Elements

Waterfall Cave

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Tardigrades

In our understanding of time, it is the year 20,000 BC where civilizations are about to discover galactic travel through the latest technology of their time. Earth was different back then. The deserts of south Egypt and Ethiopia are green and full of advanced technology.

Carter is a botanist at the space station Marsi-3 orbiting Jupiter. Along with his girlfriend Alex, and your guidance, they might be able to witness their civilization shifting into a higher type.

Game Info:
Resolution: 640x400 32bit
Music: Midi
Sound effects: MP3 (All self recorded and constructed)
Full Speech.

'Tardigrades' can be finished with different ways, there are two possible endings and 10s of ways to complete its puzzles. Each time the game starts is guaranteed to be a new experience due to some events and puzzles triggered randomly at any time of the gameplay. The story depends on your attitude in dialogs, tasks, choices and/or random events. So basically you'd be writing the story of the game.


The story has a plot twist and deals with slavery, secrecy, espionage and other issues that are too early to reveal at this stage of production.

Hanging Gardens of Dandelion

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Constructing a garden

Replaced background

The main oxygen gardens of the section that Carter works at Marsi-3 was one of the parts where I was always trying to skip while testing puzzles. I never liked the background from the beginning of the project's development. I had to make a workaround by tinting the room mimicking that the camera is now positioned outside a window in the ship. It was a little convincing at the time.

But no. Something inside me refused the whole background. I was postponing the change because the room has a lot of functions, regions, doors, and a GUI for botany related tasks that allow you to grow different plants...  

The room alone is about 2KLOC but there are extra global functions that adds 500LOC to the sum. A lot had to be changed, coordinates, positions, walkable areas, regions... So I spent the last 3 days working on that. I really hope the new background is considered an improvement.

Javier's Laptop OS

GUI Improvement

I changed all the GUIs in the game. Monitors, touch screens and whats not are using smaller fonts and different buttons.

Celestial Masters - Tardigrades Teaser

Two Ships One Asteroid

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Different cut scenes depending on which ship you snatch

Cargo Bay

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Hot Jupiter doodle

Eclipse

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Cat AI

I have been working with the cat's AI for quite some time. Simon has different reactions at different times. Sometimes he's lazy, hyper, playful, meh..

While testing a part where Carter is hopelessly trying to figure out a way to escape Marsi's brig, Simon shows up. This is how he reacted when called for help..

Do you believe in chance?

Months ago when I reluctantly decided to change the project name from Epoch to Tardigrades, I had to edit all my media pages along with a few screenshots that had the Epoch logo watermark. I didn't do anything to the game's note book I keep with me though. The first page had Epoch drawn on top as a cover page thing.. I just found out there was a spare page behind it! It seems it was stuck to the first page when I turned it over to start writing notes for the game's puzzles.

Was that by chance? Or maybe my future self moved some gravity strings from behind my book case and stuck the pages together knowing that I will eventually change the title?

Forest Pond

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Game Developers And Game Directors

The term game developer (gamedev) has been overused, misused and mistreated by many. The same applies for a pixel artist. I am going to focus on the first term here. What is a game developer? When does one have the right to be called a game developer? Who gets to call someone a game developer?

Recently, people who install and run any game engine give themselves the honor of being called game developers. I have even seen some rookie testers calling themselves game developers. I am calling them rookies because they only play a beta version and complement it without any knowledge of the software testing protocols. There are other professional game testers out there adding so much value to the gamedev industry.

RQ1. (Validity): Does installing and running an engine make you a gamedev?

RQ2. (Originality): Does playing around an engine and creating short/test games make you a gamedev?

RQ3. (Identity): Does every task related to game development considered gamedev?

RQ4. (Stupidity): Is every artist a gamedev?

If you are able to create a game using an engine specialized for its genre then you gotta work harder to earn the title gamedev. For instance, I am currently using Adventure Game Studio (AGS) to create my point and click adventure games. I refused being called a gamedev for only doing so, even though I created my graphics and story from scratch. I have to put several mini-games and “non-adventure gaming material” in between. Simply, using an engine for a different genre which requires tons of original code. I even reached a point where I had to edit the engine itself (AGS is open source) to test some of my custom functions.

Nowadays, game engines attract hobbyists with the most appealing line: few or no coding knowledge required. This kills the game development experience instantly. IMO this only creates a game director rather than a developer. I am now asking all of you hobbyists to edit your profile and change your gamedevs to game directors! This industry is suffering enough. You are being an extra burden.

Oh speaking of suffering and burdens, if you’re into gamedev for the money, I got bad news for you. You can work for years on a game -a super game in your case, by the time you finally manage to release it, it would be as old as the mobile device you were using during the time you decided to purchase the engine you are using. Who is going to buy your old looking game (assuming during the development time no one else created a better version..)? A few ‘game director’ friends and/or a couple of people into classics and near-dead genres?

So basically, you have to know the gaming core mechanics and be able to manipulate them yourself. Meaning, if the engine you are using lacks a feature but you managed to include it with your own work (probably code) then you are on the right path of being a gamedev. If you use a combination of available features to mimic something your engines lacks, then you are on the path of a game director.

Progress of Forest Cave Entrance

Aziz is High

What the puck

Practice Portrait

The spark

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Tint Change

Here's another background that puzzled me on how to improve. The need to improve means that I didn't like it much... Usually I like to play a little with the coloring and lighting before I decide to delete and re-draw a new background. This one got away with a blue tint. The character is standing inside a tunnel with glass walls/ceiling leading to an airlock. I will add stars reflection to the glass later.

Space Police Quest

I wanted to design a locker room for the guards of Marsi-3. So I remembered one of my first adventure games that I've re-played recently: Police Quest I. It had this locker room in all its ega glory. I thought to myself that Marsi's guards are as good as Lytton's police officers and deserve a luxurious locker room too.