Three things that inspired me to finish my game

Hi, my name is Mark and I am - 
still - making a video game about

magnets. So it's been a little while 
since we last spoke but in that time,

three things have happened to me that 
have inspired me to get off my butt

and finally start to bring this game to the 
finish line. So, here's what happened...

Okay so the first thing was definitely the 
response to the demo I put out at the end of

the previous video. I put out a demo to address 
some of the most negative feedback I'd received

on my minimum viable product. So people thought 
the character controlled like junk? Well, I spent

a month making a much better character controller. 
People thought the mix of platforming and puzzle

solving was a bit confusing. So I stripped 
out the platforming and focused exclusively on

puzzles. People thought the game wasn't magnet-y 
enough, so I gave the magnet a face, the power

to change polarity, and made sure every single 
puzzle was inherently based around magnetism.

And all of those changes received pretty good 
feedback, but I think the best response came

to the design of the puzzles themselves. You see, 
I spent a lot of time just kind of working on the

craft of puzzle design, specifically to get more 
of those 'aha' moments. I've spoken about those

before: basically when a player feels stumped by 
a seemingly impossible puzzle and then suddenly

sees the twist at the heart of the conundrum and 
is able to make the logical leap to solve it.

And so did I achieve that with this new demo?

Well I think I'll let these let's 
play videos speak for themselves:

HARRY: Okay what is this? So when this button 
is down I want to be here. So how do I do that?

I don't know. I'm thinking. This is what the 
robot does when he thinks. He just swings the

magnet back and forth. Ah! Did you hear that? 
That's the sound of me maybe figuring it out.

Oh that's so smart. Oh my 
goodness, it was worth it!

MARK: So that made me feel pretty confident that 
I was on the right path with my puzzle design.

But it also just felt awesome to 
have made this thing, these puzzles,

put them out into the universe for people to then 
find them, play them, and have a strong positive

emotional reaction to a thing I had made. To have 
noises come out of their mouth. It was almost

like casting a magic spell on people. It felt 
really cool, it's not something I've done before.

And it inspired me to, you know, make more 
puzzles and package them up in a finished

game. It inspired me to get off my butt and 
finally bring this game towards the finish line.

And so I... didn't, and instead stopped work 
on the game entirely for a month to make

a completely different video game, 
which ended up being Platformer Toolkit.

Look, I had this idea for an interactive 
video essay and if I have an idea to do

something and I'm excited about the idea, it's 
really hard to not just focus on that thing

intently until either I burn out or the thing is 
done. And so that's what happened with Platformer

Toolkit. But it was also the second thing 
that inspired me to finish my game. You see,

Platformer Toolkit was very much inspired 
by this whole series: I wanted to take my

experience of making a platformer character 
and share it with people in an interesting,

interactive video essay. But also the 
development process of Platformer Toolkit was

massively informed by everything I've 
been talking about on this series.

So I made quick and dirty prototypes of 
some of the key mechanics. I made a minimum

viable product with most of the systems turned 
on but only a fraction of the content. And I

released demos early in order to get feedback, 
which would help the development process.

Following these steps allow me to speedrun the 
game development process and get Platformer

Toolkit up to the same point as Untitled Magnet 
Game, but in the space of a few weeks rather

than a few months. But then I went further with 
Platformer Toolkit and actually finished it.

You see, the game jam was fast approaching and I 
realised that I need to either finish this thing

now or it will never get done. Snd so I did. I, 
you know, completed the development process of the

game. I learned a lot about how to finish video 
games - definitely more on that towards the end

of Developing - but I also saw just how good it 
feels to take a creative project and finish it.

I mean, for one thing, you get to put it out into 
the world for people to enjoy. Platformer Toolkit

has been played by almost 100,000 people and 
the comments and reviews have been wonderful.

You also get to flush this thing out of your brain 
and stop thinking about it all day, every day,

for weeks and weeks on end. And also you kind of 
get permission to move on and do other things.

And I realised that I want all of this for 
Untitled Magnet Game. Like as much as I'm enjoying

working on this game - it really is an absolute 
joy - I don't want to be making a video game about

magnets for the next 10 years of my life. I want 
to get it done and then move on to other games,

in other genres, with other art styles, and 
solve other design problems. And so I felt

inspired to get off my butt and bring this game 
towards the finish line. And then I just didn't.

Instead I worked on the game jam and another 
video and then just kind of procrastinated.

But then there was thing three that inspired 
me. Okay, so soon after I had started working

on Untitled Magnet Game I started seeing 
clips for a game called Elechead. This is a

2d platformer about a robot who throws an 
object around in order to solve puzzles.

That's pretty close to what I'm working on 
- doesn't feel great! And so when the game

came out, even though it's exactly the sort 
of thing I would normally love to play,

I just didn't play it. Because, you know, partly 
out of spite. Partly out of jealousy - the game

was getting amazing reviews. And partly because 
I didn't want to sort of accidentally steal

any of the ideas. But then a few weeks back 
I finally gave in and played the game. And,

yeah, it's great. It's really good, it's well 
designed, deserving of the great reviews,

and different enough from what I'm 
working on for the two games to co-exist.

