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Make It Game

 Hello. C J here. I know the planet kind of went through a thing a while ago. It’s kind of still going through quite a lot, really. Now I do not comment on politics here but assume I know just about everything going on in the public eye the world over. I keep up to date on news from politics to economics to gaming. Really, these things are related. It’s one world, after all.

I am guessing that with all of this we all haven’t had the time to play games much. I make games. I want them to be ready for when people need them. But how do you get back into playing games after a long time away? I’m facing this right now as a person. I just don’t have the stamina for them I did before I spent several years away from them writing the core rules of six tabletop games. 

Now there are some great games out there. The Google Play store in particular has some stellar looking titles these days, most of them free to play with paid cosmetic or level packs. This is a fine model for a game to work on. Video games, and games in general, have a ton of health benefits. Cognitive health is top ranking among them but also hand eye coordination and stress management.

I’m a game designer and I’m looking into moving my game projects over to GDevelop because it’s easier to use than some of the other software I’ve worked with and can actually make Android games, which is where all the money is these days. I want to make some smaller games with smaller world maps and simpler mechanics before I move onto making my masterpiece, Dragon Engine.

I think this is a realistic goal. I need level maps first though. Good. Level maps are my specialty. I might sell them on the game software’s marketplace after I’m done making them. I make my level maps out of modular pieces I call tiles for the ground, roads, floors, walls and clutter elements. Nothing is a heightmap. The whole of the world levels are hand made using these pieces.

I have hand drawn digital soft pastel wood, stone and road textures that I am going to use for the colours and then it’s just trivially simple shapes that I can jigsaw puzzle together into a beautiful and realistic looking set of maps. The software handles AI for you and I can use the same modular shape system to make or decorate the other monsters and characters in the game.

Making a couple small games first seems like the best option. I can get back into games with my own games made the way I want them to be made. I’m not putting in levelling, menus, or crafting for these. I just want simple combo based hack and slash, absolutely no stun lock ever because it sucks and some unlockable extra spells or moves from beating the game’s optional bosses.

I’m definitely doing open world and I’m easily able to voice any dialogue I need myself. I have tons of characters I own and I’ll probably just use The Astral Ten as a pool of main characters to draw from. I just need to pick a location in my setting and then I can go full speed at this. This is posing a bit of a problem. I don’t have any of the main setting regions done enough to video game and I won’t for years.

So I need to use some smaller regions that I can design and get on cards more quickly. I have endless ideas for these and I am going to need to start using them. Small is still going to be several square kilometres just not the size of North America. Places like Zanaria – The Isles of Time, Vyrros – The Land of Flame and Galcea – The Smuggler’s Den need some screen time as well.

C J Mcpherson


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