GameMaking

Hello Lovelies,

I hadn't intended on really saying anything further with regards to my GameMaker shenanigans other than the quick explanation the other day, but I was surprised to find I had several emails and messages waiting for me regarding just that.

In quick summary, the main questions I got were "Have you ever studied game design before?", "How do you actually make games?", and "What kind of game are you making?" There were a couple others, but these were the main ones, so I figured I'd throw it out there real quick.

First and foremost, here's the short answer to the first two questions: "No" and "Painfully".

Now for the long answer: I've never designed games before nor have I had any official training/schooling. Instead, I've always had a minor interest due to my love of video games in general. When presented with the opportunity because of the aforementioned deal at HumbleBundle, I just kind of figured 'Why the hell not? Let's play with it.'

What I found once I started was that I had genuinely no idea what the hell I was doing with the technology. I might have just left it at that except that I had a little free time and decided to do some digging. Now, several days later, I've lost count how many tutorials I've viewed, how many articles I've flipped through, and how many references I've read. I've even started taking notes of different code strings and functions to make things do what I want to do. As such, a lot of my time has spent going "What do I want to do? This. Ok, now to figure out HOW to do that."

So, to reiterate: making anything has been very painful and consisted of a lot of hunting for information from my coding-betters. But also very rewarding. There's something deeply satisfying about having a vision and seeing it come to life after hours of figuring out the code. It's akin to finding just the right puzzle pieces to make the picture the much more complete.

But it all boils back to the same question: "What kind of game are you making?"

As mentioned before, I'm not a game designer. Lord knows if anything will actually see the light of day and I've actually been playing with several different projects just as a means of better understanding how to program the game, but the game I actually have in mind is right up my regular alley.

I'd like to design an interactive horror story.

The basic concept I have is taking any of my given writing and immersing the reader in it. To provide a platform to make it less about some other and make it instead about the reader. They will then be exposed to a 'choose your own story' sort of narrative that will lead them down branching paths based on the decisions that they make with multiple endings depending on what the reader decided to do. I will likely include interactive elements outside of just reading and choosing path A or path B, but the end goal is to create an immersive narrative that will get a reader's heart pumping and their brain buzzing.

Currently, it's a sci-fi thriller set on a spaceship designed for android phones. This platform would allow a reader to enjoy it like they would a book or e-reader but instead of simply reading, they get to dive into the story first hand.

At this point, I've only designed the initial start menu and cutscenes, but the more I work the more comfortable I am and the faster things are moving. There are dozens of things that need to be accounted for, not to mention acquiring artwork, sound effects, building branching paths, and actually writing the story itself.

Still, it's enrapturing.

I haven't given it too much thought yet, but depending on how well received the concept is, I was considering creating a blog at the absolute least for the project; if not maybe some sort of funding or assistance. We'll see.

Love you all,

- RB