Nightwalker

Dev Spotlight: Chapter I - Nightwalker

I recently met someone named Adam who has been programming for most of his life. He's currently working on a game called Nightwalker that mixes retro gameplay with a techno sound.

Who are you and what can you tell me about yourself and your journey into game development?

My name is Adam and I'm a game dev student from the UK. My game development journey started from a very young age, my dad worked in the games industry and he kind of paved the way for me and got me into a lot of retro games which are still a sort of obsession. I didn't start making games till I was around 11, I used Construct 2 which by todays standards is a very out of date software, but it helped me get into the process of making games.

How long have you been programming and what initially got you into wanting to make games? Was there a specific game that you played and thought "I'd love to make games like this"?

I have been programming and makes games for about 8 years. I took a two year break towards the end of school to focus on my exams. I had booklets upon booklets of game ideas that shamelessly ripped off anything I was interested at the time, however the ideas made me curious on making games, and I ended up stumbling on the Construct 2 game engine. It didn't require coding but instead used event based programming, like: bullet hits enemy, bullet destroys, damage enemy. And this helped me to understand the process of making games a lot easier.

A lot of my older games have been lost, however a few of my games that I made when I was around 12 are available online since I published them to the Construct 2's online arcade. In 2019, I began working on a 2D zombie shooter that I never finished. The project initially began as a GMTK Game Jam project that managed to somehow gain a lot of traction. This 2D shooter, while never being finished, helped me to understand how much projects can bloat in size. I didn't end up working on any projects from 2020 to 2024 because of this, however instead focused on smaller prototype games and learning how to better use game engines.

What can you tell me about Nightwalker? Does it have a backstory? What game engine are you using?

The game I'm currently working on is called Nightwalker for now. It's still very early in development and didn't take its current form until a few weeks back. I've been messing around for over 2 years with a concept for a game, but didn't have the skills to really make what I wanted. But I feel as if now I have what it takes to make the game, so a few weeks back I officially started production on it, and hopefully it'll be my first steam release. It's an experimental boomer shooter, where you play as a vampire.

My normal programming method is to add limits to things, however with this game I'm removing limits (unless they are totally game breaking) to hopefully allow players to experiment with different combos. The idea is that techniques and combos will arise that I didn't plan while programming the game. Each and every thing will be able to interact with each other, which again should help this happen more.

I'm using Unreal Engine 5 currently to develop it, since that is what my college course teaches, however I am debating on moving over to the Godot engine instead. Currently the game doesn't really have a story going for it, the basic idea is that The Rapture has started and every creature and demon has been summoned to Earth to punish mankind. You play as a vampire, who had been subdued over a 1000 years ago, and because of The Rapture, you were brought back and get caught in the crossfire between mankind and monsters. The story is 100% going to change in some way at some point, but the main point will stay the same.

I recently got into game development myself and one thing I haven't started learning was music and sound effects. Do you make your own and if not, is that something you plan on doing?

Music is something that I've been interested in for quite a few years, I've never actually done anything with it until late last year (2023). I'm a big fan of anything techno, so a lot of my music is techno mixed with breakcore. A lot of people say to learn music theory, however I found that my music was better when I didn't know anything about it, since now that I researched it a lot, my music lacks that initial charm it had from being clueless. I find myself thinking too hard about if the theory is okay, and being far less experimental.

As for sound effects, I often find completely random sounds and edit them until they get the sound I want. Sometimes I'll hear a sound while I'm out shopping and I'll just get ideas of what I could do with that sound. For instance I used a car skidding sound effect to make a teleportation sound by speeding it up and adding a lower synth in the background.

How much time each day do you spend working on your game? Are you a full time game developer or do you just work on your game when you can?

The amount of time I spend on my game a day can vary, sometimes I work on it almost the entire time I'm awake, and sometimes I don't touch the game for a week. An issue I, and a lot of newer devs, encounter is burn out, working for too long and not taking breaks can just get you bored of the project so I make sure to try and take breaks when I can, they also help me to collect my thoughts and come back with a clear head. When I am off college, I tend to spend 99% of the time working on the game, since it is much harder while I'm in college.

What other type of games have you made? What have you learned so far from developing Nightwalker and what sets this game apart from the others?

Over my time making games I've developed probably 100s of prototypes or demos that never go anywhere. In total I have only released 1 game in the 8 years I've been making games, and that game was released in either 2018 or 2019, I can't remember. It was a 2D platformer that can be completed in around 20 minutes, however it did help me to understand a lot of the process of making a whole game.

I've learned a lot from the prototypes I've made too. A lot of things I'm doing in my current project are things that I've done over the past years, so when it comes to doing them, I already know how to do a lot. I think what will set my current game apart from others will be the weapon variety and complexity, while also being simple. Earlier I mentioned how everything can interact, and I'm hoping players who experiment will use this to their advantage during the game and complete levels faster, however those who are just looking for a casual experience will also be able to play the game just the same.

If you're interested in learning more about Nightwalker, then follow Adam on his YouTube channel where he updates progress semi regularly.