 Ok, I know you hear the name “Earl the Tomb Robber” and immediately think “Ooh, a new Tomb Raider clone. That’s cool.” But did you know that Earl the Tomb Robber actually came out about 6 years BEFORE Tomb Raider? That’s right, long before there even was a Lara Croft, the only booty to be found in ancient tombs belonged to Earl! (Don't like reding? Watch the Devlog video on YouTube!)  The Origins of Earl I first released Earl the Tomb Robber in 1990 as a single-screen style platformer for the C64. As a kid whose parents wouldn’t buy him a Nintendo or Sega game system, I was jealous of my friends who were enjoying games like Mario Brothers, Bubble Bobble and Snow Bros. I didn’t have a game console, but I did have a Commodore 64 computer and a copy of Gary Kitchen’s Game maker, software that let beginners create their own games for the system! The hardware and the software were both pretty limiting, but that didn’t stop me from setting out to make the next big arcade style game! And so my journey into Game Design began! The original game was pretty simple. You had a mascot character, Earl, whose goal was to use bombs to blow open doors and collect the treasure behind them. Bombs could be collected from TNT crates found in the level and used to destroy enemies as well as doors. Once you’ve destroyed all of the doors in the level and collected all the treasure, you could advance to the next level and face new, more difficult enemies! In true arcade fashion, there was no real ending to the game, it just kept getting harder until you eventually ran out of lives. Although it was fairly basic, I still consider this one of the best games I ever created for my trusty C64, and am still rather proud of it to this day.  Fast Forward a few decades and here I am again diving into the world of Earl the Tomb Robber, but video games have changed so much since then and so Earl would have to evolve as well. Once I decided to revisit this title, I had to decide exactly what I wanted it to be. I now have years of professional experience in Game Dev as well as having my own taste in games evolve. I wanted to keep the charm of the original game while updating its presentation and mechanics to suit modern gameplay. The core mechanics are all still here: Collect bombs to destroy doors and enemies while climbing ladders and exploring the environment to discover treasures! But now, there’s also so much more. The world itself takes place over an entire island to explore with several different environment types. Challenging puzzles provide the main gameplay loop with enemy combat now playing a bigger part of keeping the player engaged without becoming overbearing. You can also look forward to finding collectables, upgrading your equipment, unlocking new outfits and more! Of course the biggest change is the addition of a complex and emotional story. Storytelling in games has become my passion and I learned a TON about what makes game stories work in my time at Telltale Games. I wanted to bring all of that knowledge and choice based interactivity to this game as well. Whew! Thats quite a checklist of features! The short pitch is, I wanted to make a game that takes the look and emotionality of a Pixar movie, blends it with modern gameplay inspired by the latest God of War and Uncharted games and mixes in a bit of that old school arcade charm! The results should be a unique experience that promises fun for anyone looking for something beyond just another shooter.
General Updates So what’s new since last month? Well, I’ve done a lot more writing on the story and made some updates that divides the story into chapters that helps players stay focused on incremental goals. The chapters now play out like mini episodes within the larger overall narrative of the game. This ensures that the player always has something interesting they are working toward from moment to moment! I've also begun work on the second main environment. In the last update, I mentioned that I had completed the Desert Plains environment and this month I’ve begun work on the Jungle Ruins! I've started building a few of the environmental puzzles and creating plenty of nooks and crannies to explore! As for the combat, well, I’ve made the decision to go in and re-code it all from scratch… again! The combat is actually starting to feel pretty decent, but it’s still a bit too glitchy and inefficient. Sometimes that’s just how it goes in Game Dev. To get a feature to where you want it to be, you’ve got to scrap it and start over again a few times, learning as you go. It’s painful, but it’s worth it. Finally, I’ve figured out what to do about the Upgrading the Shovel issue I was having as mentioned in the last devlog. I’ve decided to kill that feature! I’ve also killed the ability to use either a basic attack of a strong attack in regular combat. Neither of these features were standing out or adding any significant fun factor to the game, so instead, I've decided to implement a kind of Power Attack instead! This works a bit like the Magic attack in the old Golden Axe arcade game. As you fight, a Power Attack meter will slowly fill up. Once it’s full, you’ll be able to unleash a powerful special attack that can cause major damage on nearby enemies! New special moves will become available to unlock with the treasure you’ve collected to keep things fresh and exciting! I haven’t implemented this feature yet, but stay tuned for a sneak peek in future devlogs!  Personal Updates Not much to say about any personal updates. Things are pretty much the same around here. But here’s something interesting… maybe… By now you all know that I want the core of this story to be a reflection of my own personal journey dealing with my issues with depression, disability, and low self esteem. I think it’s something that a lot of people can relate to, and maybe if I can help myself, I can help others too. But sometimes when I sit down to write, I have trouble getting those emotions on the page. I start to wonder if my antidepressants are keeping me from doing my best work? Like… if I’m not always in a pit of total despair, how can I honestly write about it? I know, that’s not a healthy way to think, and don’t worry, I’m not gonna go off my meds. It’s just something that’s been on my mind.  I hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the past and future of Earl the Tomb Robber. If you’ve been following along and haven’t wishlisted this game on STEAM yet, please consider doing it. It costs nothing and really helps me out a lot by giving the game more attention. WISHLIST ON STEAM! Thanks so much, everyone! Until next time, keep looking for your treasure… inside and out!
