It suddenly occurred to me that I've referenced this about 7 bazillion times on here, but I've never REALLY shown it or fully talked about it.
So, yeah. The game I made, called Starward Rogue. Well, to be more accurate, the game I worked on as part of a team.
I ended up having a much larger role in this than I'd originally thought I would. I was contracted to primarily handle enemy design; I ended up outright controlling half of the bloody project. Reason being, I was the one who knew the most about the two genres that this game fits into (roguelike, and bullet-hell shmup), so... yeah. I had control most of the time.
As for what I personally created, my role in terms of content creation was enemy design, boss design, balancing, and many aspect of room/level design. While the game uses procedural levels, those levels are created out of pre-made rooms (and there are a few hundred of those). Also I kept telling others on the team what NOT to do. No, the player wasnt getting recharging shields, and that's final, dagnabit. I must have repeated THAT line like 50 times during development.
There was a LOT to do. There's some absolutely stupid number of boss fights in the game... I just kept making them whenever I had an idea for one.
Here, a gameplay example, showcasing one of the many, many bosses I created:
The only aspect of that boss that I DIDNT make was the art assets. The rest of it is all mine.
This particular video is actually a sort of unreleased prototype fight... it was meant for the game's most ridiculous difficulty mode, which was in fact titled "Misery Mode" (and no, I didnt come up with that name. It's also not the only game by that developer to have a mode by that name. And yes, it was named after me in the games it appears in). I ended up calling this mode off when I realized that I'd have to do the ENTIRE BLOODY THING myself, because I was the only one capable of even TESTING it at this difficulty. And really, it would have just been too much for 99% of players. A lot of players had enough trouble getting anywhere in the normal mode. Seriously, I didnt really hold back much when designing this stuff. I always say, my real role in this was just to kill the player over and over. While TECHNICALLY being totally fair about it at all times. I made sure of that.
Overall, the game has a lot of bullet-hell elements (duh) but is also VERY heavily inspired by The Binding of Isaac, AKA my favorite game of all time. Every single part of the game has Isaac's influence instilled into it. A huge part of Isaac is finding all sorts of wild items and creating crazy character builds, and this game involves that too (though the video shows none of that).
An odd side effect of this whole thing was that I ended up making a few new online friends when the game released. Which includes someone who had played it for over 500 hours.
The game actually reviewed quite well, but didnt SELL very well. As is the fate of far too many indie games on Steam, it was simply drowned out by the sheer number of them. I cant tell you how much I hate when that happens. I dont mean with games I'm involved with... I just mean with really great games in general that I often find, but they get little attention overall.
The game actually received a couple of expansions, so that was neat.
It's not the only game I've been involved in. This was actually my second contract; my first, by the same developer, was another game that involved bullet-hell elements (and that's exactly why they asked for my help). That one was sooooooo much harder to do. It's hard to explain what that game was like, but... it was like a sort of turn-based yet real-time thing, with bullet hell elements and a player ship with a hitbox the size of Texas. That was... so much harder to design for.
As for other things I've been involved in, much of what I've done is what I usually call "deep testing". Heck, there's another indie game that actually got a Switch release, where I'm in the credits of it, as I was one of two main testers & troubleshooters during that one's development (that game is named Unexplored). Also more MMO-related beta testing than I want to think about (which is where I got started with any of this). THAT was a long time ago though. Been so long since I've even played one...
Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, so that's that.
So, yeah. The game I made, called Starward Rogue. Well, to be more accurate, the game I worked on as part of a team.
I ended up having a much larger role in this than I'd originally thought I would. I was contracted to primarily handle enemy design; I ended up outright controlling half of the bloody project. Reason being, I was the one who knew the most about the two genres that this game fits into (roguelike, and bullet-hell shmup), so... yeah. I had control most of the time.
As for what I personally created, my role in terms of content creation was enemy design, boss design, balancing, and many aspect of room/level design. While the game uses procedural levels, those levels are created out of pre-made rooms (and there are a few hundred of those). Also I kept telling others on the team what NOT to do. No, the player wasnt getting recharging shields, and that's final, dagnabit. I must have repeated THAT line like 50 times during development.
There was a LOT to do. There's some absolutely stupid number of boss fights in the game... I just kept making them whenever I had an idea for one.
Here, a gameplay example, showcasing one of the many, many bosses I created:
The only aspect of that boss that I DIDNT make was the art assets. The rest of it is all mine.
This particular video is actually a sort of unreleased prototype fight... it was meant for the game's most ridiculous difficulty mode, which was in fact titled "Misery Mode" (and no, I didnt come up with that name. It's also not the only game by that developer to have a mode by that name. And yes, it was named after me in the games it appears in). I ended up calling this mode off when I realized that I'd have to do the ENTIRE BLOODY THING myself, because I was the only one capable of even TESTING it at this difficulty. And really, it would have just been too much for 99% of players. A lot of players had enough trouble getting anywhere in the normal mode. Seriously, I didnt really hold back much when designing this stuff. I always say, my real role in this was just to kill the player over and over. While TECHNICALLY being totally fair about it at all times. I made sure of that.
Overall, the game has a lot of bullet-hell elements (duh) but is also VERY heavily inspired by The Binding of Isaac, AKA my favorite game of all time. Every single part of the game has Isaac's influence instilled into it. A huge part of Isaac is finding all sorts of wild items and creating crazy character builds, and this game involves that too (though the video shows none of that).
An odd side effect of this whole thing was that I ended up making a few new online friends when the game released. Which includes someone who had played it for over 500 hours.
The game actually reviewed quite well, but didnt SELL very well. As is the fate of far too many indie games on Steam, it was simply drowned out by the sheer number of them. I cant tell you how much I hate when that happens. I dont mean with games I'm involved with... I just mean with really great games in general that I often find, but they get little attention overall.
The game actually received a couple of expansions, so that was neat.
It's not the only game I've been involved in. This was actually my second contract; my first, by the same developer, was another game that involved bullet-hell elements (and that's exactly why they asked for my help). That one was sooooooo much harder to do. It's hard to explain what that game was like, but... it was like a sort of turn-based yet real-time thing, with bullet hell elements and a player ship with a hitbox the size of Texas. That was... so much harder to design for.
As for other things I've been involved in, much of what I've done is what I usually call "deep testing". Heck, there's another indie game that actually got a Switch release, where I'm in the credits of it, as I was one of two main testers & troubleshooters during that one's development (that game is named Unexplored). Also more MMO-related beta testing than I want to think about (which is where I got started with any of this). THAT was a long time ago though. Been so long since I've even played one...
Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, so that's that.
