Harder Than It Looks
How do game developers stay creative? I feel mentally exhausted. It’s not true when they tell you that programming is another language, it’s more like banging your head against a wall until you speak in tongues for one, miraculous moment. Then it’s back to the wall. Even trying to upload my game somewhere was a nightmare.
About What I Made
I work at an 18th century tavern museum in downtown Fredericksburg called the Rising Sun Tavern. Our first tavern keeper died in one of the rooms upstairs and people say he never left. Mr. John Frazer was known for getting into legal trouble while he was alive and has been posthumously known for pulling rugs, pushing girls, and general mischievousness. We do ghost tours, it’s a whole thing. Anyway, I thought that a troublemaking spectral tavern keeper was a great premise for a point-and-click, Sierra-style game. Alas, I am Icarus, and making games is very hard.
When you run the .exe file, a window will pop up. Audio of 18th century tavern ambience will play, and your cursor will appear as a magnifying glass. Nothing is clickable. Did I mention that making games is hard?
What I Made
Click download. A scary warning message will pop up.
Click more info, then click run anyway.
This is the best way I could find to share what I made.
I spent a very long time trying to find a better way.
My eyes hurt.
Sources
The background is a photo I took of the tavern’s banquet hall, with permission from and thanks to Washington Heritage Museums. The characters are sketches by Paul Sandby, a famous 18th century artist who depicted everyday life in London, England. The cursor is a magnifying glass found on ClipartKey.com. The audio is ASMR — Medieval Tavern Ambience from Perfect Atmospheres on Youtube. The game was made using Adventure Game Studio.
