I have a bad feeling about this #1

blog one

Hello there. My name is Matt McDyre and I am an artist/animator who is currently working at a Belfast indie games company called Whitepot studios (you should totally check em out) So I started this blog because why not? and I thought it would be a good way to track my progress on this hobby project I am working on.

What is that project I hear you all ask? It’s a remaster of the first mission of the 1999 Big Ape Production/Lucasarts game, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Now I hear you ask why? (Seriously?!) Well, I want to and I think that’s a good enough reason to do anything. I want to learn how to make a basic game, nothing too complicated and nothing too big. So rather than design something from scratch I thought it’d be a fun little experiment to rebuild a level from one of my favorite childhood games. It’s not the best game ever made, in fact, some would say it’s bad but it was my only real escape into the world of Star Wars when I was 7ish years old. Yea I could watch the films but to be in that world was far more exciting. I mean what other Star Wars game allows you dialog options that have no bearing on the overall narrative and gives Obi-Wan Kenobi a bazooka? Probably none.

What my plans for the ‘remaster’ are simple.

1. Update the visuals to be more in line with how I remember it as a kid. So the game doesn’t quite hold up, visually it’s nasty. In my head, I remember it being much cooler so that’s what I am gonna do, make it cooler, develop a visual style closer to my own but inspired heavily by other Star Wars projects like Clone Wars. 

2. The original gameplay is clunky and frustrating, a movement was slow, the action was dull, the camera was just in the wrong place. So much like visuals, I want to make it cooler. Create better flow and player engagement. Create new and interesting animations. Branch out the dialog options a tad bit more so they have some consequences. The gameplay is a whole new ballpark for me and will be something I need to learn from scratch so don’t hold this against me if all this stuff doesn’t end up in the final build.

Bye for now,

Matt