Back in 2017, with no prior coding or game development experience, I decided to learn Unity and started work on Game Over.
Up until the pre-release reviews were giving it 10/10, 8.5/10 & 8/10 (Pizza Fria, Checkpoint Gaming, Thumb Culture respectively), I was dead set nervous that the game might be no good.
It comes out today on Steam (in half an hour, feel like I’m gonna barf). I’ve met some of my best playtesters here on Lemmy, so I’m happy to announce it here specifically!
This actually looks unbelievably good, especially for a solo dev with no prior experience. Giving some Undertale vibes, but I like what I could see in this trailer better I think. Undertale didn’t really land with me but looks like this could.
Sadly I suck at rhythm games and was already intimidated by what I saw in the trailer so I don’t even think I’ll dare attempt this one myself.
Congrats! The trailer looks really cool and the music sounds amazingly good. I just bought it and am going to play it over the holidays. Good luck with it!
Congrats! Just watched the trailer and the game looks and sounds awesome. As someone who has a lot of half-finished projects, I’m impressed you stuck with it for 8 years and got it across the finish line, that must be a great feeling.
Haha thanks so much! Ive been working on it on the side, but also most weekends for about 8 hours a day (no kids helps!). I worked night shift at the sleep lab for 5 years, and when the patients were snoozin’ I’d just start working on it. When I went back to day shifts and actually had to do my job, progress slowed a bit, but then it just ended up gobbling ALL weekends.
If it’s a randomly selected Windows User, I’ll take Linux and bank on the windows user being like, a 60 year old boomer with internet explorer 6.0. The "average* Linux user would wipe the floor with me.
How did you pick up coding?
There was some free old book online by a guy who called “=” a “gozinta”, but I can’t find it anymore… I read that through, used a few Udemy courses, Brackeys, CodeMonkey the Unity Discord forums. Getting the basics down was easy, anything else was well tough.
What was challenging?
A few years into development, and Everhood came out. On first glance it looked just like Game Over, and I got pretty bummed out, like someone had beaten me to the chase. But when I actually played Everhood I saw it was a fairly different game (everhood you’re not playing to the rhythm), but it was a rough bit of time prior to getting to play and Everhood and learn that!
Were you stumped by any major development issues?
Oh my god the timing of the notes down the note lane. I swear I rewrote that code 10 times from scratch. Making sure they’re set to the audioSource.time property, but also accounting for pause behaviour, accounting for generating notes PRIOR to the music starting (and therefore audioSource.time = 0), making sure it doesn’t waver out of sync etc etc. But everytime I reworked it, it felt more robust, so it helped with confidence.
I wonder if every developer feels as though their code is held together with tape, glue, and good thoughts…
Ooh if you love rhythm games you’ll definitely be able to play through it I reckon. Hard mode is pretty tough, but I added Less Hard which has fewer notes and wider note trigger zones. And if you ever get stuck, you can switch on Nigel Mode which plays the level for you.
Bless you man, I appreciate it! If you like it, someone told me that once a steam game gets past 10 reviews, it gets better presence? If you get the time, hide a Lemmy reference in there so I know it’s you 🤝
This looks intriguing (also every game should have a Nigel Mode). I’d definitely be up for a Switch version, I don’t get chance to play on anything else these days.
*This game contains themes that some players may find sensitive. Frequent references to character’s own mortality familial death, thematic references to non-specific religions and doubts.
One character offers the player “drugs”, including a bottle labeled *XXX*, a needle, and a marijuana leaf are displayed. Accepting the choice damages the player whilst admonishing them, with the only way to defeat the character being to decline the drugs.
Some mild horror elements.
Mild cartoon violence, including depictions of optionally kicking a character, patrons of a bar brawling,
Minimal cursing (“heck”, “damn”), with one character’s fight sequence involving farting and burping.
No sexually explicit content beyond “smooching”, with a sequence involving a portion of the screen displaying a pair of lips in kissing motion. One character mentioned “goosing” his wife “on the bum”.*
I DIDNT KNOW STEAM WAS GONNA PUBLISH THAT ON PAGE. Haha I thought steam just wanted to know every possible naughty thing so they could assess who to share the game to during marketing. But FINE.
