Developer Diaries: Fossil Games

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Official Construct Post
Laura_D's avatar
Laura_D
  • 12 Aug, 2020
  • 496 words
  • ~2-3 mins
  • 2,891 visits
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We love to hear about what you're up to with Construct, and this week I caught up with Fossil Games who are currently working on pixel-art horror game, Sunshine Manor.

Formed in 2015, Fossil Games are a two-person studio now working exclusively in Construct 3. The duo started out with other engines and released their first game, Camp Sunshine, in 2016. The game went on to receive a very positive set of reviews on Steam and has been featured in magazines and blogs including Bloody Disgusting, The Independent and 1428Elm!

Paul and Josh are now working on Camp Sunshine's prequel: Sunshine Manor and very kindly answered a few questions about their experiences with Construct 3:

What made you choose Construct 3?

We chose construct 3 for the sheer ability to rapidly prototype our concepts and then delve in and expand the gameplay elements almost exponentially. What we found is that if we could imagine it, then we can build it in Construct 3 and then make it even better than we would have imagined.

How are you finding the development journey in C3 so far?

Other than self-made bugs, it's been amazing! The ability to really dive in deep to the code and make amazing things happen in the game has been absolutely crucial to us. What we thought Sunshine Manor would be when we began the prototyping stage has changed dramatically for the better because Construct 3 allows us to do anything we want!

You're preparing for a Kickstarter campaign, how is that going?

We are, and it's going really well. We've just completed our beta demo and that will be available during the campaign for people to try the game out for themselves and see how scared they can be! There's some really neat mechanics on offer in there and we hope everyone enjoys playing the game! We're also dealing with a whole host of physical publishers too which is rather exciting!

Do you have any advice for people doing their own game projects?

Start small and expand! Don't dive into creating a fully fledged MMO with skill trees and character customisation with online play. Pick a small element of the game you want to create and play around with what's possible ... You will soon find that you've made something entirely different but 100% better than you could have imagined!

Any final thoughts?

We're so thankful to Scirra for building an engine that allows us to create whatever we can think of. Honestly, if you're a little hesitant about creating your own game ... Try Construct 3, it's so good!

If you would like to join our Discord too, we hold regular horror movie quizzes and giveaways and love to chat to everyone about game development and ideas ... You might even get some sneak peeks too!

The game is due to hit Kickstarter in October this year and you can find more about it on Twitter or via the Discord.

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  • Awesome interview and I took some notes here. Love the idea of taking ONE element from a game and working on that. Small / solo devs don't have the time or resources to do full scale games but can create something amazing focusing on a smaller fun element.

  • Very nice this type of interview, and rewarding for C3, I already have the first opus on Steam, and I will follow the next one with pleasure. Beyond that, I am currently looking to create a horror game in this style, history and mystery, while digging up my previous prototypes. :)

  • I am also very grateful to scrita as it allows me to create my own projects but the bad thing is an indie video game developer like me does not have the budget to buy a license. so I propose that they add more event capacity since with 50 nothing can be done.

    • honestly, it's really not a burden scirra should be concerned with. they need to play their bills like everyone else.

      if you're really that tight on money.. work out the prototype without the pro license and then pay for C3 license and you have 12 full months to complete the concept and get it live and recoup the cost of the license and then some.

      Should Scira work for free so you can make money off a game using their platform for free? or are you planning on only making free games with your time?