Hello, world

And there you have it - my first game. Well, a prototype first because I learned you need to start small to see if it is any fun. You can watch the **First Look **trailer here:

I’m not settled on a story yet, although I have some ideas. You play a character that has their first day at a new company, and while he is sleeping, something happens at the office, so his first day will not go as planned, and he needs to solve “something”. It is not clear to me what and how he needs to solve it 😅.

The type of game will be an RPG, but without a combat system, in which you have to solve puzzles (like in the Professor Layton games). Besides the puzzles, there are also other world interactions. In the prototype, for example, you can turn on the hot water for a message to appear on the mirror or create a cup of coffee.

I hope it is fun to play! Please let me know what you think and tell me if you like to end up in the credits when it is done.

A little bit about myself.

My name is Rick Neeft, and I’m an “office” software developer working in The Netherlands for a company that creates software for the Dutch Health system. Ever since I watched the IndieGameMovie back in 2013, I have dreamed about making a game myself. Still, there was always something, and I never started it. I’m not an artist. I have no knowledge of how to make music or what a gaming engine is.

This year (2023), I made myself a New Year’s resolution that I would at least start making a game, and here it is!

During my professional career, I have used Microsoft and .NET technology, so the step in choosing the Unity gaming engine is easy to make. It took me a while to get up to speed with the engine, GameObjects and even the simple things. I had to ask ChatGPT: “I have download game assets from a gaming market. I came into one big png file with all little assets. Tell me the name of such a big png file.” I learned about sprite atlas and how to set up Unity to use them

Talking about sprites, credit to LimeZu (https://limezu.itch.io/) for creating all kinds of tilesets. His work kick-started my project because I got everything (Except for a bicycle, but he is working on it, he said). It is precisely what I needed, and I will use the Modern Tilesets in the game.

Music was a different story, and I have listened to hundreds of songs. I could not find any soundtrack that was a good connection with the game I have in mind. Thanks to Nid’s excellent work (https://ryusuke0215.itch.io/), my game has a soundtrack!

And credits to the fantastic content on YouTube for Unity tutorials. Creating a game is mainly about solving little challenges, and on YouTube, you can find tips and tricks for everything, from stopping a character walking through the wall to creating cutscenes.