[Postmortem] Parcel Delivery v0.1

"Well done is better than well said." - Benjamin Franklin

For the longest time as a Game Developer, you may also have those area that you just don’t want to touch; Multiplayer, MMORPG, 3D. For me, it’s narrative and thriller (although I am a big fan of a thriller detective game) this is one area that I really don’t have much confident in making.

But a few months earlier maybe a year now, my co-worker and creator of the bg music for this game Navsky shared with me some games made by chillasart (I’m thinking most of you are familiar with them, but for the few like me before; they are 2 brothers from Japan making Japanese horror games really about a daily life)

Knowing that I don’t have the artistic skills like they have and being “busy“, I disregarded the idea of making one and just continue making other games I’m comfortable with.

Make a really simple game that you wouldn’t have any excuse to make

All artist experience that rut stage in their creation, Artist block (also known as creative block, is a period where an artist experiences difficulty generating new ideas or producing work.) Having a hard time thinking of a new game, scrapping all the ideas I’ve thought of. I took some rest and just wander around not thinking about game development.

After a few week, I tinker around again with game development just thinking of simple game ideas. During this time I’ve remembered simple side-scroller game I’ve played on Itch.io called Last Train Home, and this was also the time thriller games were at top of the genre (I mean almost all the time). So I thought to myself why not make a simple walk simulator with some suspense thriller game like chillasart? I have already made a ton of side-scroller controls that it would be just like a walk in the part for me to not make it.

Prototype

It was a slow pace development, I didn’t place a deadline for myself because I just want to dip my toe into this genre and pressuring myself would possibly stop me from finishing it. During the first week I was able to apply the sprite and basic controls of the game, by this time I have already achieved the core gameplay. This was a big milestone for me at this time.

I still can’t say this is a thriller, sure the black borders gives you an unsettling feeling but it is still not a thriller game. For resolving this concern I though of just a simple way to make it more unsettling, an event of some sort and another is to have an end for the game. Enter a “jump scare“

Multiple endings

Curiosity keeps someone’s attention for a really long time, This is why games and movies with multiple endings or with so many secrets hidden in plain sights intrigue players to keep on playing to discover what those are. And this is one of the core things I wanted to have with the game to intrigue the player on what is really going on in the game, Upon reaching the end of the area you will encounter the room where you need to deliver the parcel and on the other side of the room that intrigues the player to discover what that is.

Of course, I wouldn't go into details on this part to not spoil anything but as of writing this there are 2 possible endings for the game. Additional there are ideas that are floating in my head, For now this short game is what I expected to make just to dip my toes into this genre.

Final words

Making this game added some skills under my belt as a game developer. A short narrative that invokes feeling; and to my experience, feelings are what connects people to one another or to keep doing the things they are doing.

I thought making a narrative game would be hard, well it is, but this is a stepping stone for someone like me with no experience in making a compelling story to just start and learn from it.

I appreciate the time you gave in reading this article and hope that it gave you some value in your day.

-Nyltoons