Video games have been a big influence in my life and I’m not ashamed to say it. I’ve been playing them nearly my entire life. My best friend and I always said the best job in the world be a video game tester - one that plays games all day looking for secrets and writing guides. Of course, that was in fifth grade when Nintendo Power arrived monthly discussing the hidden 1UPs in Super Mario 2. While I still think that would be a sweetass job, the other aspect of gaming I’ve always wondered about is making games.

I made my first video game back in 7th grade. It was a text-based RPG game written in QBasic. It wasn’t multiplayer or anything, but I gave to my friends and they enjoyed for a few minutes before going back to the real games. Even back then the motivation for creating them was the challenge, not necessarily making the next game to sweep the nation (but that would have been cool). I made a slew of games in QBasic, most of them text but some had some graphics, albeit weak. Every time the game got a little more complex and I tried to find a way to make building the game easier so I could spend more time on the thought behind the game. But then along came the internet and I was swept away by web design and the rest is history.

A few weeks ago I came across a game making engine called Multimedia Fusion. I downloaded it as a trial and went through the tutorial a bit. My first impression was not very good. It had a very cheap feel and I couldn’t see under the hood quick enough to know if it was worth a) an investment and thus b) my time. So I did some research to see what other people thought of the program and through that found Game Maker. Game Maker (GM) is pretty much the same thing, a game making engine, but this one made a much better impression and I could quickly see that it provided a way that I could get in and tweak beyond the drag-and-drop interface for those people just off the boat. And it is a lot cheaper. (To be fair, I’m sure Multimedia Fusion is a very viable game making platform, I just never gave it a chance.)

With Game Maker installed I saw a new challenge to fill some time. I’ve always wanted to make a video game and GM provided a means by which I could create games, not too easily, but easier than if I had to worry about everything form scratch. Game Maker is great because it provides easy and understandable management of graphics (called sprites) and other media that are used in your game. That came on top of an underlying scripting language that felt all too familiar to me. With a few tutorial documents and an excellent community forum, I was able to dig in right away. (Frankly, the included documentation is quite poor from a developer perspective.)

The last good, new, computer game that I have played was NaaC, which I recently reviewed here on The Toast. It is your classic arena shooter, a game style I am very fond of because of its accessibility and freedom. So why not make my own arcade shooter? And since I had mentioned in my NaaC review that I thought it would be cool to have an arena shooter based around a zombie theme instead of an alien theme I figured I’ll use that as my starting point.

The game play I had already mapped out in my head. Keyboard controls with mouse aim & shoot. No problem. I knew the make-or-break would be the graphics. Now, before I go further, know that my intentions were to have an arcade-style game. This game was never planned to be 3D or to sport any fancy effects or features. Remember, I saw this more as a challenge to see if I could a) make a working game, and b) if I could make it playable and somewhat enjoyable. That aside…

I didn’t want to invest a lot of time into the graphics and sound. I didn’t have the interest or time. This was about making the game work. So where do I get graphics? More so, where do I get zombie graphics?

My first thought was the Castlevania series. I found a few good resources for Castlevania sprites and it seemed that was going to be as good as it was going to get. Then by chance I stumbled across Metal Slug. It’s a platform game I had only played only a few times but one that is known for being fast-paced and fun - plus the game had zombies. I found the Metal Slug Database, an endless well of Metal Slug resources, and used as many as I could to make my game. Very quickly I realized that I could build the entire game with Metal Slug graphics. They looked good and matched the theme I was after and then magically my game, which I had always intended to call Zombie Road, became Metal Slug: Zombie Road. Plus, Metal Slug has a big fan base and by pawning my game off as a fan game might attract some additional players.

Most of the development time was spent on the game guts: the controllers, the actions, the what-ifs, and building the AI. This was all the framework for my game. Being a developer, I knew that a solid framework was key to making a good product. When you have a good framework established you have much more fun actually building the game because you have the freedom to focus on design rather than worrying if it is going to work technically.

After I built, played, and debugged the logic behind the game it was time for character graphics. As I mentioned, most of the sprites came ready to use, but some I had to piece together with some Photoshoping. The Metal Slug database provided character graphics, explosions, effects, backgrounds, and objects throughout the game. Next was sound which ended up being more important and hard to find than I expected. It turns out most people want you to pay for their sound effects. Unfortunately this was a non-profit venture and I wasn’t about to pay $2.00 for a sound file of a shotgun. So I “borrowed” a few sounds and threw them in and they turned out pretty well.

Then music. I considered using music from my favorite artists at 8-Bit Peoples but instead chose to skip the music all together. At that point I was pretty jazzed up and just wanted to be done. Last was the icing on the cake - package design - and by that I mean splash screens, player interface, etc. Using some fonts from my massive stash and applying my design skills, the finishing touches were applied rather quickly and slapped into the game. Then suddenly the game was done. Wa-lah!

Then in a small way I was able to carry out a childhood dream — I got to play my game! I played and played, tweaking here and fixing there. Frankly, it’s not all it was cracked up to be, but then again I wasn’t getting paid to do it either - that would certainly change things. But I got the game to a point where I actually enjoyed playing it myself and I think that’s all you can ask for when making a game.

And with that I present to you Metal Slug: Zombie Road

My first game shared with anyone since 7th grade. I proved to myself that I can make a game, even if it is with a game engine like Game Maker. It’s a game I can have fun with and can use later if I ever want to expand it or make another game entirely. As far as making an original game, I don’t think I’ll ever get there because it’s a ton of work! I don’t have the skills (let alone time) to make a 100% original game, meaning all graphics, sounds, and programming. That truly takes a team of talented people. Now if I found such talented people that want to make a game we’ll discuss that then, but for now I’m happy using “found” resources and focusing on the logic and game play.

So if you’re a gamer or just want to see what type of game five weeks of hobby-time yields, please visit the new Zombie Road page and download it.