PLEASE START US OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF:
I'm Jason McCollum, a professional software developer who has been dabbling in game development for many years now. Most people probably know me from my game development videos as The Shaggy Dev, but I've been doing game development in some form since the Flash days. I'm currently working on Unto Deepest Depths, which is my third Steam release.
TELL US ABOUT UNTO DEEPEST DEPTHS.
Unto Deepest Depths is a minimalist tactical strategy game set in a dark fantasy world. Each turn, you must move and attack. Each unit has unique rules about how it does this, and health is hard to come by, so each turn is important to get right.
I'm a big fan of strategy games, and I really like small games that make it easy to jump right into the action, so I've had the idea of stripping the strategy genre down to its core mechanics for a while now. I finally decided to pursue the idea after a larger, unannounced project ran into some development troubles and I decided I needed to take an extended break from it. I whipped up a vertical slice in a few weeks worth of evenings and weekends, and was happy with the result so here we are!
HOW HAS THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY BEEN
Overall, the development journey has been pretty smooth, though managing a YouTube channel alongside developing a game definitely slows things down some. I've done some similar games for game jams in the past, so had a general idea of how I wanted to approach things from a technical perspective, but there's of course a lot more involved in a commercial project, so while a lot of the required tech is in place, I'll need at least a few months just to balance, polish, bugfix, and get all the content in place for the final release.
WHICH GAME ENGINE DID YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?
I'm using Godot for this project, which I've been using for a few years now (probably since around 3.2?). I've used a number of engines over the years, but have stuck with Godot because it just "clicked" for me. I find its structure and approach to game development intuitive and the features it offers match what I need for my projects.
WHAT'S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST DEVELOPMENT HURDLE SO FAR?
Probably game balance. I just released an early demo on Steam after a few weeks of beta testing it and I can already tell that I probably underestimated just how sensitive this game is to balance changes. A recurring theme in feedback has been "I like the way the game plays, but X feels off." So I'm collecting data, reworking some systems, and dialing things in. It's already in a better place than it was a few weeks ago, but there's still a long way to go before I'll be happy with it.
ADVICE FOR FELLOW DEVS?
I didn't always develop this way, but I'm increasingly becoming convinced of the importance of vertical slices regardless of what you want to do with the game on release. I find it highly motivating to have a well polished representation of the final product, even if it's light on content, and it can help you discover those tricky development problems that inevitably come up earlier in the process. Plus, it gives you plenty to show off for marketing purposes and on a Steam page.
ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?
Just go make some games! Every project you complete will make you a little bit better at it.
If you want to keep up with the game you can follow me on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theshaggydev
If you want to see how the sausage is made, catch me on YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/TheShaggyDev
And if you like the game, check out the demo and give it a wishlist!
-Jason
❤️
