Very slowly Arcade Link has been working on game development since 2016 as a hobby.
ArcadeLinkInteractive.com is where you can find the games they’ve released.
They are currently working on what they consider to be their first major full game, but game development is not first priority for them, as such it may be a long time before it is released. They say it is a 2D Zelda style adventure “but with more,” featuring LGBTQ+ characters and themes, as well as the opportunity for polyamorous relationships. They plan to include a built in randomizer mode, item tracking, and speedrun tools for the nerds.
Their first major project was a game called “My Friends Will Cry.” (Yes the period is included in the title.) It was a platformer inspired by “I Wanna Be the Guy” and “Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril,” but meant to be more fun and less brutal. They never truly finished it, but a full demo is available for free.
In mid 2018 they did a game jam that lasted 2 weeks, and they worked non-stop on their game “Wretched Blade” during that time. The idea of the game jam was that the creators needed to make a game that could be mistaken for an NES game. Arcade’s favorite console is the NES, and one of their goals is to lean 6502 assembly and fully program an NES game. Nevertheless, they worked non-stop, programming, making artwork (and finding some good CC0 art), using only the 56 colors that the NES could display, making NES accurate chiptunes, and even making a NES accurate game manual PDF.
They won first place in that game jam, but never recieved the prize. ?
Wretched Blade is a small metroidvania style game that is still full of a bugs.
For thier final project in their Computer Information Systems diploma they designed a game called “OSiris” that is a little bit of an Alternate Reality Game. The idea is that the player downloading the game is actually the player going out and finding a free computer. When they open the game, that is the player turning the computer on. When the computer boots up, the player is presented with a strange DOS style operating system called OSiris. The player can then attempt to solve the mystery behind this computer and its previous owner, by learning how the OS functions and experimenting with it. Arcade got an A on that project.
Arcade also made a tabletop RPG guidebook called “Travellers: Finding Home” that is about a group of people accidentally getting sucked into a portal to an alternate earth. They then must work together to survive as they move from earth to earth trying to find home.
Arcade has tried making a lot of games, and two failed attempts were for game jams. The games were “NES Symphony: Four Movements” and “Polycule Cupid.” These two games aren’t available for download but do have pages
NES Symphony: Four Movements was going to be a management simulation where the player has to manage a chiptune symphony. It didn’t work.
Polycule Cupid was an attempt at a relationship management simulator. The game would generate random people with names, interests, genders, sexual orientations and more. The player would have to match them together in an ever growing polycule. It didn’t work either. However the first time they ran the game with the name generator (the game would choose a first name from a list of thousands, and a last name from a list of even more), the very first name it generated was Leona Lewis. Amazing.
