A Hardy Developer's Journal – as written by indie adventure game developers

Starting a game is easy. It’s really easy – so easy that we often jump in before we’ve thought about it. But we’ve already covered thinking about it beforehand, so assuming you paid some attention back there, we’re ready to look at the next step. (more…)

There are fewer things more enlightening about what is really wrong with a game than play-testing, and if you’re lucky, physical play-testing with a real, breathing person. The creator of a game always views things in a certain lens that skews the true perception of what’s going on, what’s needed, and what’s really visible to the player. For instance, in some of the play-tests I’ve had, I would run into a recurrent problem about the player’s visual direction–I want the player to go a certain way, open a certain door, or go down a certain ramp–but what’s the obvious direction for me is not the obvious direction for the player. (more…)

Heed

I’m sure that anyone who has played a game at some point in their life has wondered “I wonder if I could do this?”. While I don’t often make a habit of discussing game development with people outside of the various online communities I frequent, I know that people have at various points mentioned to me that they’d love to have a go at making their own game – just that they don’t feel that they have the time or skills to take the first step.

Seeing as you’re reading this, I feel it is safe to assume that you’ve already considered making a game. You’ve probably already come up with some ideas, maybe even started building a few into code and graphics – heck, for all I know you may have finished more games than I have.

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A once cheerful land of forests, mountains and magic has succumbed to permanent winter. A permanent winter conjured up and constantly renewed by the terrible black fire attacks of a mighty ice dragon. As a result most human inhabitants have turned into ice statues and the prospects of the handful that are still able to keep their blood reasonably warm are no better. One of those is an old woodsman who lying ill in his bed has just explained the situation to his daughter in a speech very nicely stylized to archaic jargon. (more…)

As a reviewer, you can’t help not having particularly great hopes when asked to review a first time developer’s indie game. Especially a project that a single designer without any game-making background spent 5 years on. Yet a reviewer’s life can be full of surprises – Remigiusz Michalski‘s Downfall provided what I quite frankly consider to be one of the finest stories told in an adventure game in the last 10 years. Moreso it really takes advantage of being an involving player experience – challenging you with choices and actions that have real emotional impact. Some time ago I wrote down my own personal experience of playing the game, and today I have the distinct pleasure to  pick the mind of the creative genius behind Downfall… (more…)

The Blackwell Convergence is the third installment of Wadjet Eye Games’ Blackwell franchise. For many, the wait has been even more of a killer than The Countess herself; originally slated for release in 2008, the July 2009 release of Convergence has had much to live up to. Delays usually lead to two main progessions of thought in a gamer’s mind: the game will either be of a lesser quality than before due to problems in development, or polished to a finer shine than was originaly expected. (more…)

Blackwell Unbound is the second episode of the Blackwell franchise from Dave Gilbert’s Wadjet Eye Studios. It is an interesting game in many ways, in particular due to the decision to tell a story from the past, rather than continue directly on from The Blackwell Legacy. The ever-informative director’s commentary immediately sheds some light on this decision: (more…)