I’m not starting from scratch. That’s what I told everyone when I said I was stepping away from my previous position to finish my game. I’d already started it a year or so ago, and I never got a chance to finish it. The game is part teaching tool, part passion project. It’s never been about me making money. Anyone who works in the game industry knows that much. It’s always been about me learning how to become more developer, less marketer.
It started about two years ago when I was complaining to some friends that most board games are too long to play during a lunch break. The ones that were short enough were always too competitive, and my personality just wanted something short, sweet, and a little competitive, but nothing that would hurt people’s feelings after playing. The people I could get to play with me weren’t always interested in card games either, so I needed something that could be played with first-timers. I was searching for that sweet spot:2-4 players in under 45min. When frustration turned to boredom, a friend suggested I make my own card game.
So I did; I looked at all the games I liked, looked at what parts of the game mechanics I enjoyed, and then I went about politely asking torturing my friends, my co-workers, and even my boss to help test it. That’s how you know if people really like you and how much patience your boss has. Ha! The feedback I got was great: what worked, what didn’t work, and most importantly, everyone helped me get the game down to under an hour! Which made most people, even if they didn’t enjoy it so much, feel like it wasn’t so bad. “I don’t really like board games,” a colleague said, “but this didn’t take long to play.”
When the card game was balanced, I thought my next step was finding an artist, getting a Kickstarter page up, and maybe, just maybe…getting a real shiny version of my game produced. It’d be a couple of thousand dollars to find a decent artist and get a few copies made for the backers and myself. That was the goal, and I would’ve been satisfied, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids my former boss from Amazon. He not only continually pushed me to be better and try harder but was a fantastic mentor and someone whom I greatly admired. It was he who planted the seed in my head and said, “now turn this into a mobile game.”
At the time, I was worried, I didn’t know how to code, but more importantly, I didn’t know where to start. I kept saying to myself, “Even if I wanted to do this, how would that work?” and “Well, maybe I’ll start next month!” Of course, after a few months, I still hadn’t made any progress. I left Amazon because I had ideas I wanted to pursue, and when those ideas hadn’t blossomed into anything fruitful, I knew I needed to course correct. The constant failure didn’t depress me, and it made me stop and think, “I’m not doing something right. I missing a piece here. What is it?” That’s when it hit me, and my journey lie deeper into developer territory, deeper into the minds of the genius who made my favorite games like Loren the Amazon Princess. I needed to go backward before I could go forward.
I reached out to the smartest people I knew and asked if they could lend me their ear. The response I got back was overwhelming. I knew my transition from being a typical marketer to someone whose passion for technology and games gave way to this new area called developer relations would be rocky, but I wasn’t expecting how generous people would be with their time. So that I pass along what I know, I’ll share what I’m learning and how here! I’ve started my journey using Construct 2. Their beginner tutorials are simple to understand but still require a lot of reading and a lot of explanations. I won’t go into details because that’s what the tutorials do – but you can see my very messy tutorial game ( forget about design right now, LOL, that is another topic all on its own ) below and start building your own top-down shooter here: Beginner’s Guide to Construct 2
Hosted by the Scirra Arcade
And next week? I’m going through terminology, learning what a game loop really is, and then perhaps tackling a platformer before I get down to my actual project, turning my card game from 3D to 2D!