The why
What made me make this game?
Maybe it’s more interesting to answer, what made me make any game?
After more than a decade of working in video games I have very little to show for it. This is not a unique position by far. I think many factors come into it, but one stands out the most to me:
I like making games. I like the process. I am not driven by the end result.
My suspicion is that a lot of game developers are like this, especially programmers.
The feeling I get when making something work, even when it’s a thing I’ve done a dozen times, still hasn’t left me.
The feeling I get when showing someone my work also hasn’t left me, but this is not something I really enjoy.
Naturally, this leads to many unfinished prototypes, exploration of half-baked ideas and technical tinkering that never touches anyone but me and a few friends.
Of course, I couldn’t do it for a decade if it was just tinkering. There were startups and established companies that I worked with all of my career.
I mostly worked on big failed projects and small projects that had some commercial success.
None of it seems like a waste of time, somewhat suprisingly. I feel truly blessed to be able to work in games and be paid for it for so long.
That being said, I had an aspiration to make my own game from the very start. Learn everything about game development I need and just make everything myself.
I did exactly that before I got my first job. Made an ugly mobile 3d space shooter game. Used it to teach myself programming and Unity. It was done and published in 3 months. It was a blast making it, designing the spaceships, gameplay, camera, modeling, figuring out the scope and all the technical stuff… I was in heaven! Still, this was just a training game, I didn’t count it as a real game. I knew that I have much to learn.
A decade later I have found myself for the first time, simultaneously:
- knowing a bunch of stuff about game development
- still loving it
- no solo developed game
- without a full-time job
It was meant to be!
Design goals
Things I set out with:
In my taste
Making a game I enjoy playing is the main goal, but it is meant to be played by other people.
Commercial success is not a goal, and not a focus, but I want to make a game that is enjoyed by at least few people.
Fast development
Ideally full release under a year. At least good playable public build within 6 months. I still had a half-time job (a bit more than that really), this reduces the scope significantly.
No dependencies
I want to be able to do everything myself. Maybe bring in collaborators and make sure not to depend on them. As little unreliable software dependencies too. Use an open source game engine or make my own.
Long term support
I want to be able to continue evolving the game and work on it for a long time. It really saddens me when I see a game with great potential, that didn’t have the luxury of time to finish and polish the game properly. This part is often the most time-consuming part, yet it often makes the difference between being a favorite game and instantly rage uninstalling.
Learn about monetization
The game shouldn’t be free, at least at the beginning. It should be cheap though. It is not meant to be a financial success. The goal is to learn how money flows. How steam works, legal stuff, marketing etc.
What fits these goals?
Pretty quickly I settled on a pvp couch multiplayer game. That kind of game, it seemed, doesn’t need much content to be viable. It just needs to be designed well and run well. The kind of thing you play with your friends when you happen to get together by some miracle!
I looked back fondly on having fun with my friends playing Samurai Gunn, Crawl and stuff. At the time I was playing and enjoying Star of providence, and kind of remembering the fun I had as a kid playing Quake 3 in a internet cafe against my friends.
So what about a couch pvp twin-stick arena shooter? Yeah, that seems to check all the boxes! Especeally the “It’s not meant to be a financial success” (local multiplayer games rarely are).
The games I found on steam that matched that description were mostly “party” games, the ones that anyone can pick up, with simplified controls and “fun” physics.
The other ones I found weren’t that elegant or polished enough. Most of them were designed for online play.
There was this one that threw me off track a bit, where I tried to mix RTS elements. That’s probably a story for a stand-alone post. Lots of design learnings there.
So I decided to go for it!
A minimalistic couch pvp twin-stick arena shooter, inpired by Quake 3, targeting a more experienced player that is excited by turning of aim assist for greater control, enjoys evolving his skills and fragging his friends till dawn!
Silkdown was born!