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!!UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!
!!UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!
- How It all started -
- How It all started -
How "The Hunger of Z'eeth" Started
How "The Hunger of Z'eeth" Started
The Hunger of Z'eeth! was an idea that came to me while I was working on learning the Game Engine Pico-8. I had just finished up a programming bootcamp learning Java, Javascript, and a bunch of other important building blocks for general Fullstack Development.
After wrapping up that bootcamp.. I really wanted to make a game and Launch it on Steam. One of my teammates from other game projects Tony ended up recommending Pico-8. Pico-8 uses its a language I had never learned called Lua (also used to program roblox btw) so I go right to work learning how to program in it studying Pico Documentation.
Zeeth Started out as an Off-center little guy
Studying Pico-8 Documentation
Learning Pico-9 and Lua
Learning Pico-9 and Lua
Sometimes its best to start small and when I first booted up pico 8 my goals were simple. Learn how to parse the logic and syntax so it does what I want, and Learn how to render sprites onto the screen. Below you can see my doing a bit of both!
I used the sprite editor built into Pico-8 but I found out I could render shapes directly onto the screen from the programming side of things and I really wanted to mess around with that, My playing around it actually how Zeeth first got created. Or "Aloy" as he was first called.
Testing The Pico-8 Game Engine
Testing The Pico-8 Game Engine
Testing both Rendering and WASD movement
Testing Strings, Concat and more
I don't know why i did this tbh
Basic Typing Orders in Pico-8
Basic Typing Orders in Pico-8
Messing around with If else, statements.
Practicing Loops
At a certain point I drew shapes and added logic! And a cursor. (this is a render bug, but its the first time I captured what would become Zeeth!
"Could These Eyes become a game?"
"Could These Eyes become a game?"
...Is what I thought to myself once I had discovered them. I started by just making a circle, then a single eye, and then three. I centered them on the screen and got to work testing more basic functions and Key inputs that would lead to outcomes.
Testing Basic inputs + Visuals
Testing Basic inputs + Visuals
Zeeth used to be an off center set of Eyes
Fixing the cursor, Centered Zeeth gave him a mouth.
Thought "maybe you feed this thing?"
Whiteboarding the Logic for my Game.
Whiteboarding the Logic for my Game.
After messng around in Pico-8, I turned around and started outling all the rules of the simple game I wanted to build on my trusty whiteboard (which is always central to my design philosophy).
First, I decided because these three eyes are obviously an Alien - - so we'd be making a game set in space.
Second, I thought: "surely we're going to be feeding this character something" right?.
and finally, after learning how to render the mouse on the screen, I thought this game would be a cursor based game rather then a WASD game. So i got to it >>>
Testing Basic inputs + Visuals
Testing Basic inputs + Visuals
Testing "Number Go up Logic"
Rendering Arrow that signal danger
Random spawn location of Arrows, launching
Ramping Up, Getting Feedback, Making Changes
Ramping Up, Getting Feedback, Making Changes
At this stage in the development... I had gotten lots of sprites drawn and rendered in engine, I also had set up a space ship to act as the player object. I also made sure you could pick up objects and drag them into Zeeth's mouth. I shared my results to Social media's like linkedIn and I hit a hitch. The Red sprites with the plus signs were being mistaken as Bombs --- Not as health potions (which was what was my goal) So those would need to be changed.
There were also bugs at this stage of Levels not resetting upon restart/reloading. You can see that being the case in the gif where Items Fed: 0, but the spawn rate is INSANE.
Testing spawn rate and general gameplay
Testing Difficulty and fun.
Experiencing a bug.
Number go up - Sure. "But how do you win?"
Number go up - Sure. "But how do you win?"
Embarrassingly when I started the project I didn't think about how players would actually beat the game. I knew we'd feed Zeeth burgers...But to what end?(literally). I thought briefly about a shooting mechanic or bombs, but personally I'm not super into violence in the games I make. SO instead I thought it would be fun to overfeed Zeeth and sneak poison into his food... I mean sleepy medicine....its not poison...Its like hiding a pill in a dog treat...
So the poison burger was born, and I also conceived of a lose scenario besides just getting hit by comets, if you fed the poison to zeeth too soon you would be killed by Zeeth. All of this was great but I needed to give Z'eeth Character model some tells to convey this information to the players.
Z'eeths Visual Tells
Z'eeths Visual Tells
Zeeth: Ready to be poisoned.
Zeeth is mad about being Poisoned too soon.
The blue Poison burger
Menu: how to Play, Credits, and Lore
Menu: how to Play, Credits, and Lore
I had by this point in the projects development really had the basic gameplay loop finished. What I needed to do was create a basic how to play page that players could look at to get acquainted with the game. You can plainly see where I re-use assets to save time.
How to play
Lore
Credits (being a little bit Cheeky)
End Screens and Menu's
End Screens and Menu's
The Hunger of Zeeth: Win Screen
The Hunger Of Zeeth: Lose Screen
Marketing
Marketing
Expectations going into Marketing
Expectations going into Marketing
Work Here Next
The Evolution of The Hunger of Zeeth's logo Design
The Evolution of The Hunger of Zeeth's logo Design
Logo #1 (I was being lazy for sure)
Logo #2 I decided to actually stylize the font
Logo #3 Including elements from actually gameplay into the logo
At one point or another all of these logos were THE logo for the hunger of Z'eeth. If you searched up this game in steam you would find exactly these.
Short form Content
Short form Content
Prior to Release Hype post
X(twitter) post, using a square ratio
Short form Content on release day
Thoughts going into Marketing
Thoughts going into Marketing
Marketing Rant:
After finishing up the gameplay, menus and the like it was time to move onto marketing my game. I did fairly well on LinkedIn but other than that, marketing games is made unnecessarily hard by social media platforms. I really struggled to get my content out in an effective ways on social medias and even though they continued to promote my accounts "hey you can boost this post" for more engagement...they wouldn't allow me too because of some of the language I used in the titles: for instance "Save your world" (Oh no! can that be misconstrued as evil and suggestive!!!) ITS A SPACE GAME ABOUT A MONSTER EATING THE PLANET... WHAT ELSE WOULD I SAY? it honestly really pissed me off especially not being able to run ads on X, because ads have to play by different rules then users and to be absolutely frank here. There is so much racism, sexism and sus shit all over that platform but I CAN'T RUN AN AD ABOUT FIGHTING COSMIC HORROR??? honestly so goddamn stupid. It was basically the same issue on all social media platforms including x, youtube, tiktok, reddit, instagram and the rest.
Since getting frustrated by the process I've learned how to better market next time. but like....Let me spend my money you stupid assholes. It killed what could have been potential traction for my game.
The Perils of Getting the game Steam Ready
The Perils of Getting the game Steam Ready
Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
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