Yesterday, I released my very first game - more on that in My First Finished Game - Hypersensitivosaurus - Wanna Play? - and I immediately felt like continuing with my venture into game making. There's three important reasons for this that are closely related:
I felt good when I made this game and shared the process
I felt good when I released this game
I felt good after having released hypersensitivosaurus
( and even more, after people's responses )
One thing that really helped, was my game making brother and his ( game making ) girlfriend giving me a call, after having played my game. They told me - enthusiastically - how much they liked it and gave me plenty of important and constructive feedback. But, mainly, they told me that they enjoyed playing it, recognized a lot of 'me' in it.
I'm not gonna lie. If they wouldn't have liked it, it would have affected me quite a lot ( being a hypersensitivosaurus and all ). It's hard for me not to give a fck about what people think of me, let alone those close to me. Yes, even after having read the book 'The Subtle Art of How to Not Give a Fck', I still give a fck ( being sensitive and all ).
One thing that clearly stayed with me, from that particular phone call, is my brother mentioning that he liked the character 'hypersensitivosaurus' so much that he wouldn't mind seeing it starring in some kind of follow up game. I'll take that as a compliment. Even more, as the hypersensitivosaurus is based on me and my hypersensitivity. My overthinking and all that jazz.
Then, today, I saw the following post by @juliakponsford Art Explosion - Theme 'Dark'. I have been wanting ( and even promised ) to partake in the Art Explosion contest for a long, long time. But - one way or another - I never did. I guess I never really felt like much of an artist and I wasn't really into contests, as I don't like competing with others. Nowadays though, I'm not ashamed of showing off my creativity. Whether it's painting, film making or game making, I love to share the process with the ( online) world.
Therefore I informed Julia that I plan to partake in the contest and this time with a game. The main character of the game is gonna be the 'hypersensitivosaurus', an overly sensitive giant lizard. The theme will be dark. Interestingly, darkness already played a part in my previous game.
So, what I did today, is opening up the Bitsy game editor and loading the game data of my last game. The plan is to change this data in such a way ( adding and deleting rooms and all kind of stuff ) that it turns into a new game. This way, I don't need to make an entire game from scratch. I can, for instance, use the same character ( avatar ) that I used in my last game, without needing to draw all its pixels again.
Here's a short GIF of what I am trying to explain and what I did today. It was merely a test. I designed a new tile ( with flickering flames ) and changed some ( invisible walls ). The ( part of the ) introductory text that you see here is still the same as that in the original 'hypersensitivosaurus game. I changed the title to 'Alone in the Darkosaur' though.
Alright, that's it for today. I am excited to continue working on my second ( dinosaur ) game. This time the game will be part of a Steemit contest, instead of a game making jam outside of Steemit. It helps to have a deadline though, in a week and a half.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Thanks again ( to all responsible ) for the feedback, upvotes and overall positive energy. It really motivates me to continue with this creative adventure. Have a great weekend!
P.S. In case you're interested in trying your hands on game making, here's a link to the Bitsy Editor: https://ledoux.itch.io/bitsy
Feel free to ask me any questions.