- #Super mario world sprites background how to
- #Super mario world sprites background software
- #Super mario world sprites background code
I was starting to enjoy working on the game by this point. I distinctly remember working on these early mock levels being the first “aha” moment.
#Super mario world sprites background code
I didn’t decide to call them Kells until the very end so all the code refers to them as minions as well:Īs the prototype continued to improve, things were starting to take shape and it was starting to feel like there were elements of fun to be had! The green characters were called minions all the way through development. It required weeks and weeks of experimentation and trial and error.
#Super mario world sprites background how to
I had a rough idea in my mind that the minions (the green dudes) would move around independently of the player, like in Lemmings and you would have to change gravity to manipulate them, but I had no idea how to execute on that concept. I was playing a lot of “Baba Is You” at the time so maybe I was blatantly trying to copy ideas from that game, not sure! I was playing around with many, many concepts at the time. The GML language isn’t exactly considered one of the better programming languages (although to be fair it is getting better all the time). By the 24th of January I managed to get a rough prototype running:
#Super mario world sprites background software
I’ve been a Software Engineer for over 20 years now so learning a new language isn’t too difficult for me, but this was a different experience altogether. It meant learning a custom language from scratch. I spent months trying to learn Game Maker Studio 2 – the game engine I decided to use to make Kells. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out how to get anything anywhere near resembling a playable game. Of course, it took months before the game started to look anything like this. Here is a screenshot of the first level in the finished version of the game: Phase 1 – Core gameplay Given how much things changed during development, it’s quite remarkable how accurate this initial drawing turned out to be. Here is the first mock-up for the game that I drew 3 days into development: This was a very strange thing to behold – I don’t even typically like puzzle games! It was like the creative process was taking on a mind of its own! As I played around with several concepts, I stuck with the platforming vibe for a few days before I found the game suddenly began to morph into a puzzle game before my eyes. Super Mario World is my favourite game of all time and I still remember being totally in awe of the World Map the first time I played it as a kid and I wanted to use that as inspiration for my game. When I first sat down to start planning it out on the 4th of January 2020, I originally wanted to make a 2D platformer game.
…my son Ben (19) had no idea I was working on a game. But even after that milestone, I never dreamed my son and I would be able to play it together around the TV on our favourite console! In the beginning… Back then we didn’t even expect it to be playable, never mind it turning into a real game with 100+ levels and being released on Steam/PC. I started this game back in 2020 as a fun little side-project to pass the time during the pandemic with lots of help from my son.