For this week's blog, we take a quick look at some of the improvements that have come to Firstborn in the last couple of weeks. Animated Terrain: One major improvement offered by GameMaker Studio 2 is support for animated tilesets. It is now possible to have all manner of miscellaneous animations within the game world without significantly impacting framerate. The video above shows our first pass, with the Sea of Tar and the wall spikes now each sporting an idle animation. Ma

For this week's blog, we take a look at the features and updates you can expect to see in early 2017. GameMaker Studio 2: The release of a beta version of GameMaker Studio 2 has created an exciting opportunity to upgrade some of the features in Firstborn. The new development environment offers a host of new features unavailable in the original GameMaker Studio. While there is excellent support in place to make transferring projects from the older version as painless as possib

The holidays are over (for us, at least) and development on Firstborn is ramping up for another year. This week we get inside the heads of the monstrous Firstborn with a look at how their AI works, and the design decisions behind it. Going into development on Firstborn, I knew a lot of thought would need to go into the AI, but I wasn't sure where to start. I hadn't designed AI for a strategy game before, and there were a lot of factors to consider. It was time for some resear

With 2016 drawing to a close, I thought it was a good time to look back at how Firstborn started and reflect on the game's progress as we head into another exciting year of game development. This is probably going to be a long post, so I've organized it into micro-chapters for the sake of convenience. The Prototype - Let's Make A Game! Firstborn started as a student project back in 2015. As part of the final assessment for the course I was studying at the time, students were

As promised, this week we will conclude our series on the enemies from the demo with a detailed look at the formidable Unborn Lord. Spoiler Alert: This post contains detailed information on how to beat the boss. If you haven't already, you may want to to play the demo before reading further. You can get the current demo on IndieDB. It certainly knows how to make an entrance, but what exactly is the Unborn Lord? Contrary to appearances, the Unborn are not truly undead. Rather,

It's time to take a look at the other two enemy types from the Firstborn pre-alpha demo. This week, we find out more about the Archer and the Bog Shade. The Archer: Smaller and weaker than the Drudge, the Archer makes up for its lack of physical prowess with the deadly reach of its bow. The Archer is the only basic enemy with a ranged attack and can easily blindside an unwary hero with a well-placed arrow. As we can see here, the Archer's bow takes a while to draw back and ca

In this week's blog, we take a look at the two most basic enemies in Firstborn, how they behave in combat, and all the ways a player can turn the battlefield against them. The Drudge: Barely tolerated by their own kind, Drudges come from the lowest caste in Firstborn society. While they number among the least dangerous and accomplished of the Firstborn, Drudges can still pose a deadly threat to even the mightiest human warriors. Driven by savagery unfettered by training or re

I have always struggled with colour in pixel art. Get a shade wrong here or there and an otherwise aesthetically-pleasing image can end up looking terrible. This is especially problematic when you realize something is wrong with the palette for a character. You may have completed dozens of animations (or worse, payed someone else to produce them for you), only to find that your colours just don't look quite right. Well, with enough time and patience, as well as a bit of beefy

With the wild ride of PAX Aus 2016 behind me, it's time to start planning for the next stage of Firstborn's development. Before I do that, though, I thought it would be worthwhile to reflect on the lessons learned from my adventures at PAX and how those lessons will shape the future of Firstborn. I'll be the first to admit that Firstborn's combat hangs on a fairly unusual premise. Taking out enemies exclusively by using the environment is markedly different to the combat syst

So my first PaxAUS has come and gone, leaving me both tired and exhausted. As someone who has never been to a con before I went in not knowing what to expect but was blown away by the enthusiasm of all the attendees and fellow game developers. I showcased my game Firstborn at the AIE caravan and delighted in watching people figure the game out. As a long time lover of challenging puzzle games and anything turn based I tried to make a game that I would enjoy playing that would