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The Making of Dosoland

A Solo Game Development Project

 

About Me

Hi, I’m Felix, the founder of DosoSoft. Growing up with Gameboy and SNES games, I’ve been a passionate gamer ever since. One day, after playing a retro platformer from the 8-bit era, I had the idea to create my own small game. Soon, this became my passion project.

It took me 8 years to release the final version of that game. During that time, I learned a great deal about game development. Now, I’m eagerly looking forward to continuing my game dev journey!

why I made this game

In fact, I initially wanted to create a comic book, not a video game. Writing a comic has always been a dream on my bucket list since my childhood. As children, my cousin and I used to invent all kinds of silly characters. This is where Snake Man, the Professor, the Counts, the Dog Planet, and the Grandiots come from. I always thought this story could be worth sharing, and as an enthusiastic reader of Disney comics, creating a comic seemed the logical option.

Then I grew up and found myself in a situation familiar to many of us: I had a job and not much time; I hadn’t sketched or drawn anything since I was a kid. One day, I played a retro platformer from the 8-Bit era. Maybe some of you remember  “The Lucky Dime Caper starring Donald Duck” for Sega Master System?  Despite its outdated graphics and limited gameplay, the game provided so much fun. That’s when I thought for the first time: “Sure, I am going to develop a game instead of creating a comic!” With today’s tools and technology, how difficult could it be?

Well, it was certainly more challenging than I had anticipated. From the time I started until I released the final version of Dosoland: Snake Man’s Adventure, it took me 8 years. As a solo game developer, I’ve worn many hats simultaneously, which can be overwhelming. But why did I keep going, even after facing numerous failures? Because this is the work I’ve always wanted to do—to express my creativity and to learn and improve every day. I hope that you have as much fun playing, as I had creating it!

Game Development  as a digital nomad

The phase when game development truly took off was during an 8-month backpacking trip through Asia and Australia. Working in some of the most beautiful places in the world was both exciting and inspiring. It was also the moment when I gained the confidence to seriously consider founding a company and transitioning to full-time game development. In general, my conclusion is that creative work aligns exceptionally well with travel. While this dynamic may differ if extensive communication is required, for tasks such as drawing, development, and level design, a serene spot equipped with power and internet connectivity suffices perfectly.

Inspiration in Akihabara, Tokyo

My journey began with a visit to Japan. Naturally, I made my way to Akihabara, a district in Tokyo where the essence of gaming, manga, and anime converges. The sheer variety of well-preserved retro games left me thoroughly impressed.

Sketching practice in Sydney

During my stay in Sydney, I developed a daily routine: first, a visit to the gym, followed by heading to the nearest park with a takeaway coffee. These tranquil moments allowed me to improve my sketching skills. This served as valuable preparation for designing characters and enemies.

Development in Ubud, Bali

While exploring Bali, I experimented with several popular coworking spaces. However, the snapshot I’m sharing was taken right in the cozy little hotel where I stayed. My trusty Surface Pro, turned out to be a good choice, taking not much space in the backpack.

Around the world: the backgrounds

Early in the  process,  I had the idea to use photos for the backgounds. Nature, undoubtedly, is the finest artist. Moreover, I believed this unique art style would set the game apart from others. My goal was to achieve that classic parallax scrolling effect—multiple layers moving at different speeds to create the illusion of depth.  I also aimed to incorporate high-resolution tilesets for the walls, which I personally crafted using my own photos. The goal was to achieve a retro aesthetic without the typical pixel-look. Years ago, I started making photos of interesting landscapes, plants and textures, which seemed  to be a good fit for the game.  As I also enjoy traveling a lot, the backgrounds you see in the game come from diverse locations around the world.

The music and sounds

Creating the music and sounds for the four levels was one of the most fun and rewarding tasks. I worked with a mix of samples and MIDI, recorded with my keyboard. The idea, as with the graphics, was to create a mix of modern and retro-style sounds. For some sound effects, like the jump, the death jingle, or the coin collection, I used synthesizers to achieve the effect I wanted. For others, I used samples or came up with creative solutions myself. For example, the sound when you collect a gemstone was recorded by carefully bumping two glasses together.

My equipment: An AKAI MPK mini MIDI controller and AKG K702 headphones.

Working on the soundtrack for the first level in Presonus Studio One. 

Conclusion

Of course, this little overview is only the tip of the iceberg of the development process. As a solo game developer, you need to wear many hats. The fields you need to cover include project management, UI/UX, software engineering, game design, level design, graphics design, animation, music composition, and sound design. These are only the topics related to the creation of the product, excluding all the business functions required to release and market a game.

Each of these fields is a profession by itself, and you are competing with people who are doing only one of these full-time. Tiny details can take weeks of work – I remember, for example, certain animations, which last only seconds, took me several weeks of full-time work. Prioritization is key, so for me, it was clear that I didn’t want to include more levels and keep the playtime relatively short. My focus was to keep it small and polish the game as well as I could.

Despite all the challenges, it is very satisfying to have total creative freedom about the game, and the variety of different work keeps it exciting. Even if I probably won’t do everything myself again for the next project of this size, I think the knowledge I gained in all the fields will also help me in the future to better work together with a team.

I hope you enjoyed reading! Are you interested in more background information like this? Let me know! 🙂

Dosoland: Snake Man’s Adventure

A short and easy-to-play platformer. Explore the environments to uncover secrets, jump on enemies, and dash through obstacles. Your mission? Save Earth from an alien invasion, all while accompanied by a team of quirky and endearing friends you meet along the way.

 

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