To tie in with the upcoming demo release of our recently announced RPG game, we've decided to document some of the hardships we've endured during the game design process. As our game isn't your everyday sandbox RPG, we’ll not only be covering the coding aspects which have gone into Foul Fantasy, but also some of the inspirations and character biographies which will hopefully bring the Thepen Islands to life.
As our gaming department is, at the core, a two man team, this series of blogs will be written by both Joe and me, The Cunt. Joe has opted to have his parts highlighted in a beautiful shade of pink to differentiate between the two of us in later blogs.
This way, it will be easier for us to argue about who wrote the best bits.
As our gaming department is, at the core, a two man team, this series of blogs will be written by both Joe and me, The Cunt. Joe has opted to have his parts highlighted in a beautiful shade of pink to differentiate between the two of us in later blogs.
This way, it will be easier for us to argue about who wrote the best bits.
So, what goes into making your first video game? Read on to find out!
The Initial Concept
The thing about designing and making a video game is; it's as frustrating as hell. Ten hours of work can yield three minutes of gameplay. By the same token, ten hours of work can also yield no progress and an extra ten hours worth of problems to fix. When we first had the idea to make a video game, ease of use was the main school of thought when it came to actually making it. I was the only person in the group with any coding or game development experience, and that had came over ten years ago in Java and using Div games studio (incidentally to make a cavalcade of dog-shit R-Type clones and an RPG that involved trying not to get caught wanking in your parents’ bedroom). So, with our wealth of inexperience and/or being completely out of practice we thought fuck it, we can do this. So we chose RPG Maker as our weapon of choice and started going for it.
RPG Maker is a very strange tool, it is powerful in one respect, but in another it is a little bit limiting. Being the industrious types that we are, we decided to ensure that we did not allow the limitations to... well, limit us. Fortunately, for what we wanted to achieve with this game, it is more than ample. While we are ambitious, we're also pragmatic. This is our first game, it won't be something as varied and huge and graphically impressive as Skyrim or Grand Theft Auto. What it will have however is a strong story, good comedy writing and interesting characters.
RPG Maker is a very strange tool, it is powerful in one respect, but in another it is a little bit limiting. Being the industrious types that we are, we decided to ensure that we did not allow the limitations to... well, limit us. Fortunately, for what we wanted to achieve with this game, it is more than ample. While we are ambitious, we're also pragmatic. This is our first game, it won't be something as varied and huge and graphically impressive as Skyrim or Grand Theft Auto. What it will have however is a strong story, good comedy writing and interesting characters.
An Insight into the World of Foul Fantasy
We’ll be using this Dev Diary to offer small insights into what this game will entail, how it is progressing and how it is impacting on me (The Cunt, oddly enough quite a cunt-ish person) as a person. This first entry will be a small one, mainly because I am working on the damn game. So here are five snippets of information about the game, three things about how it is progressing and one thing about its impact on me.
Five things about the game:
1. It's a story about a whiny young man, his perverted friend and what his Uncle asks them to do.
2. The quests in it range from the serious, taking out an evil wizard who is raising the dead, to the ridiculous, fetching your Uncle's special pills because he is banned from the shop.
3. There are a lot of hidden homages to other games in there. Either in the form of characters or comments.
4. It is most definitely not for children, it is rude and crude and does not hide the fact.
5. There is more than one way to do things in the game world, more than one set of dialogue for you to unlock and the obvious way is always the most boring.
Three things about progress:
1. The game is currently very close to first playable stage. A demo will be released very soon.
2. My to do list currently comprises of the following “ 20, 21, 22, 24, 25 and 27”
3. Screenshots of gameplay are currently being released through the twitter of one of the game characters (@JaryFoulFantasy if you're interested)
One thing about me:
1. It's made me wonder why I ever stopped coding. It's made me start using the Div games studio of today, Unity, and it means that all future games will have very few limitations apart from what our brains are capable of coming up with.
Five things about the game:
1. It's a story about a whiny young man, his perverted friend and what his Uncle asks them to do.
2. The quests in it range from the serious, taking out an evil wizard who is raising the dead, to the ridiculous, fetching your Uncle's special pills because he is banned from the shop.
3. There are a lot of hidden homages to other games in there. Either in the form of characters or comments.
4. It is most definitely not for children, it is rude and crude and does not hide the fact.
5. There is more than one way to do things in the game world, more than one set of dialogue for you to unlock and the obvious way is always the most boring.
Three things about progress:
1. The game is currently very close to first playable stage. A demo will be released very soon.
2. My to do list currently comprises of the following “ 20, 21, 22, 24, 25 and 27”
3. Screenshots of gameplay are currently being released through the twitter of one of the game characters (@JaryFoulFantasy if you're interested)
One thing about me:
1. It's made me wonder why I ever stopped coding. It's made me start using the Div games studio of today, Unity, and it means that all future games will have very few limitations apart from what our brains are capable of coming up with.
Thanks for reading! Next time, we'll be talking about character inspiration, world building and Freddy's shit tattoos!
By The Cunt
Email The Cunt
A hidden face of the crew, The Cunt is main coder for the Foul Entertainment Gaming department. He is currently documenting the progress of our game, Foul Fantasy, in his dev blogs.
Email The Cunt
A hidden face of the crew, The Cunt is main coder for the Foul Entertainment Gaming department. He is currently documenting the progress of our game, Foul Fantasy, in his dev blogs.