⛵️ Hello again Navigators! ⛵️
Welcome back to our little blog series about how and why Sagres was made. We hope you found the first parts (here, here, and here) interesting! We’ll pass straight to ooze this time, as he’s going to tell us about some of his earliest design decisions, and show how the game’s visuals evolved over time.
The Age of Discovery (the 1990s!)
“Sid Meier’s Pirates was a huge inspiration from the start,” says ooze, “though the further development went on the more I leaned towards making a more convenient, less punishing experience than that particular game.
There was another title released in Japan called Daikoukai Jidai . Back in the early 90s I found it utterly enthralling.
It wasn’t long after that though that the well of games in this genre pretty much dried up. When I grew up and realised that many players younger than I may not get that same feeling from contemporary games, I decided to make one myself!
As a solo developer I was very conscious of the game’s visuals early on. I didn’t want the game to look like it was made by a single developer. Looking back at some of those early designs now though, I think the game has come a long way from those first days tinkering in GameMaker!”
Safe harbour
As ooze says, Sagres was built using the GameMaker engine. We asked him about his experience with it and if he had any advice for budding developers who are thinking of using it themselves.
“GameMaker is a fun tool,” he told us. “It may be less useful for 3D games, but if you are aiming for 2D games then this is an engine that I can confidently recommend. It's an engine that people with less experience in development can easily pick up and learn to make their development dreams come true.”
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That’s all from us here at Kakehashi Games - and thank you to ooze for giving us a bit of insight into the development journey of Sagres.
We really hope you have found this little blog series interesting. If you have any feedback or questions then feel free to get in touch!
Until next time: Fair winds and following seas! 🌊
Ooze and Kakehashi Games