• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 05:25
CEST 11:25
KST 18:25
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
BGE Stara Zagora 2025: Info & Preview27Code S RO12 Preview: GuMiho, Bunny, SHIN, ByuN3The Memories We Share - Facing the Final(?) GSL47Code S RO12 Preview: Cure, Zoun, Solar, Creator4[ASL19] Finals Preview: Daunting Task30
Community News
Weekly Cups (June 2-8): herO doubles down1[BSL20] ProLeague: Bracket Stage & Dates9GSL Ro4 and Finals moved to Sunday June 15th13Weekly Cups (May 27-June 1): ByuN goes back-to-back0EWC 2025 Regional Qualifier Results26
StarCraft 2
General
The Memories We Share - Facing the Final(?) GSL Serious Question: Mech GSL Ro4 and Finals moved to Sunday June 15th Jim claims he and Firefly were involved in match-fixing The SCII GOAT: A statistical Evaluation
Tourneys
Bellum Gens Elite: Stara Zagora 2025 Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament SOOPer7s Showmatches 2025 Master Swan Open (Global Bronze-Master 2) $5,100+ SEL Season 2 Championship (SC: Evo)
Strategy
[G] Darkgrid Layout Simple Questions Simple Answers [G] PvT Cheese: 13 Gate Proxy Robo
Custom Maps
[UMS] Zillion Zerglings
External Content
Mutation # 477 Slow and Steady Mutation # 476 Charnel House Mutation # 475 Hard Target Mutation # 474 Futile Resistance
Brood War
General
Mihu vs Korea Players Statistics Will foreigners ever be able to challenge Koreans? BGH auto balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BW General Discussion [BSL20] ProLeague: Bracket Stage & Dates
Tourneys
[ASL19] Grand Finals NA Team League 6/8/2025 [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL20] ProLeague Bracket Stage - Day 2
Strategy
I am doing this better than progamers do. [G] How to get started on ladder as a new Z player
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread What do you want from future RTS games? Armies of Exigo - YesYes? Nintendo Switch Thread Path of Exile
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
LiquidLegends to reintegrate into TL.net
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Vape Nation Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
Maru Fan Club Serral Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Korean Music Discussion [Manga] One Piece
Sports
2024 - 2025 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion NHL Playoffs 2024
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Cognitive styles x game perf…
TrAiDoS
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Heero Yuy & the Tax…
KrillinFromwales
I was completely wrong ab…
jameswatts
Need Your Help/Advice
Glider
Trip to the Zoo
micronesia
Poker
Nebuchad
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 22527 users

It begins.

Blogs > Soan
Post a Reply
Soan
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
New Zealand194 Posts
November 08 2013 09:42 GMT
#1
What is this?
Hello TeamLiquid! Long time lurker, not very often poster here.

Welcome to the first in a series of weekly blog posts that are going to cover development of The Adventures of Sam the Pirate. Sam the Pirate is a 2D platformer, inspired by the likes of Super Mario, Super Meat Boy, and the more recent Rayman Legends, you can read more about the game here. Two months of pre-production recently finished up, and have left me with a pretty clear idea of what the game is, and how I am going to make it.

Who am I?
So, who am I? My name is Ash Crockett, and I'm a student at Media Design School in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm in the 3rd and final year of my Bachelor of Software Engineering degree, creating Sam the Pirate as my final project before graduating in May 2014. I'm also acting as the sole programmer and game designer, so the entire project is going to be a challenge, but I'm pretty confident I can pull it off!

What are my goals?
My goals for this project are as follows:
  • Have a commercially ready game by the end of May 2014
  • Release the game via Steam Greenlight
  • Use the game as a platform to start a game studio after I graduate

These goals are a big part of the reason for deciding to make a platformer for my final project, despite the number of indie platformers that are already out there. As I have an extremely limited time frame, still have some other projects to do in order to graduate, and am doing this by myself, it made sense to pick something with relatively simple game play. It also allows me to spend more time on level design, and ensuring that the game is fun to play.

What's next?
Over the coming months, I'll be putting up new blogs posts every Friday NZT(UTC +12), so Thursdays if you're in the US. Several of the early posts will likely be more technical focused, while I work on a lot of the initial programming, but as new art comes in, and the game starts to take shape, look to see more screenshots, game play videos, and discussions on the actual game design. I might even look at streaming some playtesting!

Keep up to date!
Be sure to check out some of the early concept art over on the Concepts page.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter, and like the Facebook page to stay up to date on future content and blog posts when they happen. You can also find these blogs, and more, over on my website.

If there's anything in particular you want to know about the project, don't hesitate to ask. I'll answer here and possibly work it into a future blog post.

Gowerly
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
United Kingdom916 Posts
November 08 2013 09:46 GMT
#2
So it's just you? Are you using an existing engine/environment, such as Unity to make this?
I will reduce you to a series of numbers.
igay
Profile Blog Joined November 2011
Australia1178 Posts
November 08 2013 09:54 GMT
#3
i thought the title was a reference to blizzcon
MVP <3 MKP <3 DRG <3
NeThZOR
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
South Africa7387 Posts
November 08 2013 14:43 GMT
#4
Best of luck to you man!
SuperNova - 2015 | SKT1 fan for years | Dear, FlaSh, PartinG, Soulkey, Naniwa
docvoc
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
United States5491 Posts
November 08 2013 16:19 GMT
#5
Best of luck, though I echo gowerly's concerns. Unless you want to make your own engine, are you going to use an open engine? It's kind of a tall task to make a completely new engine all on your own and a game in 1 year unless you plan on working around the clock for 365 days.
User was warned for too many mimes.
Gowerly
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
United Kingdom916 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-11-08 16:40:27
November 08 2013 16:39 GMT
#6
It's 6 months.
In the UK we have something called Dare To Be Digital. Check it out here.
This is a competition where you have 10 weeks for your team of 5 to make a prototype of a game.
This is 50 man weeks for a prototype and you do it full time.
So more time, full time to do less that what you're considering doing.

