Hello there. I've just beaten ur game (lol, how weird does that sound ), gotta say - really nice job. Resident evil meets super mario - briliant. I won't waste too much time praising the game, the fact that I've pulled an allnighter to beat it and had a good time speaks for itself.

Anyway, onto the point - I work for a small software company, mostly working in C#, and being a gamer for lifetime I always dreamed of the day I start my very own, small, indie game project. After seing GG2, I'm totally ready to try (and, well, probably fail, at least on the first try ), and I was hoping you would share some of your experience..? Like what language you used, how you planned the whole thing, what was the most time consuming element and such... I might have a couple of more questions, provided it's not to much of an inconvenience for you to share some wisdom

Hey there! Glad you like the game ^^

I actually didn't code the game in a traditional way. I used a program called 'Multimedia Fusion 2', which operates with some sort of script language similar to those used in a lof of RTS map editors (WarCraft III to be specific). Since I'm familiar with those, I got into MMF2 quite fast and started out making some very basic games (GunDude, GunGirl 1). While making those games, I collected a lot of intersting ideas to make a real game with better and more interesting gameplay and I started with GG2. At first, I just made an exact copy of GunGirl 1 with all features and then I improved on it. GunGirl 1 had problems handeling a lot of enemies at the same time - but with GunGirl 2 I made an example map with over 600 zombies running around and the engine still ran at full FPS.

I started adding more and more features to GG2 and so it became what it is right now.

The most time consuming element was the graphic. It took a lot of time drawing all the animations and enemies, weapons, reload animations, backgrounds, tilesets etc. Some people say the graphics in the game are too childish, but that was my point. I wanted a cartoonish game, because I like bright colorful cartoon styles, but I added lots of violence to make clear that this is still a game for adults. Of course I had to draw a line at some point, because it's impossible to create the 'perfect look' for a game if you are just one guy. After I had all major graphic sets for the locations and most enemies, I started making levels and tinkered on the gameplay and decided on the fly what enemies I should add or what objects, power-ups or weapons I would need to make the game interesting.

When I started making the first real levels for the game, I had about 3 weapons (no alternate fire modes, those were the last I decided) and about 6 or 7 enemy types. The rest were improvised. When I ran around the marsh for example, I thought to myself "man, some green big zombies puking stuff at you would be cool here" and stuff like that

Alright, I'm talking way too much here I think. If you have any questions, feel free to ask

Thanks for your reply. I gave the demo a try - seems like a decent place to start with a first game, albeit I kinda hoped to code some stuff and feel proud of myself but this seems like more reasonable place to get the hang of it. It seems like MMF2 is somewhat geared towards orthodox platform style, and since GG2 is already out there, there's no point in trying to beat that

I managed to get that isometric view I was going for (think The Punisher, Double Dragon and such), but the main issue I see on horizon is the enemy AI. In a pseudo 3d (a virtual Z axis, as it's isometric), I am having hard time even imagining how to grasp that problem in MMF2. So, basically, throw in ur two pence on that subject

Also, your inventory system is rather advanced, but what I really want to know is how did you handle the extra buttons (shoulder buttons on joypad for example), and the whole switching weapons on the fly?

I'm afraid I can't give you good advice on isometric games, because I've never done one myself and so I have no experience with it. To make the program register all buttons from a gamepad (and a lot of other cool features), you have to download addons. For example the addon "Joystick 2 Object" will let you handle all buttons from a gamepad (and rumble features as well).