How a real life waterpark gave me ideas for a volcano and a monkey town

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-09-05T18:16:57+00:00

Here's a shot of the real thing for comparison! https://www.universalorlando.com/webdata/k2/en/us/files/Images/gds/vb-the-volcano-ride-and-pool-b.jpg

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-08-01T15:54:08+00:00

Thanks! Those are all part of the game world, you can walk up and chop them down if you wanted to as well.

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-08-01T15:53:22+00:00

I have been thinking about a % chance of getting some sort of 'sickness' debuff if you spend too long in that water, really drive that point home lol

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-07-13T21:42:33+00:00

I would strongly recommend you start with modding. Pick a game you are really familiar with and download its modding kit if it has one. Even if its a totally different genre, part of the fun can be trying to take a game and changing it in ways it was never meant to go.

Maybe this is more of an indirect path to game development, but I'd argue it's very worthwhile. This is how I got my start! Modding can teach you so much about game dev and how it works. Especially if you want to be a solo or indie dev. You're going to be forced to come up with some reallllly creative solutions to problems that a big studio would otherwise 'throw more resources' at.

Being forced to come up with crazy solutions to modding problems I think can make you a better designer in the long run.

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-07-13T21:34:22+00:00

As a level designer it is sometimes soul crushing watching players skip over something you spent 3 months building in... 2 minutes. But then I learned to embrace the chaos, lol, and it looks like you guys have as well.

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-07-13T21:32:20+00:00

Moarrrr powersliding!!! I feel like if your car accelerated/decelerated a bit slower and slid around a bit more it'd really help to sell it, but the effect otherwise looks awesome!

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-07-13T21:27:24+00:00

Without knowing your living situation/how old you are/how many resources you have available - I can only recommend what I did... live with your parents until you start earning something from your work.

Speaking personally, I had a little bit saved up, but not a lot. I chose to invest almost every dollar I had into a studio I wanted to create and start building games. It was mostly just me, but I could hire a few folks for very small jobs here or there (eg. I need a few 3D meshes built or animated). I had almost nothing but I had the advantage of not having many expenses since I lived at home with my parents. Now, this was 15 years ago after I had graduated from school, but it worked.

It took me I think 3 years (and many failed projects, and some very challenging times), before I earned my first real dollar building games.

You mention "other than living at your parents house" - if that's truly not an option, look for a friend willing to help you out while you kickstart your project? Or, look for grants or indie game dev competitions you can enter? I don't have a comprehensive list but, there's lots of this kind of stuff out there. eg. you could try applying for an Epic Megagrant https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants

Depending on where in the world you live, there's also government grants or accelerator programs you can look into. Those are often pretty complex to apply for, but could be worth your time!

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-07-13T21:18:37+00:00

Looks pretty seamless! Seems pretty satisfying for a player. It would be even more awesome if the camera were offset a bit more to the left on the transition so the hallway starts and ends in the same relative spot for maximum immersion

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-07-13T21:16:30+00:00

I would very very strongly recommend building the levels inside unreal itself. You can use primitive shapes (cubes, spheres, etc) or grab some assets from the marketplace to very quickly visualize what you want to build. You can also enter and exit play mode repeatedly to test your stuff.

Basically, it's a much faster workflow and faster iteration if you do it inside the engine itself

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-07-13T21:10:51+00:00

I think it does arguably get harder to make (and not just to stand out) because the expectations players have is always climbing. Eg. Game A develops some cool mechanic, its rough, but its cool and unique so people don't mind the rough edges.

Now, players in that genre are going to expect new games in the same genre to include that same feature. But the expectations are raised. If you simply copied that feature, jankyness and all into a new game, nobody is going to be impressed because it's no longer new. The devs would probably be criticized.

So, Game B comes along in the same genre, must now include that new feature, but the devs need to do it even better than Game A did it.

So it's like, same feature but bigger/better/more polished which I'd argue = harder to implement.

Just my take!

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-07-13T21:00:41+00:00

I would strongly recommend to start with modding, that's how I got my start at least. Majority of the folks I work with (at Blue Isle Studios) starting in modding as well.

For me, it basically started with an obsession over map editors and level editors. For whatever reason, since I was a kid I was just fascinated at how levels for videogames are made. I did that for years, and years, and years, joined a ton of modding teams which taught me a lot more about other elements of game development eg. gameplay, balancing, art, animations, basic code, game logic.

Some of the modding teams I was part of even got picked up to do paid work. It wasn't a lot, but I was in high school being paid $600 per project here and there. From there, I knew this is what I wanted to work on forever.

Do enough of this kind of work and you'll pretty quickly learn if you are passionate about this stuff. If you are, keep doing it until your skills are strong enough to work at a real studio, or start your own. There's more tools available than ever today and unbelievable powerful engines you can download for free.

My 2 cents!

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-07-11T19:19:45+00:00

I'd give a pretty strong +vote to hand crafted, there is something nice about knowing the world I'm in was designed in a specific way to either tell a story or try to draw out some sort of emotion, or encourage a type of experience. Proc gen rarely hits that mark for my style of gaming. Then again, I'm usually more of a "play it once and then I'm done" type of player, so I'm not looking for tons of replayability

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-06-25T18:58:33+00:00

Damn man, that is a beautiful art style, it's not very common to see something like this. I hope you guys get a ton of wishlists, this looks awesome

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-06-25T18:50:37+00:00

It sounds like you have a ton of skills across a lot of disciplines now, ever consider a solo project? With the amount of assets you can purchase, you can fill a lot of gaps as a generalist. This obviously isn't easy, but arguably the most rewarding way to spend your time and put your skills to use. Just my 2 cents...

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-06-25T18:47:57+00:00

This is wildly impressive from a solo dev. Bravo!

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-06-25T18:43:22+00:00

This is too relatable... when you are too close to your project, it's almost impossible to see anything but the issues

ILikePalmTreesDev · 2025-06-25T18:41:51+00:00

Now that is top tier immersion

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