My Journey of creating 'The Real Heroes'

After 4 months of learning game designing using Godot Engine, I finally decided to venture into my first project.  The initial idea was to create a project named -"Corona Warriors" as an entry to a competition. I launched the project by creating my so-called-'game plan'.  Due to paucity of time, I decided to make it a small-scale platformer consisting of merely 3 levels with it's individual costume .  I started creating the project on 7th of  August and had limited time to finalize the project and submit it  by the 15th.   I failed to submit my project as  by the 15th only 2 levels were ready and important parts of a platformer such as the logo, the HUD(heads up display), the sound effects, and even the coins were yet not created. However, without being deterred I continued to persist in  my endeavor to complete the game that I had started.  This is how my journey resulted in creation of 'The real heroes'.    

The first three days went by in creating the assets. I used the software Piskel  for the same. The next four to five days, I wrote the code to my character and created tile maps of Level one and Level two. That is when I realized that there was no way I could submit the project for the competition within the deadline. That's when I thought of making this a Larger game. I browsed different enemies in platformers, saw gameplays and reviews of platformer games. But I needed something different or it would be no better than copying Mario. That is when I had the idea. The idea which made the game difficult. the idea of having an enemy whose attacks are based on  the player's next move. I finished World 1 which had 4 Levels by August 20th. I started World 2 and created a new enemy in this world making this stage difficult to clear. Since I am a solo game developer, I had to test every level by crossing each stage/level. This was a real challenge as I had developed the game to ensure that it is really difficult.  

Testing if a level could be cleared took a lot of time but resulted in ensuring better Platformers.  After creating all the 3 Worlds and the coins and HUD, I created the music and inserted them in the game. I went to bandlabs to create my Theme for the game and thereafter I added sound effects. After this I exported my game and did the first android test which was a disaster as the buttons were too small. Upon inputs received from my friends/relatives and people who had downloaded the game, I edited it and finally uploaded it to itch.io after incorporating the changes as per the suggestions received. It was then I realized that every small change matters as small drops of water make a whole ocean.

One must be wondering why I changed the name. this was because my app was suspended from Google Play for references to Covid-19 as such references to the Pandemic required government approval. This gave the way to a change in the name of my game and i finally named it 'The Real Heroes'. The game is available for most of the platforms.  It signifies the dawn of a new era in my life and enjoys a very special position in my heart as it is my first game.  

I am proud to say that my first game was original and completely built by me without any formal course in coding, having learnt the skills through the internet. The icing on the cake was the fact that all assets, the codes, the sound effects in the game were my own creation. I even created  my website myself using html and CSS. But that's for another time.

To conclude, I will be creating all of my other games focused on the gameplay, difficulty and controls and not on graphics. Because graphics don't matter as long as the game is difficult and exciting.

Links:-

My Website

Page on Itch.io

For Downloading

Download from itch.io

Game on Google Play