Story draft: Kitsune The Demon King´s Curse

100 years ago, the Demon King tried to conquer the Spirit World. His minions were many and it seemed like the peaceful inhabitants could do nothing to stop him. But when everything seemed lost, the Fox Spirit Kitsune rose against the invaders and was able to singlehandedly defeat them. In an epic final battle Kitsune was able to send the Demon King back to the underworld, where he would remain until the end of times. Before being sent back the Demon King put a curse on the Fox Spirit: he would be trapped inside a star and travel through all the inmensity of creation until his spirit force vanished.

For the last 100 years, the remnants of the Demon King´s armies were succesfully pushed back time and time again by the Spirit Worlders. But lately, rumours of the return of the Demon King have started to spread, giving the defeated armies new strength to fight back. The Spirit World is once again under serious danger and the time of the return of the Demon King is near...

Everything seems lost once again, with the last brink of hope the defenders of the Spirit World look to the sky and make a wish to a shooting star...

The main setting will be heavily inspired by Japanese myths, influencing directly the locations of the game:
Sakura Island: The first location in the game. Sakura trees appear frequently, blue skies, water...
Heaven Plains: Heavenly Doors appear in the backgrounds.

Welcome to the blog!

I´m an industrial programmer who loves videogames and has done some past experiments in game creation in the past. After getting captivated by Super Mario Maker´s awesomeness I decided that it may be time to return to my hobby and finally make a full-fledged game which I can be proud of. And so the idea for Kitsuna (temporary name) was born: Kitsune will be a platform game similar to the SNES hit Super Mario World, focusing on platforming and exploration. I love Nintendo and Mario games and my favorite is SMW, so I´ve always felt a bit sad that all Mario games focus almost exclusively on the platforming component and forfeit exploration...all but SMW, that is. So, if Nintendo won´t give it to me, I may as well try to make it myself!

The game will focus on platforming and exploration: progress will be made in an overworld map with many different routes to unlock. The difficulty of the challenges will be lowish so everyone will be able to enjoy and get far into the game regardless of their skill level, however finding the secret exits will require more abbility and observation from the player.

The physics will be pretty simple, to allow for easy controls. The challenge will come from the obstacles themselves, like in SMW. Every stage will present a main mechanic and follow Nintendo´s 4 step design principle: presentation-expansion-twist-final test. Text will be reduced to it´s minimum impression and all necessary concepts will be taught by gameplay.

The game will also feature a level editor heavily inspired by Super Mario Maker. Once the player beats a level in the singleplayer campaign, he will be able to open it in the editor. These built-in levels will have anotations explaining the design decissions contained in the level, so they will act as a sort of tutorial on level design (which is something I think SMM lacks).

I will update this blog with the game development progress, as well as use it for myself to take notes, order ideas or just talk to myself, so I hope it can provide useful information to anyone who also tries to make their own game.

Welcome and hope you enjoy your time here!