But it was also hugely inspirational for me. And 
this is going to sound like a bit of a backhanded

compliment, but I was impressed that the game 
had gotten such good reviews - reviews I agree

with - despite the fact that it doesn't have an 
epic storyline. It doesn't have state-of-the-art

graphics. And it doesn't have millions of puzzles 
- in fact, the game is very short. It's only a

couple of hours long. But what it made me realise 
was: I think in my head, Untitled Magnet Game was

kind of impossibly large. Too big for me to 
think about ever finishing it. But then I look

at a Elechead, and that level of scale and scope 
and ambition actually does feel attainable. If I

think of Untitled Magnet Game as having a similar 
number of levels, and a similar sort of storyline

to something like a Elechead, that is something 
I could actually do. That is something I could

finish. And so I felt inspired to get up off of 
my butt and bring this game to the finish line.

And this time I actually did do some work 
on the game! And in the last month or so I

have done so much work that has brought the 
game so much closer towards being finished.

So what I really mean when I talk about 
bringing this game closer to the finish line

is there's a lot of stuff in this game that is not 
finished, not finalised, not properly implemented,

or just not implemented at all. It's just in my 
brain or in a notebook. These are things that

I've been leaving for another day or putting on 
the shoulders of future Mark. And this process

is about saying: today is another day. I am 
future Mark. And it's time to get cracking.

So first things first, there is of 
course the character - but I'm actually

really happy with that now. I think that is 
pretty much final code and final animations

and final sprites. I'm happy for that to 
be the character in the complete game.

But the magnet needed a lot more work. So what 
I finally decided to do was split the magnet

into three distinctly different characters. So 
this is the first one you'll meet in the game:

he's called Max, he is a basic red magnet and 
has no special abilities. Which is probably why

he looks a bit miffed. Then you'll meet Maggie, 
and she has the power to switch polarity and swap

places with her sister Meg. And so it's like two 
characters on the same magnet. And then finally we

have Magnus who is a big chunky boi. And the fact 
that he's so big means that instead of him being

attracted towards magnetic sources, he is the 
magnetic source and stuff attracts towards him.

Now this took a lot of time for me to implement 
into the game. Lots of design work and problem

solving and iteration. Until I realised that 
the solution had been staring me in the face

the entire time. You see, back in the MVP, 
every magnetic object was its own bespoke,

uniquely-crafted thing. Which was kind of dumb. 
So in the end I made a generic magnetic panel

which can be resized and placed pretty much 
anywhere you want. You can put it on the ceiling,

or connect it to a moving block, or a weight and 
pulley system, or put it on these swinging gates,

or put it on the tip of a magnet. Make 
it invisible and now you have your own

personal magnetic field to play with. That 
should lend itself to some really cool puzzles

about manipulating the shape of the world. And 
with that I finally have the cast of characters

for the final game. You'll meet them throughout 
the experience, one by one, then maybe they'll

come together for puzzles. Maybe you'll chat 
to them and have a little banter with them.

I don't know that's still for another day. 
Bad Mark! But can't do everything today.

Another thing I did was finalise some of 
the core mechanics in the game. So I built

a better moving block with these little lights 
on it to show you where it's moving. I also

built a magnetic block that can be made into 
any size you like. For this I built a system

where you can split up the sprite into different 
bits, put the corners into different places,

and it automatically tiles the edges to match. 
And then I put this out on my discord and everyone

went 'Mark this already exists, it's called 
nine slicing, and it's been in Unity forever'.

And so I felt like a bit of a doofus for 
wasting so much time. But I'm glad I found

nine slicing because it's been hugely useful in 
so many things I've been working on since then.

I also brought the laser beam back from 
the MVP, and gave it a bit of a facelift.

I've also been learning a bit more about shaders 
in Unity which I used for the laser beam and this

computerised display for the laser receiver. 
Shaders are amazingly powerful: very cool,

very complicated. I feel like I'm only scratching 
the tip of the iceberg- that is a mixed metaphor

there. I feel like I'm only scratching the... 
surface of shaders. That's how words work. I

also made a ridiculous conveyor belt, again using 
the generic magnetic panel, and spent way too long

bug fixing a thing where I can make it change 
direction. And a few other mechanics as well.

Another thing I have been putting off and 
putting on the shoulders of future Mark

has been sound effects. I know just how 
important sound design is to making a game

feel alive and polished and complete, 
but it's very easy to just put it off

until the future. But it is the future! The 
future is now baby! And it's time to put in

some sound effects. So these are some of 
my favourite ones that I have put in...

*Door Creak*
*Drill Whirr*

*Laser, Musical Notes Rise*

*Clang*
*Suction Pop*

I also put in some placeholder 
music, just to kind of give the game

a bit of a different vibe. But in terms of the 
actual soundtrack, that is again another future,

future Mark thing to figure out. I've had a few 
people reach out to say 'hey, I'm a composer,

I could make music for your game'. And thank 
you for that - I'm just not quite ready for

that conversation yet. So at some point in 
this series I will do a much more public

call out for composers for me to 
hire. Until then, please be patient.

