Intro

Greetings!

These last few months have been... exhilarating, to say the least. September in particular, though, what a ride it's been.
In case you're not sure who I am or what this is, let's do a little expositioning.

My name is Ryan, but you probably know me as defnotreal_ on various corners of the internet. For the past six years, I've been working on a game that, as you can see, would eventually become Mr. Shootem Breaks Out!, which is a puzzle game that mashes ball-based brick-breaking with run-n-gun gameplay that probably wouldn't look too out of place in an old-school arcade, though much faster. Why should you care? Well, you really don't have to, but September 1st was the day I and my team of mostly close online friends released our first demo at 2023's Sonic Amateur Games Expo, which is an online fangame expo that has been around for a very long time.

The event's website will be celebrating its 25th anniversary next year!

Today I wanna talk about my experiences developing a game about a tiny little guy with no mouth before I left high school, finally getting a playable product out the door, and what the future could hold!

Mr. Shootem at SAGE

I decided to do a demo because, simply put, I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could actually do something with this character I had made in high school when I was bored after class one day. I had tried many, MANY times to pull this off before, but we'll get to that later. December 2022 was when I started working on what would become the SAGE demo, though I wouldn't know this at first, as I was actually part of a dev team on another game. While I have nothing but love and best wishes for that team, in March, I decided to leave for reasons I feel won't be right to disclose here. Once that happened, I took the plunge and researched submitting to SAGE. I would have approximately five months to make something playable. "That's a lot of time!" I said to myself. Eventually though, I reached a roadblock. I could only reliably do programming and maybe writing. I wasn't very good at art, I most definitely couldn't do music or sounds. About two months in, I decided to swallow my pride and reach out to some of my friends who I knew were good at these things, as well as some who were interested in doing some playtesting. Lots of them had actually seen Mr. Shootem get constantly developed from the beginning, so some were very happy to lend a hand, and it's something I still haven't thanked them enough for, at least in my opinion.

Working with friends was the best way to go about doing this, even if the game didn't look as polished as some of the others on display. We all knew not to set our expectations too high, and we put having fun and not stressing up top, though we definitely did have those moments at times. It's the AMATEUR Games Expo! Duh!

Right before the big event, I got to meet someone who I could really relate to on a personal level, and he ended up being a huge help in getting Shootem as much attention as it did. This person in particular was SuperFreaksDev, the creator of Super Freaks 1 Ultimate Edition, a full-stop excellent platformer that also spent many a moon in development. We started talking after I asked to put a Super Freaks character in the game, and was great to communicate with while making the sprites for that and the sprites for a Mr. Shootem cameo in another game of his, Strato-Scruffy! He is such an awesome guy to be around, and again, was a big asset in getting eyes on the project, and I will forever be thankful for him.

At the end of it all, the game ended up being one of the more popular ones at the event. At the time of writing, the booth had a 4.7/5 rating and was viewed a little over 1,600 times, and all builds of the demo racked up more than 100 downloads. Needless to say, these numbers VASTLY exceeded my expectations, and I'm very happy with how the game was received. All that said, there were still a lot of things that could've been handled better.

Firstly, and what was the most brought up issue and most requested feature, some players did have trouble with the eight-directional aiming. Locking the directions you could aim in admittedly did take some level of precision away from the player, and many people suggested I unlock the aiming and allow players to aim and shoot with the mouse. I'm happy to say that this new method of aiming is already in the game. I'll talk more about it later. Another concern was no way to manually reload. Well... I will be the first to admit that manual reloading IS present in the demo, but it is not conveyed in the demo at all, and that is 200% my fault. With the new controls, a separate reload button is in the pipeline. The last one is a personal ick of mine, but the tutorial could've been done way better. Originally, we were going to have button prompts on the projectors in the background, but we simply ran out of time.

All-in-all, I think we kicked ass with this demo, despite its shortcomings! We all put in some excellent work, and the players seem to think so too! Now, it's time to go backwards, and see where the project REALLY started.

Humble beginnings

Mr. Shootem didn't get his true start at SAGE! I've been working with the dude since before I left high school. Now, as a college grad getting ready to go back for a second certificate, it's a miracle that I've kept this concept in my mind for so long!

The first ever concept of a Mr. Shootem game was fundamentally the same, but still drastically different. Take a look:

The first thing you'll notice is that the levels are the traditional vertical type seen in most brick-breaking games instead of the horizontal layout seen in the demo! This level type in hindsight didn't allow much in the way of movement, and thus made the entire player object as a whole almost worthless.

Also, Mr. Shootem's design is a tad different! He looks like that because the original vision for the first Mr. Shootem project was having it styled after an Atari 2600 game, which also explains the lack of arms. A bit of a fun fact: this is also why he doesn't have a mouth! It was originally a self-inflicted restraint that ended up becoming one of his defining traits!

Sooner or later, I would ditch the portrait orientation and go for widescreen levels, though the bricks are still on top. I also apparently got way more crafty at this point, because this build had a cosmetic system, dialogue, multiple weapons, and even had a WIP level select screen! Unfortunately, this build and its source code are currently lost, but I was able to find some screenshots of it by doing some extensive digging through Discord DMs.

It's been a very long time since I've even seen footage of this build, so don't ask me why there are talking bricks, because you won't get an answer!
Also, here's the oldest known piece of Mr. Shootem fanart, from a friend of mine named LokeKatten:

Needless to say, Mr. Shootem has come a long way, and all the changes have been made for the better! I'm at the point now where I can't even fathom this game's existence without the horizontal levels or characters like Dude Duddson and Devin! I've been rambling on enough, so why don't we wrap this up?

What's next?

Making the demo was definitely a challenge for everyone involved. While I and a couple of other people are working on smaller things, the rest of the crew are taking a break from the project. To answer the million-dollar question: we haven't decided whether or not we want to pursue a full version of Mr. Shootem Breaks Out!, as we all understand it would need a lot of free time dedicated to it, and I would need to spend a decent chunk of money to make it happen. Not that I haven't already for the demo, but a full version would require way more. At some point, I'll be calling my crew together to discuss everyone's thoughts on doing a full game and any concerns they might have. I'm currently against the idea of starting a Kickstarter, as I personally feel I wouldn't be able to deliver on things such as physical rewards, which are usually standard in Kickstarter campaigns.

That said, the response to the SAGE demo has made us very hopeful for a full game! I would just like to make sure everyone is comfortable taking the plunge on making it happen. My pals on THE SHOOTEAM have been this game's true backbone, and I genuinely feel that the project would be dead in the water without them involved.

I guess to conclude, I just want to say thank you for playing the SAGE demo for this stupid little game that took a little too long to get going, thank you to SuperFreaksDev for being such a badass hypeman for the game, and most importantly, thank you to my friends on THE SHOOTEAM for helping me make this happen. I hope I get to keep working with all of you.

Until next time!
- Ryan