Influences

The biggest influence on me to take up game development was playing Cave Story by Pixel Studios. There are so many things that hit the right notes for me in this game. The memorable characters (and their fantastic pixel art,) the incredible 8-bit music, the metroidvania gameplay, and the multiple endings all contribute to making this far more than just a retro rehash. I was floored when I found out that it was the work of one man, Daisuke Amaya, over a period of five years.

The Wikipedia entry for Cave Story has additional information, including links to download the game, and an English translation patch.

This also leads me into an interesting situation with Flash and Actionscript. After spending some time with learning it this week, it seems that working with sprites is really not its strong suit. I believe that it’s more geared towards vector graphics and animation, and that it would be difficult to realize the kind of pixel art I’d like to do. I believe that I’ll continue working with Flash for smaller games to start with, but may have to look at other additional languages/environments to achieve what I really want to do. It is a bit early to tell though.

I also found a great freeware MIDI composition tool called Anvil Studio. I used to compose a lot of electronica back in the day using MIDISoft Studio 3, and this looks to be a very similar tool. I think it will come in very handy for game music once I get to that point.

Murphy’s Law

It’s been a while since my last update. I had actually found a Network Engineer position with a local construction company which had taken up most of time. The position, naturally, fell into my lap the very moment that I really dedicated myself to learning game dev.

Oh, Murphy, and your inescapable laws of illogic.

So, game dev was put on hold… until now. I could certainly handle the 60+ hour weeks at the new job, but I draw the line at personal abuse. After talking things over with my wife, we decided that I would quit, and take the next year to try to make a go of game dev. It’s a huge step trying to live on just her salary, but we’re cutting out a lot of things. For instance, I’m giving up my car (and all the crazy expenses that come with it.) We’re both giving up much of our entertainment expenses, and we’re also probably going to be eating a lot of ramen. Good thing I developed a tolerance to it in my college years.

So, I decided that I’m done messing around with Game Maker, and have taken on Flash and Actionscript as my language of choice. My thoughts are, that I basically have this next year to make some money, and I think that Flash is going to be the quickest way to monetize my work. Game Maker was a great first step, and helped me to understand the core fundamentals of game design, but everything I’ve read leads me to believe that the real money comes from Flash sponsorships, and injecting ads.

I really think my wife is the greatest person in the world for believing in me, and giving me the chance to follow this path. I couldn’t be more excited.