genre
A point-and-click puzzle adventure game about a little boy getting lost in his fantasies.
role / responsibilities
- Game Design
- Concept Art
- Narrative Design
- Puzzle Design
- Animation
experience
This project was my first experience ever with making a game. It was a project I worked on for my elective paper in my last year of high school. Me and my friend Jenna van den Berg designed the game and made the art. We soon realised we'd need help with programming after which my brother Alex joined the team. The three of us then went on to continue making games under the name Clapstool Studios. This game holds a special place in my heart, because it sparked my love for game development and shaped my future.
duration
This game was made by 3 people in about 300 hours.
About this project
Since we started out as a team of two artists, we figured the most doable first game project would be a point-and-click puzzle adventure game because that wouldn't require intricate system design. Right?
...
Right?!
Yeah, so we very quickly realised we needed help with programming, which is when my brother joined the team. While he was working on making a playable demo, Jenna and I tried to come up with a pipeline that allowed us both to work on the art while maintaining a cohesive style throughout the game. It was a bit of a struggle, but we made it work. I did the first sketch of a scene, which Jenna worked out fully. Besides that I did character animation and puzzle design. We both worked on the narrative together, coming up with scripts and world building information.
All in all, this project taught us a lot. Jenna and I both went on to study games after high school. 'It's Simon' made us realize that game development is the perfect playground for exploring our creativity and we enjoyed learning the skills needed to bring our ideas to life. From digital painting, to writing scripts, creating sound effects and designing puzzles, it turned out we loved all of it and more importantly, we learned that the three of us made a pretty good team :)
