Hellevators

Jump dash, slide, and BLAST your way through Hell's deadly public transit system in this fluid, challenging 2D-platformer Action-roguelike. Make friends with weirdos, amass a horde of mystical knick-knacks, and get frighteningly rich as you battle your way to the surface.

My current ongoing Solo dev adventure. It’s a 2D action roguelike about using public transportation to escape a comedically bureaucratic Hell, defined more by frustration and ennui than torment. You blast your way through the circles of Hell, chatting up weirdos and getting entangled in their problems along the way. Basically I’m making a game with all the stuff I like and jokes that will only make me laugh. Try and stop me.

HELLEVATORS has a steam page you can visit HERE!

There is a demo release planned for later this year!

THOUGHTS:

OK, I can't give a full post-mortem on this one because, well... it isn't done yet, but I can talk about my experiences so far. It's been an incredible learning opportunity to have to do everything on my own. On the one hand, I have to go into each field of game dev and really push my face up against the glass like a kid at an aquarium. That means I've got to learn what I love doing and what I detest, as well as the things I both love and detest. I have a complicated relationship with sound design.

On the other hand, I have a newfound appreciation for how the little puzzle pieces come together. I now know at least enough to effectively communicate with a specialist in any of the popular game dev fields. Finally, I have learned not to reinvent the wheel. Leave it alone. The circle works fine. It's better to spend a couple of bucks on a Unity plugin that solves your problem than spend a week trying to recreate it from scratch. Time is money, etc., etc.

Also, wow, game development is HARD. The funny thing is that the hard part isn't actually doing any of the work. It's just staying with the same thing even as the excitement runs out and grinding until it's done. It's been a test of my grit, and I will not come up wanting by gum.