I’ve been streaming on Twitch about my game for a few years. And that’s fine, but words are good. I’m very writerly, if not a proper Writer. So I figure I’ll consolidate my thoughts in a “dev journal” which will tend to overlap with stream content a little.
To quickly describe the game, I’ll reuse our Steam Store page text:
A puzzle-based adventure where you play a character that finds herself pitted against God. Explore a hand-crafted world of clever, grid-based puzzles that require logical thinking to solve.
There’s a nice trailer and a bunch of screenshots up on the Steam Store page if you want to see some more.
Current Status
As I write this, on April 8th, 2021, the game plays from beginning to end, the engine features are done, and we’ve put hundreds of hours into playtesting and bugfixes. If you played the game for a few hours, you might even be fooled into thinking it was done.
In the time between now and the January 1st ’22 release date, I aim to do the following:
* Finish the story content of the game, which uses a unique responsive dialogue system I want to tell you about.
* Record and integrate hours of voiceover content with a cast of talented actors.
* Add 2D animated face illustrations from Bettina Throckmorton, which uses a cool facial animation system that I built from scratch.
* Write a bunch of music. Some of it with sung vocals. Some of it interactive.
* Whip this puppy into shape with a 3-month beta period starting in September.
About Me
I’m old! 48, I think. (I have to keep checking my age because it changes all the time.) I know lots of stuff because I’m old. But I’m sure I forgot a bunch of stuff too. So it balances out.
I created the DROD or Deadly Rooms of Death series of puzzle games. Somebody called it the “Dark Souls of puzzle games”, because it’s frigging hard. But if you love puzzles, and get a bit upset when a “puzzle” game throws weak sauce at you, well… stick, with me, kid. The Godkiller has proper puzzles galore, with an aversion to reusing well-known game mechanics.
I worked as a professional game dev for Webfoot Technologies back in the oughts, releasing a bunch of card games, a few match-3 games, and Dragonball Z: Buu’s Fury. And I ran a voiceover studio for a year, where we almost, but did not quite, voice Thimbleweed Park. Impressive, eh? If you look at my life, you’ll see I’m very almost-successful.
I make code, sound effects music, prose, 2D art, 3D models, level designs, and project plans. Like a good generalist, I’m not exceptional at any of these things. And at some, the mediocrity weighs on my soul. But here and there, I get a little cross-functional bump that let’s me make something extra-cool, like an interactive song that responds to a player’s movement inside a level. The “Master of None” curse is one of the better ones to acquire.
My Team
In typical indie fashion, there’s one person doing almost all the work. Yeah, that’s me. But I have a small group of contractors and volunteers helping me out.
* face art and illustrations – Bettina Throckmorton
* 3D character models – Isaac Lima
* additional 3D models – Ian Zimmerman
* playtesters – Alex Harby, Matt Schikore, Linus Hamilton, Dan Pugh
* marketing – Alex Harby
* song vocals – Joseph DeNatale (more to be cast)
* VO actors – Chelsea Blackwell, Kyle Chrise (more to be cast)
Coming Up
I’ve already got a bunch of features in the game engine that I feel like bragging about. I’ll disguise this bragging as the passing on of knowledge. But seriously, I think I figured out some cool stuff that not many other people are doing. And I’m happy to share.
Also, as I’ve finished nearly all the game coding, the rest of this year will have a lot of stuff about creating and integrating media at the indie scale. I love the “How To” form of writing, so whenever possible, I’ll use that to make my experiences transferrable. I’d rather write a “How to Run a Successful VO Session” thing instead of “my VO session happened and it was cool”.
 |
The Godkiller – Chapter 1 is a 3D puzzle-solving adventure game available for Windows and Mac on Steam! |