Hey everyone, I haven’t been updating this website since 2021 so it’s been a while. I wanted to let everyone know how my game dev has been going.

Over the years I have created a few prototypes and this post will cover them. Most of the time these projects failed due to lack of early planning, scope, lack of experience with unity, story writing struggles, and features that ultimately don’t work out.

Alaina2D

Development time Oct 2021 to Feb 2022.

Overview

The current story is of a post-civil war Gomora where you play as Alaina, who, tries to get back to the stars. Most of the game would be exploring the planet and finding the lost pirate king’s treasure buried somewhere on the planet. I started learning Unity Nov 2019 which other posts on this blog cover and this game has evolved along with me so it has changed a lot.

Features:

Turn base combat with equipment that changes your appearance. The map unlocks as you explore it and a relationship system.

Issues:

For this game, it became too much work for one person. I struggled with the story I wanted to tell and most of my time was spent on art. I had a few ideas for the story, so the game kept changing and the lure of 3D became too strong.

For the Darklord v1

Development time Sept 2021 to April 2022

Overview:

This was my second attempt at a 3D project. I wanted this game to be a 3D adventure game like Wizardry 8. The goal was to build a team of monsters to attack the land of man. It was supposed to be a silly game, where you could attack a villager or some heroes, as you play as a team of unimportant monsters.

Features:

I had character customization, talking portraits that cheer when they crited emenier. A stargate style teleporters where you would have to input a code to travel a new location. You would have to unlock these code in the main game.

Issues:

The scope was too large, and my lack of skill in Unity 3D made it impossible to finish the project. I also didn’t have clear goals so once I completed the talk portraits and the simple battle system; I was ready to move on.

Alaina3D

Development time Sept 2022 to April 2024

Overview:

The goal of this game was to make a Persona 4 space adventure where you would explore changing dungeons called “void zones” and during your downtime, you would spend time with your crew and form bonds with them.

Features:

The dungeons randomize and there are special floors that stay the same for cutscene /story beat reasons. There was a daytime system that would change the postprocessing effect depending on the time of day (morning, afternoon, evening, and night). Time would move forward only when the player chooses an activity to do (like hanging out with a crew member, building a new part for the ship, or going into the dungeon). There was a persona 4 personality system that could be leveled up. This personality system would allow you to switch jobs in the later game. There was a job system that played like Final Fantasy X-2 where you unlock skills the more battles you won. In total there were 21 job classes, you only got to choose between starter classes (Solder, Assistant, Mechanic) at the start of the game. Each job had about 12 skills, everything from active damage skills to passive buff against enemy types.

Issues:

All the game features didn’t work well together. The daytime system clashed with the job system progression. Personality stats added another level of complexity if one wanted to change the job class of a party member. Your role as a crew member instead of captain made sense for ship duties but not in the context of crafting new parts for the ship. The ship was also way too big (3 decks with an elevator, each room was supposed to host different ship activities and there was a hanger bay to travel to the dungeon). In the end, the ship needed a small layout to make it feel like a pirate ship. This was fixed with the newest version of the game but it broke the main quest line and all the cutscenes connected to the original ship design. The story was ultimately what killed the project for me because it had to work with the original Star Girls lore, but the new lore I had created for this game didn’t match.

SideNote: I think if I were to fix this game I would have to make it a linear progression and cut the persona 4 DNA out of it because it just doesn’t work with a space setting. I would also have to recon all the lore about Star Girls and Captain Spirit from the origin game.

Alaina 3D baldur’s gate 3 version

Development time Sept 2023 to March 2024

Overview:

After playing and beating Baldur’s Gate 3 I wanted to create a game that looked closer to that. So I decided to take time off the original Alaina3D project to get the excitment out of my system.

Features:

The new features included weapon base animation depending on what you have equipped; so you could dual-wield pistols or small melee weapons. I turned the combat into a D&D 5e system, heavily inspired by Dragon Age origins and KOTOR. This meant less combat skills and no job class compared to the original project. The player can take control of their party members in the world and have them do different skill checks on interactable objects.

Issues:

The only issue I ran into was changing from an open-world map ( like Tales games) to a Baldur’s Gate 2 style where the map is locked into zones and only by exiting each zone in the correct direction do you unlock another part of the map. This is the same style of map as Alaina2D. I decided to change it because the open world was a bit much for the scope. If I were to return to this project, I would probably make it into a fantasy game.

Currently in Development

For the Dark lord v2

Overview:

This is my longest-developed game. Like the first version, you play as a group of monsters but this time you want to resurrect the dark lord to save the darklands from the forces of light. You would explore each dungeon and collect the artifacts needed to bring back your savor.

Features:

You buy crafting books from a travel merchant found in the dungeons. You can start with “used pair of underwear” and level it up 6 times to be “dragon underwear” +60. I did this because you can craft the next level item with the previous one and if you spend the resources to enhance it to the max, the modification will transfer over to the new item saving you resources. The crappy sword you got at the begin of the game has the ability to slay a god if you upgrade it enough. There’s going to be six dungeons (right now 3ish are completed) that explore the world of goodly creatures and fight off enemies that you would normally ally with in other games. This means you start at the Dark Lord’s castle and make your way to the human capital while fighting dwarfs, elves, guards, and the hero’s party. There is also a faction system but I am probably going to rework it because, in its current state, it adds a lot more work to write a unique story faction quest.

Issues:

This game has also changed a lot. It went from an adventure game where you explored an abandoned castle of the dark lord to gain access to the portal to recover chaos shards located in the world beyond them. I associate this version designed like “Spyro 2 Ripto’s Rage” because it is very similar to World Hub.
The current version is suffering from story stucturing, which I hope to resolve soon. Basically, I want the dungeon to tell a story and the game to have a mystery that unfolds as you play because I want the players to be excited for each new floor of the dungeon and what secret they will find.

My current situation.

I usually have two games in development this gives me short deliverables at the end of each month. I have about 15ish days for each project per month. This keeps me super focused and prevents burnout on one project. The last +2 years have been Darklord v2 and Alaina 3D. I put Alaina 3D on hold and started another game for the issue stated above so I am prototyping a new game. We will see how it goes because I became a father 4 months ago and this is the first time I’ve been able to work normally.

It has been a real treat to open these old project in Unity play them again to get those screenshots. I really wish I could spend the time fix them to so they could be enjoy by public as intended because there is something there. Unfortunatly, I am just one Game dev with very little limited time.