Releasing Give Me Strength Today

2021-08-15

Proudly made in Limerick City, Ireland, I am delighted to say that Give Me Strength is out today, August 14!

I am constantly struggling with myself when I am making games or anything creative and this piece has ended up being about that. It is a short, experimental game where the player can go about the place and be barraged by my voice and the most amazing soundtrack from Laura Ryder.

It is completely different to anything I have made before and I believe that it is a very unique experience. Its weird and it won't be for everyone but if you would like to try out a 10 minute weird game, I hope you give it a go and get something from it!

The game is available on itch.io and you can find more information on my website

It was supported by the Limerick Culture and Arts Office and Creative Ireland.

Give Me Strength Devlog 3

2021-05-15

I have been working on Give Me Strength for almost a year now and we still have a small way to go.

The bulk of the groundwork was done in 2020 and 2021 has been focused on improving and refining the experience of playing the game. I have left my last job in the last few weeks so I now have a couple of months where I can focus my time on the things that I have wanted to work on with this.

We are wrapping up the last things like final bug fixes and getting the promotional material ready for the game and we can then push it into the world.

There is also a phenomenal original dynamic soundtrack from Laura Ryder that will be in the game and its going to be awesome!

New Projects

I am currently thinking about what I want to work on next once I can get Give Me Strength out of my head. I have a couple of thoughts for prototypes to try out and see what might work. I would quite like to make this work more public to let anyone who is interested in the process see how I may go about things.

Give Me Strength Devlog 2

2020-11-22

It is November and I am about 5 months into the development of my third game, Give Me Strength.

I have built out the chapters for the game and it is playable from start to finish although in not a very complete form. It is looking like it will be a short 5 to 10 minute playthrough. I would like if it was a bit longer but my goal now is to make that time worthwhile and provide something new for people to experience that they may not have seen before.

Each chapter has a concept that belongs to it and I am working to capture those concepts as best I can along with fixing the bugs that come along that.

The audio is going to be core to the experience and is still in the planning stages. We are putting together a plan for this and will start the recording in about a weeks time. I have some great help from friends in this department so I am excited (while nervous) to get stuck into that.

At this point I really have zero idea if this is something that I am going to be proud of or embarrassed about. It is short, weird and not a traditional game.

“The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself... That is the moment, you might be starting to get it right.”

I heard Neil Gaiman saying this recently in a podcast and it is what I needed to hear at this point of development to keep me going.

I am committed to finishing this thing just to be able to say that I weathered the doubt and shipped the work. It may be awful but what is important to me right now is that I bring it to a conclusion that I am happy with. Hopefully people will enjoy it but if they don't, hopefully they will like the next thing!

Expected release time is January 2021 and I will keep ye posted with the progress in the meantime.

Announcing Give Me Strength

2020-10-08

Over the last few months, I have been developing my next project that I am calling "Give Me Strength.".

This year, I have felt the most stressed and overwhelmed than I think I have ever felt. I have been trying to come up with ways to overcome this and take control again. Writing down thoughts as they pass through my mind has been a big help for me to come to terms with what is rattling round my skull. So much shite goes through my head that I normally wouldn't take notice of but carrying out this exercise has brought up some funny things that I wasn't expecting. I wanted to do something with this and where some people have the skills to put those thoughts into song or comedy or other forms of expression, I am going to try and use them as the basis for this experimental game.

I want to do my best to create a world where you are surrounded by hundreds of characters, each representing a single thought that he is vocalising to himself. On the surface, you won't be able to make out any discernible sentences but by exploring further into the world you can start to create a picture of what is going on and be led down different trains of thoughts. This is the general idea and I will play with it a bit to create different scenes that delve into different types of thoughts. I am not exactly sure how it will turn out but I want to give it my best shot to see how it will take form in the end.

So where am I at with development? I have been working it whenever I get the chance since July. It will probably be only about a ten minute play so I am setting myself a deadline to be finished working on it by early December so I won't be sinking any more of my life into something that may well be shite.

Thank you very much for the support. Shoot me a message wherever if you have any questions about it! There will be more bits and bobs to follow!

Game Number 3

2020-08-01

There is another game in the works! This time I have no clue if it is going to be any good at all. It is a slightly larger project than my previous outings so I am still trying to figure out how to go about it. I haven't fully wrapped my head around it yet but my hope for writing down these bits is to help clear my thoughts.

The goal of the game is to create an interactive environment to explore the mess of thoughts that we get on a daily basis. I can get easily carried away with negative or emotional thoughts and this is a project to try and make me pause and take control of some of them.

While that is my goal and direction, how it will take shape as an interactive experience, I am still unsure. The initial brainstorming of a project can be fun and inspirational as you go off in different directions coming up with new and exciting ideas. Sitting down to make that a reality however is what I am finding so tough.

 What is the game at its core?

 How is the world going to look and feel?

 What will the players find engaging in the world?

I am currently creating a prototype of the world that is in my head to try and help answer some of these questions. A small space that contains the core ideas to be explored and give a representation of what the full game will be like. From this, I can get a feel of what works and what doesn't. I still have questions that I haven't fully solved but my hope is that by building upon this prototype, new ideas will come and go and one or two of them might give me something that will bring me forward.