Countdown to Rift Defender

Update:

In about ten days Rift Defender will release, it will be my first game developed solo entirely from scratch. All the assets are developed by myself, with the help of development resources, the only exception to this is the music which is a track in the public domain.

What to Expect:

I want to be open about this game because I don't want to set expectations with the fact that I am keeping donation open for the game. This game consists of three levels. It is a shmup-style game where your ammo is tied to your defensive abilities. It may feel difficult at first, but I want to try and encourage players to improve their reactions.

The concept here is to collect bullets in order to protect your fleet. As you collect bullets you will charge your ammo meter, which gives you weapons. the more you charge the meter, the more powerful weapons you are able to fire. At the end of each level you  are given a choice of upgrades which will make your ship more mobile, powerful or give your feet higher defensive capabilities.

Why small games?

Last year I set out to develop a game, something I've had in mind since the beginning of the pandemic. Things started off well, but it was a perpetual learning process, and filtering out things I needed to learn from the things I didn't became very difficult. As a result I became slightly disillusioned with how achievable my goal was. Instead of giving up I decided I had to change my approach, and as such came up with a personal challenge: I needed to make and release a game within 3 months.

In a single day I managed to make a prototype for this game, Rift Defenders. It had no sprites, a single shot pattern, janky movement and basically no UI elements.

Even the above is taken after that first day, but it became clear I was perfectly capable of making a game, I was just stretching my ambition too far. I revised my goal when I saw the FFS game jam with a deadline of 31st January. I set out a plan in Notion for features (many of which I have done away with, I will discuss that in a post mortem) and I have tried to stick to keeping those features being added to the game at a steady pace. Currently, I feel like things are on track, but I've been in Game development before, I know things don't always go smoothly towards the end. 

Looking forward to the release!

I'm really looking forward to sharing this game with you, I'm really quite pleased with all I've achieved in developing it as my first solo title, I'm not typically a game programmer, nor am I an artist, composer, designer or UX expert, but I know I'm on the path to achieving some competency in all those things and it starts with this little game.