Road to Android game developer-A Story

When I was young, I loved playing video games as I still do now. I started playing video games in first grade of elementary school when my parents bought me my first laptop. I played all sorts of video games starting with just pacman and pinball. Later on, I enjoyed playing single player games like Skyrim and all sorts of MMO RPGs and MOBAs. My father was a programmer and one day he said that instead of wasting my time playing video games all day long, I should learn to code and create video games myself. That is when I found out what I want to do when I grow up. I want to be a game developer! I started learning java even before I went to high school. I remember watching YouTube videos on how to create my first hello world program to more complex programs like making my own calculator etc.

I developed my first android game in last grade of high school, when I had to create a final project in my computer science class. I created a Star Wars themed Flappy bird game called “Flappy Falcon” and got the best grade possible. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and I helped myself with all kinds of different forums. After that I published it on Google play and continued to create new games to improve my skills. I always had love for simple arcade games where you don’t have to think too much and you just have fun. One of these games is a game I also created myself and it’s called “Dragon Dungeon”. I switched from Android studio and started using Unity as It is much better for making games in my opinion. There are also much more tutorials and forums dedicated to it.

The latest game I developed is called “Jumpy Knight”. I always liked medieval times so I decided that the next game I create will be a simple, funny arcade game about knights. I started mind storming and quickly got an idea of making a simple endless survival runner. This time I decided to use Unity so I educated myself in c#, which was not too hard of a task as I already knew how to program in C++. In about a month of programming, my project was finished.

Jumpy Knight is a 2D pixel runner where you are constantly on the move. You have to run and jump over the enemies while collecting gold and treasure chests to unlock new faster characters which can jump higher. You can play as 6 different characters. There is always a gold coin somewhere on the map to be collected. The chest spawns every 30 seconds after pickup and rewards you with 5 coins. The goal is to stay alive as long as possible and watch your score rise. The controls are also pretty easy to master. You can check your rankings in the leader board system I implemented. While playing, you will be listening to relaxing medieval music and if you have more important thing to do while you play, you can always pause the game.

The story behind Jumpy Knight is this: The evil dark knights have invaded the kingdom after 300 years. They have already conquered dozens of other kingdoms. You and the other brave knights met them in the open field to protect your king and the castle but you were outnumbered ten to one! You are the last knight standing! Unfortunately you have lost your sword in the battle. All you can do now is run and jump over your enemies to survive!

For now, making android games is just a hobby, but I am trying to make something out of it one day as I am still a computer science student in college now. During the semester I don’t really have that much time to create games, but I try to pass my exams as quickly as possible so I have time between the semesters and after the second semester to create a game. I still have much to learn about game development and even more about marketing but I somehow created my own brand “Mazej Games“. I am focusing on growing my business and in the future, I hope to create a game so great that it will get some game publishers attention. I think that one of the best feelings in the world is when you can be playing a game you developed yourself!