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The Making of Platypus
After I gave up on Bert the Barbarian, I wanted to do something nice and straightforward, so that I could work on becoming a better game designer, and hopefully prove that I could actually make a decent game. I had recently started using Blitz Basic, a game programming language that had just been released (this was back in 2000), and I was very pleased with what it could do. The very first thing I made was a parallax demo with lots of hills scrolling past. I added a spaceship to fly around in it, and some UFOs to shoot to make it all a bit more interesting. Then I posted the demo on the Blitz website.
Making a Deal
At the time, Blitz Basic was published by a company called Guildhall Leisure (they later changed their name to Idigicon). They got in touch with me almost immediately, saying that they were interested in publishing my game. They offered to pay me £1000 (about US$2000) if I would finish it for them. I agreed.
Yes, I know you are all saying, "wow, that's not much money, you must be some kind of big idiot". But understand: at the time, I was very poor. I had been working freelance as an animator, but I hadn't had a job in ages. I had run out of money and couldn't pay the rent. I figured, hey, this deal will help me out, and it's a good chance to prove that I can make games after all - because I'll have to.
The idea of getting a game in the shops was pretty exciting, too (it was a whole new world for me). But mostly, my big mistake was thinking that it wouldn't take me very long to finish. After all, I'd knocked out the demo in just a few days.
Making the Game
Well, as anyone who's ever finished a full game can tell you, there is a big difference between making a demo and a finished game. In my case, the difference was about 18 months' work. I know that I probably could have knocked out a quick 'n' dirty little game, and perhaps that's what I should have done - I think that's what I was expected to do. But remember, I was trying to prove to myself that I could make a game worth playing. And besides, I didn't want to be the person responsible for selling someone some shovelware piece of crap. I wanted people who bought my game to be glad they bought it.
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