PLEASE START US OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF:
I’m Dave from the UK. I’ve been developing games for quite a while now, either making my own
games or helping out with story writing / puzzle design / testing / voice acting / sound effects for
other people’s games. This has slackened off considerably as I spend virtually all my free time
(whatever that is) with my children nowadays!
I’m Lorenzo, also known as Lorenzo online (I know, very original!). I’ve been making free games
for some years now and also collaborated with other devs testing, doing graphics or
brainstorming. I’ve been drawing and making games and game-related stuff (maps, levels, etc)
for most of my life, but only more recently started putting it online – I wanted it to have at least
a modicum of quality before releasing something to the world!
TELL US ABOUT CAPTAIN DISASTER.
DAVE:
Captain Disaster and the Two Worlds of Riskara
is an epic science fiction point & click adventure
game. It’s got a lot of comedy elements, but compared to the previous Captain Disaster games,
I’ve really focused on making the storyline detailed and intriguing, along with of course many
locations to explore, characters to meet and puzzles to solve.
LORENZO:
It’s a comedy adventure game. Story, characters and world-building are all handled by Dave,
while I’ve been mostly doing the graphics: backgrounds, character design, animation, and so on.
I tried to make the game look like it came out from a comic book and it’s been a lot of fun giving
shape to the world imagined by Dave! I also must thank him for the huge amount of freedom he
gave me in this sense, making characters and places as I wanted. It has been very fun and
rewarding (but also a ton of work – it’s a long game!).
HOW HAS THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY BEEN
DAVE:
At the stage we’re in now – where it’s almost finished and ready to do the main
round of testing, adding final polish and voice acting, etc, looking back it’s been really positive,
while acknowledging that there is a huge amount of work still to do (and that’s just in terms of
developing the game itself, not including the extra work that goes into the store pages,
marketing, etc)
LORENZO:
The development of the game hasn’t been without its issue, mostly related to our day to day
lives. We’re working on the game in our free time and when something bad happens in your life,
that’s the first thing that disappears.
But I must say that working with Dave has been really positive and fun. I always enjoy our
conversations full of banter and terrible jokes. Conversations that would probably make us look
like two madmen, but somehow allow us to get things done!
WHICH GAME ENGINE DID YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?
DAVE:
We are both long-time users of (AGS) Adventure Game Studio, so it was natural to use that. The
development journey has been mostly positive although full of ups and downs – spells of
amazing progress in short timescales, along with long, frustrating periods of nothing much
happening.
LORENZO:
We chose AGS because, as Dave says, we were comfortable with it and knew it well. While it has
its flaws, it’s a great piece of (free!) software and it allows us to create what we want quickly,
because of our past experience with it. Plus, the support for it is fantastic, with a very active and
helpful community.
WHAT'S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST DEVELOPMENT HURDLE SO FAR?
DAVE:
As always, for me the main issue is lack of time. My life is very busy, and I often find that when I
eventually do have a few minutes to work on the game, I’m often too tired to really want to. In
terms of how my brain works, I tend to either had mad bursts of inspiration and achieve a flow
state, making enormous progress very quickly, or fail to make significant progress at all. There
doesn’t seem to be an in-between for me!
LORENZO:
Life issue. Sometimes you’re just so tired and stressed that working on the game becomes
difficult. Also, having to stop development due to something unexpected and then restart it later
can feel daunting sometimes.
I guess making games is a grind: not every aspect of it can be fun and exciting, but hopefully the
end product will be worth it!
ADVICE FOR FELLOW DEVS?
DAVE:
It’s different for each person, but you need to find ways to keep yourself motivated and
interested in your own game. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, since it’s your project and of
course you’re motivated to finish it and interested in doing so, but you will encounter times –
especially when you’re bug-fixing, but feel like the bug reports are increasing far more quickly
than you can resolve them! However, there’s a reason why so many promising-looking amateur
and hobbyist games (perhaps even professional as well) never get finished and released. Well,
there are several reasons, but one key thing is that people have simply not been able to keep
going. Project fatigue is very real, and whilst there are many potential ways to overcome it, you
have to find the methodologies that work for you personally.
LORENZO:
We all have our minds full of ambitious ideas, huge stories with tons of characters, never seen
before mechanics... but you should always start with something short. Make a fun, short game
and release it. To avoid falling into the trap of perfectionism, join a game jam and finish
something in a week or two! Make many short games before tackling bigger ones. You’ll learn a
lot, find a workflow that is suitable for you, and learn from making mistakes that won’t matter in
a small project, but would in a big one. Be organised and tidy.
Also, don’t get discouraged and don’t give up! Just keep at it until you reach the finish line. It’ll
be great when people will finally play your game.
ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?
DAVE:
It’s important to break down and track all of your tasks, because making a game of a larger size
and scope can become overwhelming. I admit to struggling with this at times. If you are in a
position to dedicate a specific time slot each day, or even each week, to working on the game
then that will give you a huge advantage, so try to take advantage of it (and see if you can use
specific music tracks or something else to create Pavlovian conditioning to aid your workflow!).
LORENZO:
Thanks for reading to the end! Also thanks to the site for publishing our rambling answers.
Keep making games folks, but also do take a moment to wishlist
Captain Disaster and The Two
Worlds of Riskara
(shameless self-promotion!) ;)
-Dave & Lorenzo
❤️
Captain Disaster and The Two Worlds of Riskara on Steam (steampowered.com)
