Fantasy Shift Windows game

Fantasy Shift

Pixcel Studios | Released 2014

Fantasy Shift was my very first game development project. I created it in GameMaker Studio using their programming language, GML. I used this project as my foundation into the game development workflow. I had no experience in programming or pixel art, but I had to create every aspect of the game from scratch in around a month. I started off by writing a GDD (Game Design Document) and creating some level mockups with some placeholder art. I then went on to get to grips with the engine as well as get a basic primer on computer science theory in general. Over the course of the month I spent a lot of time building the features and refactoring the code as my object database grew larger and larger until I had finished my outlined plan for the game. I took the extra time to create some relatively nice looking pixel art for the game as well as adding in a tutorial section. By no means is this game great, or revolutionary, or innovative but it was my introduction to game development and I am very proud of the experience it gave me.

It's a 2D arcade-style platformer. This means you will die... a lot. There aren't many levels (6 + boss fight), so I focused on spending my short production time building very difficult levels as a trade off for extensive content. Don't get me wrong, I intended for the game to be hard, just not as hard as it actually is. I didn't account for the major difference in skill between myself and the players. I must've spent countless hours playtesting the levels, so by the time it came to release I could complete the entire game with zero deaths and was worried if it would be too easy. This definitely taught me to get others to playtest your game throughout development.

Post article RSS Articles

Fantasy Shift Full Release

Nov 27 2014 News

Hi there everyone!
It has definitely been a long time since I've been active on IndieDB, probably about 5 months or so? I worked on this game day and night in my attempt to finish it for my college assignment, then when I finally got it done (back in late May/early June) I got swept up in the next assignments that they wanted that It completely swept past me to release the full version of the game on here!

Fret not however. today is the day you can finally explore the game in it's full glory. It isn't the best thing in the world, but I think I did quite well for myself with no experience in coding or game art before I started the project. So as my first project I am really proud of it, despite all of it's shortcomings!

Now a lot of things have changed within the game since the last news post and since the last time I made a release. All for the better mind you.
The biggest change which you may have noticed is the art! I really wasn't happy with how rough and amateurish the original pixel art looked, so I took the time out to go back and redo everything, adding in a lot of extra detail and working with the colours. I think if you take a look at these screenshots next to the old ones you wouldn't even think that they were from the same game!

Besides this I went ahead and included just about all of the other features I had planned to and stated I would in previous news articles, such as extra animations, dialog cut-scenes and even a few tutorial levels. These were much needed, as the learning curve as people jumped straight into the game seemed to be much too difficult for some.

Throughout the development process I wanted to create something that would have sustained longevity and a lot of exciting features in it, even though it would have to be small due to the time scale. Inevitably, as it is a platformer, I didn't want to just make a bunch of easy levels like there always is at the beginning. I wanted to make a challenge. Boy, I did it too. As you find yourself getting frustrated as you repeatedly die, over and over, you'll experience a real sense of accomplishment when you finally make it past the obstacle and move onto the next level, this rewarding aspect was a great bonus for me, as not a lot of games give you that in my opinion.

So in terms of what you can expect to find in this final release, here is a list of features within the game:

Studio splash screem
Fully functioning title screen with different menus
2 Button modes, WASD and arrow keys
4 Tutorial levels
5 Regular levels
Exciting boss battle
Dialog cut-scenes
High score system
Transformable character
2 Original chiptune soundtracks composed by me
Lots and lots of death

I hope you take the time out to check out my project as I really poured my heart and soul into building it! Whilst it's not amazing, I would really appreciate it if you gave it a try and also gave me some feedback that I can use when working on my next project to build my portfolio.Thanks for reading everyone :)You can download the full game here: Indiedb.com