It’s been nearly a year since I last wrote about my game, but I think I owe myself a reflection/overview of sorts, so here we go!

Autopanic Is Still A Thing 🔗

Surprisingly enough, even to myself, it still is. The trajectory remains pretty much the same as what I’ve decided last year, maybe somewhat slower than what I’d like because life and stuffs.

5 years since I started my game dev journey I’ve learnt a lot, and most importantly I think I finally understand what I’m most excited about. I’m not really into making a game itself, but instead I’m interested in conveying an interesting story in an interesting way. I find myself liking more and more games like this, and I myself felt more excited when thinking about similar ideas.

This however does not mean gameplay would be in the backseat of my future endeavor, far from it. Instead I’m now more focused on creating biggest emotional impact using mechanics only. At least that’s the end goal, I still need to make my first game first. Even technically having a released game, I still feel like Autopanic is my first game.

Remaking The Game 🔗

So last year I’m pretty sure I need to hone my skills in order to actually finish Autopanic. Now I’m pretty sure what I needed is to REMAKE it. I had a hard time abandoning previous works because it is so complete, the full game is there, a handful of people have played it and shared generally positive thoughts on it. But ultimately that version is bogged down mostly by legacy code which means BUGS everywhere, and the lack of proper tools especially for narrative scripting which means I cannot iterate on the story and writings well enough.

Additionally I just can’t get my head around how people will compare the game with Hades. Don’t get me wrong I’m somewhat flattered to be compared against a 20 people indie darling studio with tons of outsourcing help, but this spells trouble for both I’m just one person and I will not hit the same expectations, and the fact that the uniqueness of the game is still generally lacking which is totally true. Anyways so the old finished Autopanic will now serve as a prototype, and I can move forward in making the real deal.

The Plan 🔗

So to gain the skills I needed, besides some background running stuffs (e.g. working on my painting and composing skills), I will be making multiple smaller games, which will be:

• A game that validates how to release a game - Autopanic Zero (a reflection on how I haven’t release a game after all these years)
• A game that validates how to write a story and find or build the tools I needed (a reflection on how the Autopanic was made without proper tooling)
• A game that validates the usefulness of my new framework (a reflection on how bad the code was for Autopanic)
• A game that validates how to design fun bespoke encounters and how the new combat system that I came up with fairs (a reflection on the lack of uniqueness)

Maybe some additional games will be needed, but at the moment this is what I’ve planned.

Also I’m actually more like making 4 games (including the actual Autopanic) all at once right now instead of making them sequentially, probably due to how they are smaller games and how I now dig more into the narrative design of all things. Instead of just thinking about the mechanics, I think more about how to slot each of them into my grand narrative like piecing puzzles, then in order to deliver the narrative mechanics just naturally emerges which is a process I really enjoy. I like solving puzzles, and I like making my games just like so.

Next Step 🔗

I have two of the smaller games at polish stage and I would push them out as soon as I’m happy with them. Similar to Autopanic Zero which will make no waves, but I had fun making them, hopefully some people will have fun with them too.