Posted December 23, 2024 by TheArchitect
It all started in a university dorm in Sheffield, UK during the pandemic. A roommate introduced me to a few games that changed my perspective on games and how I engage with them. The first one was Ori, a magnificent 2D platformer that was a pure joy to play. After many years of buying popular games and being left unsatisfied, I found a game that fully resonated with me. However, as someone who was always interested in game development, I could imagine how complex it was to bring such a world to life.
After expressing my desire to try making games one day and my apprehension with that, he then introduced me to Gris, the game that really inspired me to get into game development. A piece of interactive art that conveyed so much without saying a word, an immersive and atmospheric environment with a beautiful musical score as the backdrop. Not only did I see myself in it as an aspiring Architect but I also saw myself creating something that evoked the same feeling.
Fast-forward to the summer between the two years of my masters degree in Architecture in 2022. I was in a small coastal town called Falmouth trying to navigate loneliness while dealing with the overwhelming pressure of my course. Bored and idle, I decided to finally try learning game development after about a year of procrastination left the Udemy course from Gamedev.tv unopened.
So I proceeded, started learning, started thinking of games I would love to create. The first one I ever conceptualised was 'My Father's Will' but I never could actualise a gameplay loop to communicate the story. So I started conceptualising another one, directly inspired by what I was going through at the time: 'The Lonely Architect'. It was just a 2D block-building game that allowed the player create an abstract architectural landscape. But my God, coding this with little to no tutorials on how to create that kind of game was enough to make me quit for good.
However, impatience led me to start creating a game that I just wasn't ready to create. I also tried joining a Game Jam that gave us a week to create a project from scratch. Doing all this in my first month of game development while also led me to have somewhat if a breakdown caused by frustration. So I gave up. The second academic year of the masters degree was looming, so I decided to focus on that. And so I did.
Fast-forward again to two years later, May 2024, a year after graduating, moving back home and realising that the career path for an Architect wasn't as great as I imagined, especially in Nigeria. I had recently left a job that wanted to normalise staying as late as 10-11pm and working 12-hour days for a barely livable wage. I had asked fellow architecture graduates and the experience seemed to be universal. So, after months of daydreaming about a new beginning for ' The Lonely Architect' and being back in the headspace I was in when I first conceptualised it, I decided to give it another shot, but this time I would be more patient.
And so it began again, wrestling with coding and looking online for help. Things were slowly shaping up and I was confident I could get this game out this year. But something was missing. You could build on this blank 2D plane and control 'The Architect' but who was he? Why was he lonely? Where is this empty space set? Why these particular blocks? The game needed somewhat of a narrative introduction. So I went back to my moodboard and while researching, I found these amazing illustrations by Rokas Aleliunas that helped introduce me to my now favourite art movement/style: Surrealism. His work resonated with a lot of the art and colour pallet I was developing at the time and his illustrations gave me the idea to split the story section into different levels that explore different emotions and mental states: 'Emptiness', 'Heaviness', 'Who Am I?' and 'Where is Home?'. And from here on out, the art development and level design was smooth sailing.
So here I was in June, building a story and narrative behind this ominous character. To give me some motivation to finish the game, I started searching for game jams with a generous timeframe that I could submit to. That is when I found the 'Mental Health Game Dev Champions' Game Jam by 'Safe In Our World', a game jam that resonated with the subject matter of what I was currently working on. So I joined the game jam and started working towards a submission. As I went on I realised that the game I was building was a bit too big to complete in the timeframe, so I started a new version that was somewhat of a demo of what I was building. I didn't want to abandon the original version so I decided to release that at a later date.
Here I was, stressing out 30 minutes before the submission deadline, the version I submitted some minutes a go had a bug that made the game unplayable. So I went back to find the issue and fix it, and I final version was submitted 5 minutes for the deadline. It was at this point I realised I still had PTSD from architecture school. There were still a couple issues but it was playable and communicated the key aspects. Although, I was a bit discouraged by the constant bugs that kept coming up.
This discouragement persisted until the early afternoon of November 25th, and I was blindsided by this email:
I screamed!!! Because what do you mean the buggy demo I submitted got any sort of recognition? Did they see through all that and appreciated the game's potential? And after reading feedback, it seems the answer to that was yes:
I was developing the final version of the game at the time and this pushed me to complete and publish a full version of 'The Lonely Architect' that built upon the demo. I planned to release it on the day of the Game Jam showcase livestream but it wasn't ready, but I kept going.
And then it was time, December 20th 2024. I game-tested and refined the game to a point I was happy with. It wasn't perfect, but damn it was amazing. I zipped the game files and uploaded it to itch.io but I didn't hit publish yet. I juts sat there and procrastinated for a couple hours. But eventually, I hit publish and save, and here we are.
'The Lonely Architect' is the project I am most proud of. I developed by myself at a point of uncertainty and no direction. The game ended up being even more autobiographical than I first imagined and intended as being a solo dev can be a very lonely journey.
I would like to thank Safe In Our World for hosting a game jam that revolved around mental health, and recognising the demo for the Lonely Architect. I'd like to thank everyone who gave the game a play, especially DJ Saint-Hubert, who left a comment. I would also like to give a big thank you to Velvetlobster (my first follower and fellow finalist in the game jam) for their feedback and support.
I'm going to take a bit of a break now and enjoy the holidays because I have a lot to celebrate after the past few months. I imagine the new year will see me developing more games, hopefully with a lighter subject matter haha.
Thank you for reading my first devlog, I hope I didn't ramble too much (probably did). I'll be posting more devlogs about the game's art and technical aspects in the near future.
Please feel free to check out 'The Lonely Architect' and let me know what you think :). Happy Holidays!!!