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 Happy June everyone! Time to check in and let you know what’s happening with the latest in development of my video game: Earl the Tomb Robber! If you’re tuning in for the first time, Earl the Tomb Robber is a story driven, single-player, 3rd person adventure game! It started with the premise, “What if Pixar made an Uncharted game without all the shooty-shooty bits?!” First Major Milestone reached! Firstly, I’m so excited to announce that the First Major Milestone has been reached! I have completed the initial pass on the Desert Plains level of the game. The level is fully playable from start to finish, but it still needs more polish, and plenty of bug fixing. Eventually I’ll be replacing much of the music and fully replacing the temporary AI voice acting with professional voice actors.  The Desert Plains level is one of 5 planned environmental stages in the game including jungle ruins, mountain pass, tropical coastline and a haunted forest. Each environment has several tombs to explore, challenging puzzles to solve and unique enemies to defeat! I’m not sure if anyone else does this when designing their game levels, but the Desert Plains are NOT the first level of the game, it’s actually right in the middle! Because this genre is fairly new to me, I have a LOT to learn. I don’t expect the first levels I learn to build to be the very best. So my personal philosophy is to build from the middle out. This way by the time I’m designing the first and the final levels, I’m far more experienced and am able to make something much more exciting! Those first and last impressions a player has of the game are the most important after all! General Updates Additionally, I'm still looking for ways to make the combat more satisfying WITHOUT making it become a major component of the game. At the moment, it’s just a bit clunky and simple. The “Simple” part is intentional, but I still want it to be satisfying.  Currently there are two types of attacks, a basic and a heavy, but the Heavy attack doesn't feel responsive or different enough from the basic attack. It's a slower attack that hits for twice as much damage if you connect, but I find it’s just not fun to use so I almost always stick with the basic attack. I may end up cutting the heavy attack in the end. The player still has the ability to dodge roll, and to use bombs to attack enemies if you equip them, so there are some basic choices to make during combat. This leads me to my second challenge… how to upgrade the shovel? The player’s only weapon is Earl’s trusty shovel (And of course you get to name the shovel!!) He uses this shovel both in combat and for digging up treasures & even puzzle solving along the way.  The player has the option of upgrading their gear and outfits by spending some of the money earned by collecting treasures! Bombs can be upgraded so that you can carry more at a time and do more damage. Heath packs can be similarly upgraded. You can even spend money to buy entirely new outfits for Earl! It makes sense to me that the player would also be able to upgrade the shovel, but I’m not sure what to do with it. I could make it do more damage in battle, but anything else? I thought of maybe including elemental effects, but that seems a bit cliche. If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them! Story Updates While the main plot of the story is fully outlined (No Spoilers), there are still a lot of details I have yet to fill in… including the ending! Much of this story is based on my own personal journey battling with chronic illness and pain, as well as mental issues like depression and isolation. Part of my personal journey and learning about myself is making this game, so naturally I don't have an ending yet. It’s an ongoing journey that I mirror through gameplay. The more I write the more I think the game might have different endings depending on the choices you make and discovering the type of person that YOU are.  I tend to switch modes several times during production, focusing on writing the story for a while, then switching to actually making the game. They are very different thought processes so I don’t try to do both at the same time. This also has the advantage of keeping me from burning out doing any one thing for too long. Personal Updates As for me personally, I guess I’m trucking along. Medicine is helping to keep me stable both mentally and physically. Doctors are satisfied with heart recovery. My diabetes is being managed well enough… kidney disease is holding steady and not getting worse. And my gout flare ups, while still regular, are more mild in nature than in the past. There are still days where I cant really get around or use my hands at all, and days where finding the motivation to get out of bed is challenging. (Thankfully my pets have no lack of motivation and ensure I get up whether I want to or not!)  So that’s it! Let me know if you enjoyed this longer format Dev Log and tell me what you want to know more about! See ya next time! Don't like reading? Watch the video! Okay, let’s get this out of the way… Covid SUCKS! This month has been pretty much a bust for game development. I caught Covid 19 at the beginning of the month and have been down pretty much every day since then. As a result, yeah, pretty much nothing got done. So I guess this devlog is more of a non-update than anything else. During my downtime, I did have a few friends play the game and give me feedback. Besides finding a bunch of new bugs to fix, I also got some interesting feedback that I wasn’t expecting regarding the Ladders in the game. Climbing ladders is a regular part of navigation in the game and is required for exploration and reaching elevated areas. Climbing DOWN ladders however, is NOT part of the game mechanics. This is mostly because there is no fall damage in the game, meaning you can simply jump down from any platform to reach an area below. But people were still telling me that they couldn’t figure out how to climb down ladders!
