Urgh, makings games can be so exhausting. 

The Start

I while ago, I made a small game from a protober submission. This game would eventually be called Hell Hole. Hell Hole was great, I'm not ashamed of saying that. Everyone I put in front of it played for way longer than I thought they would whether they were "gamers" or not, even if it was on the original version (more on that later). The game is short enough that it is finish-able within an hour or so, and this led to it being quite popular at events. In one case someone actually yelled out loud when he beat it and gave me a high-5 without knowing I was the developer.  And that fueled me.

Re-de-make ?

After finishing the original version of HH (made in Construct 3 with SFX from Benjamin Ninechacker), I decided to remake it in PICO-8. Partially because I wanted to finish something in that engine, and because I wasn't too happy with the C3 version. As a fresh start, it allowed me to iron out every mistake the original version had, even if it was just a cosmetic artifacts from the pixel scaling effect in Construct. The game was running in its intended resolution of 128x128 and I was really happy with the looks. I still wish I didn't shit out the menu and end screen in a day, and I was better at making SFX in PICO-8 but hey, no one's perfect!

I would say comfortable that as of right now, the PICO-8 version is the definitive version. It plays at a way smoother FPS and it just looks better because of the native resolution. But that's not where I stopped working on it. Even if the online attention hasn't been great.

The Future

I want to make a Switch version of the game. With different levels and different soul types, more enemies, better A.I., etc. I switched engines twice already, having developed a version in Godot and Unity (I think I'm gonna stick to Godot for now) I can see how HH could become a great title for the console, I'm even planning a co-op mode that works with one joy-con for each player.

So that's it. I don't really know if anyone is going to read this, but I guess if I put it in writing I'm holding myself accountable. I've made the original version unavailable because the PICO-8 one is so much better (except for the sounds, Ben hit me up to do some sounds for HH again!). I'm expecting the final Hell Hole game (new engine, Switch release) to come out sometime in the near future as my debut console release, I will certainly do anything in my power to make it happen.

Thanks for reading. Play the game :)