CHAPTER 1 DEVELOPMENT (MARCH 2020 - OCTOBER 2022)

And now that the obligatory post-launch patch has been uplaoded, i can finally say chapter 1's development has been completely finished, unless something else comes up in the future that requires my attention but that's a story for another day.

There it is, my very first fully solo developed game, working on it since March 2020, needless to say this game went through crazy evolution, it's insane how much i grew as a writer, artist, composer and programmer in the span of two years thanks to this project...

which means, the early days were pretty ROUGH, there's a lot of stuff i would rather not share due to how terrible it was, but looking at the entire journey is quite fascinating to me, but enough introductions, without further ado, let me share the entire experience.

a major difference worth mentioning is, the game's music back then was all 8-bit, composed in famitracker,

The early days (March 2020 - November 2020)

Alright, this is where the journey begins, so where did i get the motivation to start creating the game and go through this journey? Well, i have no idea honestly, my latest game was still Factory Crash, my Game Dev knowledge wasn't even mediocre yet, but that didn't stop me, one day i woke up, created a new project and started developing.

The engine i used back then was NOT Game Maker Studio 2, it was... Game Maker 8.1 (For comparison, 8,1 launched 11 years ago, it was VERY obsolete compared to the current engine), i've been prototyping the game for 3 months, trying to build the very core and the essence of the game, then i finally started its development in June.

So, how did the game look so far? Well...

This...

This was the best i could manage back then, and i mean the BEST, like 100% effort.
Somehow this made me feel hopeful for the game, then again, it was just the beginning.

So i started development for the prologue, this time it took me FIVE months, and it was not even close to 30 minutes of gameplay.
Well, after i finished the prologue i finally made the switch to Game Maker Studio 2, boy i'm GLAD i did, the difference between the two versions is night and day.

Anyway, i spent the rest of November porting everything i did in the new engine, this is where the early days conclude.

The first revamp (November 2020 - December 2021)

Now that game development finally started, i decided to rush a simple demo to send to my friends before the new year (2021), needless to say it was a big disaster.

That didn't stop me though, i still pushed on and made like 2/3 of the entire chapter, not only i uploaded the soundtrack on youtube, but i even uploaded a trailer!

...the moment that trailer uploaded, May 2021, that's where everything changed.
One day, while the game was proceeding, my friend said these exact words:
"now detail the grass"
I however, did not stop with the grass.
For some reason these words were enough to single-handedly motivate me to revamp the entire game's graphics, i went through EVERYTHING i've created and upgraded it, took months to do it as well!

How was the upgrade? Let me show you...

Well...

This was roughly how this upgrade looked, okay sure it still wasn't enough and it still pales in comparison to what i have today but it was an interesting upgrade nonetheless.

Enter September 2021, i finally finished the entire chapter, it was fully playable...

...or not.

Once again, i let my friend play through the entire game, and uh...
Whoops.
The graphics were ridiculous, just like i said before, the music was ear piercing, the writing... Yeah that may not have been good but it was overshadowed by everything else, that's how bad it was.
The final level too... That was so unfair it was straight up infuriating.

I took a 3 month break, for better or worse, I began development once again December 2021...

Finalization (December 2021 - October 2022)

After picking development back up, i decided to revamp the whole game once again.

The graphics finally became what you now see in the front page.

The music was no longer 8-bit, i picked up FLStudio early 2022 and started experimenting with it, until i decided to remake everything i composed. Some of the tracks were even remade twice after i was fully used to the new DAW.

The game's script was completely rewritten.

Without even realizing it, i had grown so much as an Artist, Composer, Writer, Game Developer, all in the span of these two years, i still feel like i'm not doing this evolution justice, perhaps i'll cover more details in a future video.

Finished the game July 2022 and sent another demo to my friend, now we're talking, the game was finally looking good, actually being fun.
After 3 months of Quality Assurance, chapter one was complete, the game was finally released.

And now, here i am, writing this post mortem, the development journey is still long, but so far i can say i had a blast growing as a game developer, i don't know how many people are going to see this, i'm fully expecting the worst and preparing to see the game lost in the vast sea of forgotten games, but if you're here reading this, i seriously hope that when you download and play the game you will have as much fun as i had developing it.

One last thing, if you ever feel like you're getting nowhere with your hobby/skills, please don't give up, as i said before i never even realized my growth while developing the game, if you keep going one day you will reach peaks you once felt were unreachable.

That is all, see you in Chapter 2.