Hunt for the Thessalhydra
About the game
- Company: - -
- Genre: Tactical RPG / Adventure
- Release Date: Not yet released (WIP)
About my work
There is a Chinese saying that goes: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. Or, in other words,
even if I can’t develop the game of my dreams today (I’m lacking the time, skills and money…) I can move in
the right direction. I think that if I ever find myself in the right conditions, I’ll be happy to have some
pre-work under my belt.
That’s how I started this project, which is essentially a tech demo. The story is an adaptation of a “Dungeons
& Dragons” adventure. The design is fully based on an established genre and I expect to not experiment at all.
The assets are bought from an “RPG Maker” pack. And the code is an amalgam of different tutorials that I’m
trying to put together. Despite all these shortcuts, the project has a considerable scope and it’s not an easy
feat to push it forward.
Because this is also the story of a creative type, struggling to find “me time” around the responsibilities of
my newfound paternity. With a wife, a dog and a toddler at home (very demanding, the three of them!) I am
stretched thinner than ever. But I feel this challenge ultimately is honing my patience, endurance and focus
…and hopefully I will emerge some day from the other side of the “diaperverse” with new “dad superpowers”.
I also found out that putting together a “soulless-tech-demo” is a much lighter burden than carrying a
specific vision for an original game. That is a great gift as, invariably, the hurdles of work and family
always take priority to my side projects and the development pace slows down to the crawl of a snail.
The “Hunt of the Thessalhydra” might be unambitious in some sense, but it will become a stepping stone toward
something much bigger in the future. After all, I realized hard work always pays off but often not in the way
you expect…
What I learned
- Learning that you can do meaningful work in just 1 hour with full focus. Don’t have much longer sessions!
- Stepping up my C# game with intermediate concepts (observer pattern, events, interfaces..).
- Not planning much ahead helps keep the project fun and light on my shoulders.
What I'm proud of
- …it’s a bit early to tell. It’s just work in progress!
+ Combat cutscenes are inspired by “Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade” (GBA) as that is the cheapest solution compared to other tactical RPG’s.
+ I’m working on a solid “dialogue system” to support the narrative portions of the game.
+ In terms of gameplay depth and production values I’m looking at the venerable “Shining Force” for “Sega Genesis”.
+ To keep things manageable, I’m keeping track of every single class in the project.
Handcrafted with HTML <∕> & CSS { }
