Hi everyone! My name’s Josh Hallaran and I’m an indie developer from Australia. I’mbest known for developing RPGs on PC and (as of October 16th) console–namely the 8-Bit Adventures series.My passions are in Game Design and Writing.
8-Bit Adventures 2 is a story rich tribute to the Golden Age of JRPGs, complete with Airships, a vast World Map, and strategic turn-based combat inspired by Final Fantasy X. It features an unforgettable cast of 7 playable characters, and a 30-40 hour narrative with tight pacing and constant variety – everything from exploring ancient ruins to solving a robot murder mystery!
It’s taken 9 years to fully develop by a team of four, and I’m actually still working on Free DLC at the moment. It launched on PC last year, and releases on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox on October 16th!
When 8-Bit Adventures 1 released in 2015, it was my most successful by far. Players really connected with it, and while sales were only modest, it generated enough money for a much improved sequel. For me, indie development is about making slow and steady progress (building on top of what we’ve done before), so 8-Bit Adventures 2 felt like a natural progression – especially since I had some more ambitious ideas I wanted to explore in the JRPG genre.
Well I never expected it to take almost a decade of my life haha. But honestly, aside from the amount of time needed to create and polish every aspect of the game, it’s been quite a smooth journey! I’ve learnt a lot while developing 8-Bit Adventures 2, and I truly feel our time and hard work has resulted in a great game.
Additionally, the team I’ve worked with have been amazing – not only sticking with me for such a long time, but also making the game better with their talents and expertise. We never had any real friction or arguments, which resulted in a really cohesive vision across art, music, programming, and narrative. I’m immensely grateful that I found the perfect fellow creatives to help bring 8-Bit Adventures 2 to life.
We used RPG Maker MV to create the game, which may seem like a strange choice. But we extended the engine’s capabilities with over 130 plugins (many of them custom made for the project), allowing us to achieve anything we needed. RPG Maker’s UI streamlines many elements of the development process, so I find it incredibly efficient as a foundation for developing this kind of game.
Before starting the project in earnest, I planned out the game back in 2015. Unfortunately, I underestimated the true scale and scope of that plan, which resulted in a much lengthier development. So the 9 year development ultimately became the biggest hurdle – partly for maintaining my mental health, and for remaining passionate about the project, as there’s a tremendous amount of repetition in game development.
Luckily, even though I experienced some burn-out, I never lost my belief that the game was turning out well and would ultimately be something special. It just took a lot of perseverance.
As my experience shows, a project can sound much more manageable on paper than it is in practice. So I tell people who are starting out to begin with a small idea, and then halve the size of that. Chances are that’ll be a project you can finish, and will learn a lot from creating!
For someone who is further along in their game dev journey, I think the best advice I can give is to believe in your vision. It’s easy to get insecure about your work and feel like you need to make sweeping changes or add in popular features from other games. But these kinds of changes can have massive repercussions on your schedule and the identity of your game. So if you have a clear vision, I recommend trying to refine and polish it. Be receptive to feedback, but learn how to trust yourself as well.
I got into making games because I wanted to do something that will make people happy, so I sincerely hope that I’ve achieved that with 8-Bit Adventures 2.
The industry is currently going through a lot of changes, and the indie scene is no different. But my hope is that there will be a lot of opportunities for high quality games with smaller budgets in the future. So please support indie developers and consider purchasing 8-Bit Adventures 2 if you enjoy story rich games or turn-based battles!
8-Bit Adventures 2 launches on October 16th for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Thank you very much for your time!
- Josh 🍎
