Hey everyone, I'm Adam, a programmer, developer of Pik the Archon. As the title suggests, I'm making a beat 'em up-platform hybrid and I want to show you how it's been going so far, share some thoughts and feelings. I plan to make content like this more often because it helps with transparency and also keeps my brain organized.

The idea of this game had been dwelling in my head for a good amount of weeks before I started pushing asset creation. This dates back to about early September, when we conceptualized Pik, the main character, a cheeky little skunk with Tim, the artist I decided to team up with. I already figured the timeline is going to be very ideal for the project, as my college semester ends around December, so that gives time for 3D art to be worked out, I thought. And I was right. Just a few weeks ago, Pik's animations have all gotten finished and now I have a handy-dandy character resembling the behavior and vibe of Crash. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Who's Pik and what is he doing?

It helps if you're familiar with Crash of The Titans/Mind Over Mutant, as those games inspired me to start this project. TLDR, you beat these strong mutant creatures as Crash and jack them (yeah, that's how the game calls the interaction - think of it as saddling them). This makes you control a particular mutant (or "titan"), using its abilities and fighting others that way. I was always fond of these two black sheep in the franchise, even though they got a lot of hate -- most of which was reasoned such that they weren't really... Crash games anymore. But I went further than that; as I played through Titans earlier this year, I realized something. The combat is just NOT enjoyable. Like, I don't have a darn chance winning unless I spam default attack. Especially when I'm not on a mutant. Sure, the game was cool as a kid, but it doesn't have that *enjoyable* replayability as an adult - to me, at least. I also felt the game penalizes you too much for certain things like getting hurt. You have so much downtime it's painful.

So that made me think. I really adore the idea of controlling a diversity of creatures, but I wanted to combine that with fun, responsive, faster combat. I got to work, set up a GDD and a roadmap for myself with the goal to showcase a combat demo with Pik and an enemy creature you can saddle. And a few months later, here we go. I finally started writing code, but all my time as a programmer, primarily having worked on games, I know there's a bigger task ahead: finding an audience for the game. I *don't* know how I'm gonna do it. I'm telling you right here, I don't have a clue. This isn't like coding where I ask someone and they tell me to do this to achieve that. However, I can try everything. I'm deliberately pushing socials, made a Steam page and a Discord VERY early on. I'm logging my progress frequently, I share the game with friends and acquaintances, and as soon as I have something testable/playable, I'll share it with interested fellows. We'll see if this works, I suppose?!

You're probably still thinking: what does all this have to do with the title? I already mentioned I work as a programmer (+ sometimes game designer), and for a long while, I kept... "identifying" myself with my clients' projects. "Identify" is not the right word, but when I'm in a discussion about who's working on what, I wouldn't have a product of mine to show off, if you know what I mean. This November I attended my first game developer con in my country, Hungary, and met so many nice people there with their games. I think that was the turning point in my head to chase this passion idea of mine. It's not that I dislike anything I work on, but you *have to* experience what ownership over a project feels like. I swear to God, it isn't anything like working on someone's game, even if I really, really, really like their vision. I tried making my own games earlier on, of course, but I either parked them or they weren't too big/ambitious enough that I could get attached or release them. Nonetheless, this time around, I'm back with enough funds to at least push a well-made demo -- and while putting money into the project also keeps me in check more, seeing people work on it by my side, creating a high-quality experience is truly inspiring.

Whew, thanks for reading my first post! This was more of a vent than anything, but maybe it taught you something or ended up being meaningful. Next time around, I want to focus more on the production cycle and difficulties for me so far. While I'm still early into the journey, I feel like I have the will after years of experience to pursue this path together with you all.

If you wish to see Pik in action a bit more, I uploaded his animation reel to Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pdj3fUqwxGI