I thought I’d talk a bit about my influences as a game developer. Every time I pick up my Switch, it’s a double edged sword because I get so inspired. I’ve been building my dream library for over a year now and I’ve managed to grab most of those gems on sale! Binding of Isaac, Moonlighter, Salt and Sanctuary, Risk of Rain, and Enter the Gungeon to name a few. It’s mostly indie games and RPGs and more often than not, I have a hard time deciding.
I know I missed the golden age of indie games but I’m not gonna let that stop me from making some cool stuff influenced by all my favorite titles. Having joined the metroidvania movement fairly late, I’m still working my way through Hollow Knight and Dead Cells, but the more I play, the more I want to start developing the games I wish existed. I’m sure they do somewhere but who’s got time to look? In my perfect world, everything has RPG elements. Classes, equipment, skill trees, etc. And those are the games I plan on making.
I tend to focus on the art, character design and mechanics. I always have an idea for a character or mechanic or level or story. It gets overwhelming sometimes, but I’m hoping soon I’ll have learned enough to start prototyping and designing my simpler ideas. My plans are to take all the things I love about my arsenal of Switch games and mix and match them into something awesome!
As a budding game developer, I should probably know more about the studios and devs that make these games but until recently, that’s been more toward the back of my mind. It’s easy to overlook everything that goes into making a game and not even think about the studio it came from. Studios that do an incredible job of putting everything together in a coherent playable experience. Something I hope to do in my future endeavors. But the way I look at it, great influences are the first step to great games.
