Agartha began as an Ecco the Dolphin fan game idea, but over the years as the story progressed I felt it wouldn't be fair to my brother and I to keep working on an idea that we felt was better than the classic 16-bit title. Sure it's a little bold to declare that, but when you been perfecting your programming skills for over 10 years, being mediocre isn't good enough.
Many of Agartha's characters began as sketches and artwork created by my brother Mario, I always thought he would do the games artwork, ten years ago I never imagined I'd get stuck with the job. I don't consider myself an artist, nor do I consider Agartha great artistically. The artwork was the biggest hurdle in getting the game off the ground, I spent ten years trying to imagine how game engines work, I had little help from books on game design but none really had anything practical.I wasn't looking for a space invaders clone, I wanted to learn how to do the scrolling effect and parallax backgrounds. Looking at examples only overwhelmed me, and I wasn't going to use someone else's dirty game engine. I guess I had too much pride when it came to coding in the game, I wanted all the code to be done by me.
I had done scrolling tests in Direct X, Java and many other programming languages and libraries. Sad to say even though I was good at implementing my ideas in other languages and libraries, I never been happy with anything until I began using HTML5. To know that my game will work on any system sounds great! The game even works on the Iphone (Sad to say it's very very very slow). With what I have so far of Agartha, I can say with pride the engine is good enough where all I need to focus on is building levels. What's disappointing about level design isn't designing the artwork for the level, it's placing the barriers and enemies (incredibly boring). Although level design is tedious, I got two levels in the works and I hope to complete this game someday, it's always been my goal to make and complete a video game.
So you may be wondering what is this game all about? For 500 years Agartha was protected by a giant energy shield that was created by the ancient civilization of Lemuria, to protect it's inhabitants from the Moirae, creatures bent on devouring everything. While most of the planet had been consumed by the Moirae, Agartha had enjoyed protection because of the Lemurian shield. But a bottlenosed Dolphin named Krane would bring this period of peace to an end. Disabling the shield and taking command of Lemuria's machine armies. Krane doesn't care about the fate of Agartha or the world. It is unknown how a mere Dolphin became so familiar with technology but it has been suggested that maybe Krane isn't of this world.
Because Agartha was once an experiment in creating a civilization that co-exists with intelligent marine life, the Lemurian's left behind tools for dolphins, whales and orcas to use in their daily lives. Through the years the "singers" of the sea have learned to use this technology, preparing them for a time when Agartha had to be protected, in case the shield that protected them had failed. Only one would attempt to stop Krane, a bottlenosed dolphin named Kuros, a lone warrior who has taken it upon himself to use ancient clues left behind in special crystals, that serve as a puzzle that can ultimately save Agartha.
For those of you interested, the game is available online at: Arkonviox.com
Note: Currently Agartha works in all browsers except for Internet Explorer, so if you have Internet Explorer you might be wise to download the latest version of Google Chrome and playing Agartha on that.
I think this is the first HTML5 game I've played so far, really cool. The only real criticism I have so far is that the game feels rather non-water like. When I'm swimming around with Kuros it doesn't look like he's moving underwater. I'm not sure how you can make it better, it's just a feeling I got.
Also, I think it's really cool that you're making the game with your brother. There was a time when me and my brother wanted to make games together, but my brother's taste in games started to change and he even "hates" indie games nowadays.
I also had the smile at the part where you talked about your "programmers pride". I have the exact same thing. I want to code my own games and I refuse to use programs like Game Maker, despite the fact that I'm the worst programmer on the planet (I'm not even close to being an amateur). I don't have any pixel art skills either, so I'm pretty much useless overall :) Yet I'm convinced that I will finish a game someday that will at least be considered to be "mediocre"!
I had the same problem ten years ago when I was 18, I had no art talent and the only programming skills I had was C++ with some knowledge of the windows api. I ended up reading a ton more books down the road, did a lot of web programming, creating things like the comment and profile system of this website although not as complex, and when it came to finally doing a game I keapt putting it off. Making a game was a head ache even now it is, dealing with the quirks of whatever programming language I'm dealing with (in the case of agartha I just ported it over to flash). I guess my advice is start small and build onto it, same with the sprites, if you don't have art talent make them small maybe in time you'll gain the skills needed to make larger ones (I at least hope I will.)