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This actually looks unbelievably good, especially for a solo dev with no prior experience. Giving some Undertale vibes, but I like what I could see in this trailer better I think. Undertale didn’t really land with me but looks like this could.
Sadly I suck at rhythm games and was already intimidated by what I saw in the trailer so I don’t even think I’ll dare attempt this one myself.
Congrats! The trailer looks really cool and the music sounds amazingly good. I just bought it and am going to play it over the holidays. Good luck with it!
Ahhhh thanks so much, I’d love to know what you think!
Congrats! Just watched the trailer and the game looks and sounds awesome. As someone who has a lot of half-finished projects, I’m impressed you stuck with it for 8 years and got it across the finish line, that must be a great feeling.
Were you working on it full time or on the side?
Haha thanks so much! Ive been working on it on the side, but also most weekends for about 8 hours a day (no kids helps!). I worked night shift at the sleep lab for 5 years, and when the patients were snoozin’ I’d just start working on it. When I went back to day shifts and actually had to do my job, progress slowed a bit, but then it just ended up gobbling ALL weekends.
How did you pick up coding? What was challenging? Were you stumped by any major issues in development?
Ooh, ooh, an AMA! Would you rather fight a windows user through Linux or a Linux user through windows?
If it’s a randomly selected Windows User, I’ll take Linux and bank on the windows user being like, a 60 year old boomer with internet explorer 6.0. The "average* Linux user would wipe the floor with me.
I hadn’t even considered the demographics. Interesting answer!
I wonder if every developer feels as though their code is held together with tape, glue, and good thoughts…
Haha fantastic work. For any tricky piece of code many devs write unit tests so you can be more confident in that piece
Huge congrats mate! Takes a special commitment to spend so long turning a vision into reality.
Also, pretty sure most AA games are also held together with tape and glue.
I love love love rhythm games. As a Beatmania player since the late 90s, how difficult is this game?
Ooh if you love rhythm games you’ll definitely be able to play through it I reckon. Hard mode is pretty tough, but I added Less Hard which has fewer notes and wider note trigger zones. And if you ever get stuck, you can switch on Nigel Mode which plays the level for you.
Holy crap man! I don’t get paid till Wednesday but after the trailer I am in. First thing I plan to purchase that morning.
Thanks for sharing and I am looking forward to it. I hope it takes off like a freaking jet!
Bless you man, I appreciate it! If you like it, someone told me that once a steam game gets past 10 reviews, it gets better presence? If you get the time, hide a Lemmy reference in there so I know it’s you 🤝
Can I play this on switch
Not yet, but it works with switch controls on PC one reviewer said?
If it does well, I think Unity lets me port to Switch fairly easily…
This looks intriguing (also every game should have a Nigel Mode). I’d definitely be up for a Switch version, I don’t get chance to play on anything else these days.
Oh man I’m dying!!
Want some weed and smooches?
Mature Content Description
The developers describe the content like this:
*This game contains themes that some players may find sensitive. Frequent references to character’s own mortality familial death, thematic references to non-specific religions and doubts.
One character offers the player “drugs”, including a bottle labeled *XXX*, a needle, and a marijuana leaf are displayed. Accepting the choice damages the player whilst admonishing them, with the only way to defeat the character being to decline the drugs.
Some mild horror elements.
Mild cartoon violence, including depictions of optionally kicking a character, patrons of a bar brawling,
Minimal cursing (“heck”, “damn”), with one character’s fight sequence involving farting and burping.
No sexually explicit content beyond “smooching”, with a sequence involving a portion of the screen displaying a pair of lips in kissing motion. One character mentioned “goosing” his wife “on the bum”.*
I DIDNT KNOW STEAM WAS GONNA PUBLISH THAT ON PAGE. Haha I thought steam just wanted to know every possible naughty thing so they could assess who to share the game to during marketing. But FINE.
Leave it in. I love it.
good luck!
Looks great! I wonder if it works on Steam Deck.
Congratulations, I hope it does well.