Part #1 of the gamedev series
Current Mood
I have been in front of the computer playing computer games as long as I can remember. My early memories of playing videogames are on the GBA emulator exploring the epic worlds of Pokemon, Beyblade and, Dragon Ball Z. I have spent countless hours playing Wild Ambition on my neighbor's Playstation 1. After many fights and nirahara samarams (hunger strikes), my dad finally decided to buy us a Playstation 2 but we were a little late to the party cause we got our hands on the PS2 when the PS3 was released but that was okay. PS2 was still damn popular and one of the best consoles yet with an enormous collection of games.
At this point, I played games as just games without giving much thought into how it was made. It was around this time I came to know about the best game on the platform - Shadow of the Colossus, from the legendary game designer, Fumito Ueda. I did not get a chance to play this on the PS2 but got a chance to play and finish the remade version for the PS4. I was broken. The controls were buggy, the horse was unresponsive and lots of other issues. But in the end, the story slowly starts to come together and bam hits you in the face. The ending left me in tears. The music by Kow Otani, another legend composed a perfect soundtrack for the game. Come to think of it, Fumito intentionally decided to make agro (the horse) less responsive because if agro just responds to everything you do, then it would be just robotic. He was just trying to emulate the real world. Pets don't listen all the time. These minor details got me started about designing games. The art, music, code, story, gameplay which goes into these is insane.
I am also a big fan of Hidetaka-san and his work. The Soulsbourne series and Sekiro push the limitation of games. I find many games today not fully utilizing the medium. Videogames are the ultimate form of storytelling and very few designers have harnessed this. Just taking the world of Dark Souls as an example, the game itself offers very little direct storytelling. Everything about the world is immersive. Everything is up to the player, from figuring out the story and what's happening by observing the world and the mechanics. This opens to tons of interpretations too. Games like Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian, etc are benchmarks and push how we tell stories through games.
Another inspiration for me is ConcernedApe aka Eric Barone, Chris Sawyer for what they have achieved technically and artistically. Just to process the fact that Stardew Valley was written entirely by one person is just amazing and motivating.
All these inspired me to make games. But it's hard for me to even believe that a song inspired me to make the game that I am going to make. Its an album by Sigur Ros called Route One. It is instrumental and plays for 24hrs. There is something very mysterious, eerie about this album that got me to thinking how it would look like on screen. That's the beauty of art. One medium can inspire another. But then again, everything is art.
Buckethead is also a great inspiration. I love mysteries and decoding stuff without someone spoon-feeding me. Not only does this give the player more freedom, but also gives him/her a sense of achievement and satisfaction. Music by Buckethead teaches me to enjoy the little things in life. I started to see the world differently. It's beautiful how songs with no vocals can still have influence.
Coming back to the first line, I have been playing games for so long and now, I have decided to finally make one. I want to do everything by myself from writing the code, creating art and music. I have very little knowledge of all the aspects of making a game so this would also be a good way to improve.
To design a game, you have to be open-minded. I consider myself to be an asshole but every day I am trying to be better. I am. I have been so arrogant and ignorant that every time I think about something of the past (that I would never do now), I just want to drop dead. I always hated music other than the traditional stuff, for example, electronic and despised others who listen to stuff that I don't listen to. I have been such an ignoramus and feel sad and pity for my past self. Games like SDV have got me thinking about synth music and its beauty. Everything is beautiful. Everything is different and what makes us different make us beautiful. Some of my friends (I don't even know how or why they want to be friends with someone like me but I am glad that they are/were) ask me why I always disappear and I always give some lame reply. But the real reason is that I want to get away from my past self and whatever I did. It's hard to face that. I want to start fresh. I want to be a ghost.
I am not a good artist, heck not even an average one. I am choosing pixel art because the entry-level to that is low compared to high-quality 2d or 3d. I have played guitar for more than 7 years but I am ashamed to say that I don't know anything about it. I just play. Some people have the natural ability to understand and do. Understand why some things are the way they are. I am on the other end of the spectrum.
I am afraid that I won't be able to complete this project. This is a very ambitious one. I am just working on an idea. I have a vision on how the game should play, feel, and look like but do not know how to get there. There is no roadmap, no goals; just progressing step by step. Building as I go in the hope that it will all come together hopefully.
I am lazier than 99% of the people. I lose motivation very quickly. My attention span is scarily low. For the past couple of months, I have even lost the motivation to wake up. For someone with these traits, it's hard to create a game. Creating a game is insanely difficult. So, this would be a challenge for me. I quit easily. I do not want to. I am going to set a target and will achieve it even if at any point, I feel like what I am making is terrible and not even worth the time. I need to push myself.
I am starting this series to inspire me to keep making the game regardless of people reading it or not. The more I invest in something, the more it is harder to get out and that is exactly what I am intending to do. I want to put my life into this that it should feel like my life depends on it. I am not looking for any commercial success or fame. I am not doing this to prove anything.
I am doing this for myself. To tell myself 20 years from now that I have made something, achieved something in life. Something worthy to even mention because sadly, I don't have anything right now.
“We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.”
― Confucius
My only dream before I die is to be genuinely proud of something I create and if it brings happiness to others too, I will be thrilled. I also want to make my parents proud who have been supporting me regardless of my ups and downs. I also want it to do it for them.
I will be documenting my work once in a while. I have set up the environment. As of now, using Lua and the love2d framework because I found it fairly straightforward. Tried multiple game engines, frameworks but love2d with Lua scored the goal for me. The gameplay style I am going for would be closer to Miyazaki-sans works.