Another thing that I have been 
sitting on for a long time has been

backgrounds. So in both demos I just have a really 
basic checkerboard tile effect in the background,

but people have said that's a bit boring. And 
I agree. If you look at other platformers and

puzzle games they have these amazing images in the 
background that really give these games a sense of

place. And so I wanted something like that for 
my game, but I couldn't quite figure out the best

way to do it. I mean, I needed something that was 
visually interesting and evocative and colourful,

but at the same time it needed to be easy for 
me to make with my pretty limited art skills,

and also didn't distract too much from the 
more important puzzle elements. Luckily,

I figured out a nice solution. So the first 
thing was not to do with the background at all,

but actually those puzzle elements. I 
boosted the 2 pixel black border to a massive

4 pixel border which I think makes everything 
look better and more chunky and fun, but also

helps them to pop off of the background. 
But in terms of the background itself,

well I found this image on Google from OpenGameArt 
and thought it looked pretty sweet. Threw a shader

on it and chucked in the background of my 
game, and yeah I was really happy with it.

But I was also inspired - that's kind of the 
theme for this video - I was inspired to make

something similar for myself. I mean, it looks 
pretty easy to achieve. It's just some basic

shapes in silhouette with, you know, the colour 
grading from back to front gives it that sense

of depth. And so this is what I came up with: I 
built a number of background plates. So this one

is some buildings off in the far distance. This 
is the back wall of the factory with some windows.

And then light comes streaming in through the 
windows. I've got some random pipes moving around.

Some boilers. Some objects hanging from the 
ceiling. And some objects more in the foreground.

Put them all together on different layers, and 
have them move at different rates, and baby

you got yourself some parallax. I then played 
around with shaders and post processing to give

it a more interesting vibe. So I put on a gradient 
overlay to give the space a bit more shape,

and push it further into the background. I also 
put on a really harsh bloom which gives a retro

pixel banding effect to all of the gradients. I 
put on some colour adjustment to add some colour,

and then a split tone effect and... this is 
looking pretty good! I finished it off with

some little bits of movement: some random dust 
particles, some steam coming out of these boilers,

these gauges with moving needles, and flickering 
lights. Put it all together and it now looks alive

and polished, and I'm really happy with this. I 
think this looks really cool, and best of all it's

really modular - so I could swap out the boilers 
for a different object, change all the colours,

and now I have the background for world two. And 
then world three and four and five and so on.

The final thing I wanted to achieve in 
this development sprint was to nail down

the transitions between levels. So in the first 
MVP, people thought it was weird that you leave

behind the magnet from stage to stage. And in 
the second demo, people thought it was weird

that when you collect the key it just sort of 
instantly boots you back to the hub. So I had

to build a new system that made a bit more 
sense, and made sure that the character and

any magnets in the scene all went to the 
next level. And so this is what I built.

*Pulling cork* *Pop*
*Sucking sound*

Okay, so it's a bit silly - but I think it's 
fun. I think it will be really satisfying when

you've finished a hard puzzle for this to be 
the ending. And it goes on nicely to the next

stage where we see a little title card 
for the name of the level, and then the

character pops out the pipe on the other end. 
That should make each level feel more eventful

and should give more of a sense of place to 
this whole factory that we're moving through.

And so with all of that, the game 
really feels much much closer

towards being complete. It might not look hugely 
different from what you've seen in the past,

but with these steps I've taken, I've 
ticked off some really big things that

the game has needed. Like finalising the 
magnets and chucking in sound effects.

And so while I've got many, many 
months still left ahead of me,

some really cool things have been 
finished. And that feels really motivating.

So what is left to do? Well, I've got to figure 
out some kind of context or story for the game,

and some kind of story giving mechanism as well. 
I also need a name for the game. It can't be

Untitled Magnet Game, that joke has already 
been done. Gotta do the soundtrack. And...

oh yeah, the big one, content! Gotta build lots 
and lots and lots of levels, which of course is,

you know, the biggest thing in the game. And 
it's going to take, you know, months for me to

do. But I feel like I've got a really good base 
to build them on now, and so I can really focus

my time and attention on just making loads of 
levels. And so that is what we're doing next!

And so here's my challenge to myself: I won't 
come back to make another episode of Developing

until I have made... 30 puzzles for this 
game. And then we'll see if they're any good

and how many more I need to make after 
that. Thank you so much for watching,

thank you to anyone who gave feedback on the 
second demo, and thank you for your patience

while I'm working on this game. Obviously a lot 
of my GMTK video making time is spent scratching

my head over bugs in Unity, but I think it'll 
be really worth it. I'm really enjoying making

this game and I think just being a game developer 
is going to make me a better video game critic,

analyst, whatever the hell I am. So thanks 
for watching and I'll see you again soon!

I don't know how long it's going to take me 
to make these levels. But I'll see you again.

Probably. Yes I will! Yes of course, we're gonna 
finish this game. Let's do it. Let's get it done.

Finish the game! Finish the game! 
Finish this video, somehow! Uh... stop