Two years ago I decided to return to my beloved hobby, game development, that I had left behind after starting a career in enterprise software. I wanted to create a game that would be simple in design, but complicated enough to be really proud of. While digging through my ye olde code files, I stumbled upon a pet project I was especially fond of - a remake of Mega man.
Without a second thought I decided to start working on a new Mega man remake. Even with my day job and baby girl taking most of my time, already after only little over a month of development, my game was already looking pretty true to the original:
I presented my game to some friends and colleagues and they were thrilled about it. Everyone loves MM. One of my acquaintances had a history in gaming industry and he thought I really should make it a commercial product. The idea was very tempting, but there was just this little thing - I didn't own the IPs for basically any of the assets in the game. I would have to redo everything, and without a budget, by myself...
Regardless of the huge undertaking, I started the rework. Pixel by pixel, sprite by sprite I started changing the graphics. As the work wasn't snail paced enough already, my second daughter was born, slowing down the process even more. It took almost an year to finish my engine and get started with the new graphics. By last March Mega man had transformed into something (slightly) more original; Giga girl:
Obviously the heroine was still a complete rip-off, and many of the other elements were still to be replaced. I had a nice chat at one of the IGDA Finland indie nights with a couple of industry veterans, who basically told me what I already knew. If I ever wanted to sell my game, I needed to change it further.
When I finally finished with the overall looks, I started on creating the actual game content. I continued my work, an hour a day, for months to come and got to the stage where Giga girl had become a (Mega man -like) game in its own right:
After almost two years in the making, Giga girl is closing in on beta (feature-ready) phase. Development of the game has been one hell of a rollercoaster, but also fun and educating. The project even got me to start my own game company, although if it currently only is a part-time commitment. There were times when I really wanted to just give up, but instead kept soldiering on and now that the goal is near, I have no plans to stop. Giga girl is going to hit Steam Greenlight soon and hopefully will get a release date during 2015. If you want to follow the progress more closely, come and follow me on twitter @MarkusLatvala. For less spam, follow @InvisibleTile instead, to get only the most important news.
Markus Latvala
Developer, 2D artist, Entrepreneur
Invisible Tile
