Today I’m going to discuss exploring the World Map of the game. In a previous Blog I mentioned how much fun it was to explore the castle of Super Mario 64 when I was a kid. From extra stars to collect and challenges to complete, the World Map was a blast to explore. I wanted to change up the feel of The Forbidden Arts a little bit when you are on the world map. The actual levels are played in 2d side scrolling mode within a 3d world, but on the world map the movement is full 3d as shown in the GIF below. I revised the system to feel a bit more open and offer a greater sense of freedom. My goal is to capture that Super Mario 64 feel of exploration while on the World Map. There are 3d plat

The past 2 weeks have been quite a ride. The beginning of May marks allergy season. There’s nothing like waking up at 4am with my eyes crusted together and having to literally pry them apart. What’s even better is when I was driving to dinner and I ran out of tissues and napkins so I had a dedicated sweatshirt to soak up all my snot as I sneezed up a storm. Fun times! But in the midst of all this allergen madness I have been working hard on creating the first video trailer for The Forbidden Arts. The idea for the trailer has been simple: to capture the essence of the game within a couple minutes. I worked with my Cousin Spencer on this video as he’s a talented videographer and director

Collectibles are great! From hoarding in-game currency, to obtaining precious weapons, armor, treasure or artifacts, collectibles can offer players a sense of accomplishment, pride, and achievement. The Forbidden Arts does not shy away from offering players a chance to collect an assortment of items. There are various types of collectibles in the Forbidden Arts. Some are mere quest items, and others are important artifacts that can be used to unlock unique content, special environments or offer items to increase your power. A couple things players will notice is lots of gold scattered throughout the game and the Overworld contains several mysterious towers. The catch is that these towers

This past week has been quite a ride and it’s been hard to keep up with things. Being a small studio is quite challenging when developing an ambitious game. You often find yourself wearing multiple hats to get the job done. This past week I have been working on developing a narrative with my cousin for a video trailer for The Forbidden Arts, writing and recording the music for the trailer, writing code for the game, managing my artists across sea and providing them with feedback on a daily basis, approving level design and guiding Marcy, and continuing to support our social media sites for the game. I’ll be moving soon, so I also had to go out and buy loads of new furniture and amid all