable protagonists, each one with its own chopper with different weapons.
- Unlimited ammo, but limited fuel; you need to find fuel around the map.
- Very short game, with five missions: an introduction, then three missions than you can complete in any order, and then the grand finale. Each mission lasts between 3 to 5 minutes.
- Each mission consists of various objectives that you can do in any order (for the most part).
- Each mission has a predetermined character assigned, you can't choose it. The last mission is a special case: you use all three characters at the same time, switching back and forth.
- There's a lot of dialogue in and between missions, shown using little text pop-ups (hopefully they are not distracting while playing!)
Like I said, I have already worked on this for almost a month reusing the code from previous projects (at this point I don't have to write anything). I have made some progress: for instance, a prototype of the first mission is almost done, for now just called "Oasis".
Here's a little animation of one of the characters (for now just called "Green") shooting baddies and using his overpowered secondary weapon
The "art" style is based on papercuts and drawings made from kids. Yeah, I know it looks ugly, but I promised myself not to worry about graphics that much. I'll try to improve them as time goes on.
That's it. I have much less free time now, I got out of Uni and now I have a job and I'm a productive member of society (ha!), but I'll try my best to finish this by the end of the year: five months doesn't sound that crazy for something as simple as this, and like I said, I don't have to write code anymore, because the code used in previous projects has everything I need for this game.
Thanks for reading
In your next post, I'd love it if you could talk about how you accomplished your art style.
Hello there!
Wanted to stop by and share two little things:
1.: It does not look ugly at all! I think you nailed one of the most important thing with it when it comes to graphics; it looks consistent :) ! I think it looks fun and has a certain charm. The footage feels like its from a finished game. It is COOL, no need for worries ;).
2.: It took me more than two years to ship my first game project (after countless tries and failures :(). I believe this is a common symptom between hobbyist game developers. Finishing something is so ridiculously hard :(...
Doing my fatality took the following thing:
- One strong decision to focus on completing a project for once and not focusing too much on the project itself (by that I mean not ignoring the game and design, but completion had to be utmost importance in every decision).
- Reducing scope until I felt, that the expected development time will not be too much and I will not lose interest. After a couple of days of hard-core design and estimation sessions I settled on a two month long spare time project, which became a little more, but due to spending a lot of time upfront on goals and schedules I completed it and took less than two weeks extra more :).
Good luck and most importantly, have fun ;) !!!