Kia ora whanau

I'm Mikey, a gamer and PC enthusiast since the 80s - but brand new to game development

As Auckland, New Zealand was moved into an emergency lockdown with the recent arrival of the Delta COVID variant (2021), I found myself in a familiar situation - everything stopped. No work, no leaving the house, no socializing...

Nothing too major for an introvert

But without the daily grind to direct my attention, I finally turned to something I'd always been fascinated with but never could quite wrap my head around. Game development..

And without the huge ocean of information, tutorials, courses and generous souls on the internet, I doubt I would have ever gotten anywhere. Suffice to say that the subject is immensly wide, deep and almost infinitely complex. Luckily these days we have incredible tools and resources that are available to anyone with a working PC and enough patience to outlast the frustration.

And so from the very basics I started with visual scripting, learning the ropes, and then into actually writing code.. 

My talented partner and I discussed game ideas and we thought it would be fun to run a little food truck - maybe selling potions? She being handy with the digital art pen, and me trying to learn a game engine, we set off to see what was possible..

Together we drew the sprites and I slowly developed an understanding of how games are made - a project that started as "can we do it?" and slowly evolved into what it is today.

Half way through making the game, when the core gameplay had already been written - I saw the release of 'Potion Craft', a polished, very cool looking game. Although it looks to be different game to Potions! - it did almost take the wind out of my sails to see a game launch with a similar subject while we were in the middle of working on our idea.

Regardless we carried on and kept focussed on our little game, and I'm super glad we did - going through the process of making a finished game is one that teaches hundreds of new lessons and a wealth of invaluable experience. 

And hopefully a journey that might lead to people enjoying an escape into this little world of Potions!

The first version of the demo is now available, and we draw closer to getting Version 1.0 of the full game ready for release