I acted as a programming mentor for it in 2007. I entered it in 2005.

One of the most important things I learned is that things take at least 4 times as long as you think they should. No exceptions.

So, personally, I think you'll be lucky to have much more than a vertical slice of the game by the end of May.

If you want to show it as a prototype to people, I suggest doing the following:

Take all the ideas that are in your game, everything, from the characters, to how things interact with each other, to special snazzy effects, all of it.

Split them up into 3 categories:
a) Must have
b) Should have
c) Would be nice to have

Remove EVERYTHING in b and c
Repeat this with what you have left.
So you have Must Must have, Must Should have and Must Would be nice to have. The last one doesn't make sense, but just go with it.

Do the things for your game in that order.
This usually then forces you to do the things that aren't that exciting to you (user interaction is usually way less exciting than making fun particle effects), but it means that it gets done.

Doing this should mean that you have something playable at the earliest possible point and you can start working more on it from there. It is also more likely to show you, from an earlier point, HOW things are going. How the game is playing, how it feels to run around, all that kind of stuff.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter.

About me: I did a masters degree in Computer Games Technology in 2005 and I have since spent 7 years working in the games industry. Take from what I've said what you will. Good luck.
I will reduce you to a series of numbers.
Soan
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
New Zealand194 Posts
November 08 2013 21:23 GMT
#7
I'm writing it in C++ and using SDL as a base. SDL is really easy to work with, rendering is already done, I've played around a little during pre-production and followed a couple tutorials, so I already know how to handle sprites and spritesheets. I've already made a platformer while I was studying here, during my 1st year (did it in 2 weeks), so I have some idea already on the physics and collision detection, I just have more, better knowledge and skills than then and can make it more awesome.

As for your post Gowerly, while your advice is appreciated, our entire degree is focused on making games, everything you said has been covered and drilled into us multiple times, and I'm way ahead of you. I've already planned out a list like you said(both for game play mechanics and art), set myself various milestones, with a set of time at the end to use for testing and iterating over the level designs, which I can work into if needed. I'm pretty confident I'll have, at minimum, an animated sprite jumping around on some platforms by christmas.

My project is likely the only one in my class that will be completed to the state I'm planning, and this is something classmates have said to me, not just my own thoughts. I'm going into this with full knowledge that I'll likely need to work some weekends and evenings to get it done, and prepared to do exactly that.
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States44105 Posts
November 09 2013 12:46 GMT
#8
Cool! Good luck!
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 1h 35m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
ProTech86
StarCraft: Brood War
Sea 4887
ToSsGirL 553
Aegong 186
firebathero 184
Mini 120
Movie 76
GoRush 68
Rush 66
sas.Sziky 36
Sharp 30
[ Show more ]
Barracks 28
Noble 20
Backho 19
yabsab 18
Bale 13
Shine 12
JulyZerg 11
Dota 2
BananaSlamJamma563
XcaliburYe271
Fuzer 192
Counter-Strike
shoxiejesuss815
Stewie2K651
edward157
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King109
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor212
Other Games
singsing1374
ceh9638
Happy467
XaKoH 279
crisheroes201
Pyrionflax117
Organizations
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Secondary Stream4687
StarCraft: Brood War
UltimateBattle 68
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Adnapsc2 20
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• lizZardDota254
League of Legends
• Stunt847
Upcoming Events
Wardi Open
1h 35m
Replay Cast
14h 35m
Replay Cast
1d
WardiTV Invitational
1d 1h
WardiTV Invitational
1d 1h
GSL Code S
2 days
Rogue vs GuMiho
Maru vs Solar
Online Event
2 days
Replay Cast
2 days
GSL Code S
3 days
herO vs Zoun
Classic vs Bunny
The PondCast
3 days
[ Show More ]
Replay Cast
3 days
WardiTV Invitational
4 days
Korean StarCraft League
4 days
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
WardiTV Invitational
5 days
Cheesadelphia
5 days
GSL Code S
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL Season 17: Qualifier 2
BGE Stara Zagora 2025
Heroes 10 EU

Ongoing

JPL Season 2
BSL 2v2 Season 3
BSL Season 20
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 2
NPSL S3
Rose Open S1
CSL 17: 2025 SUMMER
2025 GSL S2
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025
PGL Astana 2025
Asian Champions League '25
ECL Season 49: Europe
BLAST Rivals Spring 2025
MESA Nomadic Masters
CCT Season 2 Global Finals
IEM Melbourne 2025
YaLLa Compass Qatar 2025
PGL Bucharest 2025
BLAST Open Spring 2025

Upcoming

Copa Latinoamericana 4
CSLPRO Last Chance 2025
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
K-Championship
SEL Season 2 Championship
Esports World Cup 2025
HSC XXVII
Championship of Russia 2025
Murky Cup #2
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.