Sleeport is now Pilgrim. Or Echoes Of Yonder. Maybe Crude. Probably never going to end but at least I’m enjoying this. This is actually a more simple version of Sleeport. Specifically the gameworld doesn’t have as much emphasis on the Y axis, like  Sleeport did, so it’s a lot more linear.  Also the backgrounds are a lot more static and less prominent. I toned the game down to make the whole creative process easier and more fun. The Sleeport world was about big scales and apocalyptic backgrounds so the proto versions I made would consume  up to 1GB memory. This one is more modest in comparison.

Potion Maker / Witchwoods was one of my very first experiments with MMF2

In the past 2 years that I’ve been experimenting with simple game design (with the help of MMF2), I have had hundreds of great ideas. Unfortunately time and again I had to downgrade. Every time I would hit a wall, meant one step down in the ambition ladder. Now that I have taken it upon me to finish my game, I am left with something which is considerably more simple (although hopefully no less inspired). I have come to understand what’s been said many times before by real, successful game designers: Ideas are good, new ideas in games are great, but to actually realise them is aeons away from the brainstorming that precedes creation.

I can only make assumptions, but I think that even if there was a big budget involved to make my game, it still wouldn’t turn out exactly as I had originally envisioned it. Unless. Unless I was not as directly involved with it as I am now. It seems impossible to work on something so extensively, without losing the big picture. All the trivial problems that arise, just pop in and hinder the initial vision and by degrees, wear down the creativity. Alas, there come days when my motivation returns and my vision appears as pure and polychromatic as ever.

I really wish to finish Sleeport some day, even if it ends up being only a crude represantation of the real Sleeport. Regardless, if it does come to be, it certaintly won’t have been the smooth, joyous ride I had imagined.

A simple picture done with acrylics a while ago. There is some photoshop too.  It partially represents a vision I have, which is similar to Sleeport.  This vision is about a deep blue sea, Antartica, scandinavian design and an intergalactic voyage.