So what do you guys think? Should I add the ability to climb down ladders even though it serves no practical purpose? And as a small bonus this month, here is a quick peek at one of the latest Tombs I was working on before Covid slowed me down. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to my regular pace of productivity soon!  Welcome to Earl the Tomb Robber Devlog #3: Let’s talk combat!
I’ve already mentioned that while Earl the Tomb Robber will feature enemy combat, I don’t intend for that to be a major mechanic in the game. What does that mean exactly? Let me explain. I grew up playing narrative and puzzle based adventure games and that’s where my love of video games is rooted. Those games rarely had any combat mechanics at all, so those skill levels never really advanced as my gaming matured. These days I love the modern cinematic, single player action/adventure games like Uncharted, God of War or The Last of Us, but I enjoy those games the most when I play them on “Easy” or “Story Mode”. I love the storytelling and the player agency in the gameplay, but can do without the frustration of dying over and over until I “get good”. I play video games for the fantasy of it, that mean I want to feel like a Bad-Ass right out of the gate without having to spend countless hours training and actually becoming skilled. That’s too much like real life! Ugh!! But having enemies in a game does more than just provide a potentially frustrating challenge. I use enemies to convey a number of different ideas important to game design. One of those is “signposting” player progress. Many games use enemies to let the player know where they need to go next. It’s a common expression that if there are enemies in the area, you are going the right way! Earl uses this same ideology to help direct the player. Enemies are also an important aspect to making the world feel alive. The different areas on the “Island of the dead” are each inhabited by different kinds of surprising creatures out to do Earl harm! They are also important to the storytelling aspects of the game. Who are they? Why are they there? What do they want? And while we won't be exploring these questions in depth for every enemy, their presence in the world helps to expand the overall mysterious nature of the island. Combat is still very much a work in progress. Currently the player has two types of attacks, a heavy attack and a light attack. They can also dodge out of the way when an enemy strikes. I’m hesitant to add more depth to the mechanic because I don’t want the fighting to take a priority role in this game that's more about exploration and puzzle solving. But I would like to hear what players expect and want from lite-combat in a game. Please share your thoughts in the comments! Your feedback will only make the game better! Thanks and happy gaming! Don't forget to WISHLIST the game on STEAM: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3522010/Earl_the_Tomb_Robber/ Hi! Welcome to Earl the Tomb Robber Devlog number two!
Today, let’s talk about what this game is and what my goals are as a game designer and writer. Most of my life I’ve been an adventure game designer. In the 90s I fell in love with Lucas Arts graphic adventure games. Before too long I was making my own adventure games in FLASH and that led to a career at Telltale games where I continued to develop and explore what narrative driven games could be. At the same time, some of my favorite games to actually play were 3rd person single player action-adventure games! Tomb Raider, Uncharted, the latest God of War games, and smaller games like Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Stray and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice are some of my favorites that I never get tired of playing.. And because I’m “THAT” kind of gamer, I generally play in Story Mode! Not sorry. I’ve always wanted to make a game like that but most of my professional experience was with adventure games with deep roots in their Point and Click origins. Instead of allowing that to be a hindrance, instead I hope to use that knowledge of interactive storytelling as a strength and make the kind of game that I really want to play. A game that takes the exploration and adventure elements of the action games combines it with the challenge of puzzles and narrative choices that traditional adventure games offer. Narratively, the themes of this game are more personal, dealing with what it’s like to feel like a broken person. What kinds of things do we do to cope with isolation and loneliness? How do we go about discovering who we are as a person? This is my personal journey as well as Earl’s (and maybe by extension… the player’s?”). It’s a journey that I’m currently on, so I don’t know what the answers are yet, or where this will ultimately lead. Making this game is sorta like drafting a map as I go. In future devlogs I plan to go deeper into detail on the actual building of the game. I have a few ideas for upcoming topics, so let me know in the comments what you’d like to see next! DEVLOG TOPICS -------------------
Hello. Before I really dive into a full on Game Dev blog, I thought I'd better introduce myself first. My Name is Mark Darin. For 15 years I was a professional Designer/Writer/Creative Director at Telltale Games. I worked on many awesome games with some super talented people! It was the job of my dreams... until it wasn't. But that's another story altogether. According to Wikipedia, Mark Darin is an American video game designer and writer. He was the co-designer of CSI: Hard Evidence, Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Tales of Monkey Island, and Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent. He also wrote the second episode of The Walking Dead, Starved for Help." The truth of the matter is that I'm really just some guy who is going through some shit in his life right now... just like everyone else. But I have the fortunate ability to have the knowledge to create video games, and I'm hoping that by addressing some of these issues in the game itself, I can better get to know myself and maybe gain some insight into dealing with the issues in a healthy way. And if I'm SUPER lucky, maybe this dumb little game will help other people find their way too. I'm just getting started with this project, and I expect it'll take me quite a while to finish, but you're welcome to join me in this experiment... maybe learn something new, discover that even a moron can become a professional game developer, or just offer up some helpful advice or criticisms. Just... you know... don't be a dick about it. The internet can be a tough place for people looking for validation, so do your best to raise people up, not put them down. Thanks! |
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