I'm Back!!! The Ancient Archives Published!

Before you read this post, pretty please! Play the game and Enjoy! :D

I was supposed to return last year in the same month: November. Unfortunately, my laptop screen broke and I have no monitor as a backup so everything that I've been working was halted and I had to revert back to other projects or works that I'm making that can be done traditionally.

I'm going to use my previous dev log format for this one and yeah, let's start!

So what pushed me to create this game and managed to finish it?

This has so many inspirations which can be found in the credits of the actual game and I really want to express it. And I know, a lot of people are so over this "concept". But I'm confident that this is going to be my style if people ask me what kind of games or stories or art I like making. It's materializing and reflecting in every works that I'm currently working on or topics I'm following and digging deep in. Don't get me wrong, I have to be good first in doing self-contained or grounded games (I like making those too because it's the starting point and the foundation) but moving forward, this concept - the tying of it all - is probably what is going to define me. (If my games become popular, that is). 

And I can't believe, once again, that I finished this game. It still blows my mind that I can do this. Finishing a game is one thing, sharing your journey while you play the game is another story, but creating the game? I think it's awesome and I'm very amazed, especially to those who are making their first games on unity and unreal because I've tried that and it's so overwhelming that I decided to do the rags-to-riches type of improvement and started with Twine.

What went right

To my surprise, everything. I successfully translated the vision that I have for this game. 3 games bundled into one full game. First game being plain text, second game having a crucial part with an audio for atmosphere, and the third game having both a visual and a looped music for atmosphere and just to give the players of what the scenario looks like and not just saying it. And yes! I've worked hard on all of the visuals, it took 3 months for me to finish it because I had to make slight revisions on where to put it because I need to be wise since this is going to be my first official canon game. (I'll explain this in conclusion).

I was really happy as I tested the game and seeing the full picture. All of my stress and pains in working on this game, and all of my worries and problems I forgot for an hour. I was genuinely proud of myself.

What I learned

I get to know more about how sugarcube works and utilize the stylesheet for designing every page. I was actually planning to make this game in harlowe but I found out early that they don't have the typing feature, so I ended up choosing sugarcube again. I was scared at first because of the fact that while yes, I'm happy and proud to make my first game, it wasn't as great of a game that I am making it out to be in my previous dev-log. It has a lot of room for improvement and just thinking of that scared me, because what if I failed in improving?

This game is the proof that I am improving in pixel art as well. I started with using colors but it was advised by James Brandon Greer, a pixel artist that I was learning from and following, to start with 1-bit because it will help you in choosing the right color, not only for light and shadows of the asset you are making, but also with the main color. I am 50/50 with writing though, hahaha.

First off, I don't know how this will be perceived once it becomes posted, it may be bad, maybe decent, or good. This really challenged me because I want to make a story that sure, it has that "mysterious" element but I also want it to make sense. (I learned very well in my first game). To this day, from time to time, I'm brewing some ideas not only for the next game and how to connect it to this one, but also the possible entire future story that starts with this game. Yes, this is official, the first game in the slate. As for Nathan Jenkins, I really like that character so I'm going to change his story and introduce him properly in a well-crafted future story. Aperture is now a draft/one-off game.

Let me not forget, just because I'm making this kind of game doesn't mean that I'm not open to self-contained/one-off games. I do want to make one but maybe once I've learned another engine? We'll see.

I can see future potential problems for my next game and I'm worried a little about how this will come across but I really enjoyed making this project. I think that's the beauty of spending time with working on things like this. So, if you're like me who has a game, story, animation, music, etc. that you are working on, this is your reminder that that is VALUABLE and WORTHY, no matter how simple or how small it is. It's a great time artifact, you'll look back on your first project and recall its difference from your recent work and evaluate yourself, not only as a person but also your skill in that field. Just looking back on my first project as I was typing this is bending my mind lolololol

So, there you go! If you ever read all the way down here, thank you. I appreciate it. Comment if you've resonated or learned something. 

For now, I'll let myself loose - have fun, do whatever what I want, catch up on some shows that I stopped watching and of course, plan my next game.

Until then, support other indie devs! See ya! :D

- Hiraya