Pain & Dave & Click

Project Type: Personal
Time: December 2020 - Present
Made Using: GameMaker
Role: Lead Developer (Programming, Writing, Design, Background Art)

A point-n-click adaptation of a webcomic that I make. Currently on hold.

Key Lessons Learned:

Playing the Leader - This is the first and only time (So far) that I’ve worked in a proper directorial position.
Function over Form - First project where I prioritized prototyping functionality first. Glad that happened.

This is a game that is very close to my heart, despite the project being on-hold as of writing this.

For context, Pain ‘n Dave (or Pain & Dave or something) is a little webcomic that I work on on the side, and I thought it would be a lot of fun if I adapted it into a point-n-click adventure game in the same vein as its inspiration, Sam & Max, with Sam & Max Hit The Road in 1997.

Looking back on this project, I really wish I scoped the game down and when I did, I should have gotten the game out in front of testers as soon as I could to see if puzzles were landing with players rather than just blindly trusting in my vision.

A sample of Pain ‘n Dave. Funny li’l critters, aren’t they?

How Did This Start?

I started work on this game in December 2020. This was the first time I was doing something like this so I was quite nervous going into it.

I quickly prototyped a lot of what I considered “point-n-click fundamentals,” such as dialogue, branching dialogue, inventory, and interacting with your inventory (e.g. picking up items, using items in the world space, and inspecting items), intending to get the fundamentals in to see if this project was feasible in the first place with my skillset.

The overall design was based off of the classic LucasArts point-n-click adventure games, particularly Secret Of Monkey Island and Sam & Max Hit The Road. I wanted to copy the puzzle design of their games wherein players are free to experiment with solving the puzzle due to the lack of a fail-state and the UI of the classic SCUMM engine from Secret of Monkey Island with the personality of Sam & Max Hit The Road.

Pain ‘n Dave was inspired by Sam & Max after all!

Images on the right from “The Secret of Monkey Island” (1990, LucasArts) and “Sam & Max Hit The Road” (1993, LucasArts)

Prototyping Footage

The very first footage of this game. Look at him run around! From December 8, 2020.

Footage of me prototyping dialogue and testing how dialogue appears when viewed at different angles. From December 14, 2020.

Footage of dialogue and dialogue choices. Was extremely happy to see this working! From December 12, 2020.

Footage of me testing inventory, item inspecting, and showing items to NPCs. Still really happy about this working. From December 21, 2020.

Taking Shape

Now that I had functionality in the game, the concern now was art.

I always felt that art was something that held me back in terms of my game development because, to be honest, I’m quite slow when it comes to that. I still enjoy drawing for games, if not drawing in general, but I basically spent too much time on art when I should be focusing on functionality, especially as a designer.

So I did something that I hadn’t done until then:

I got an artist.

I got in contact with a friend-of-a-friend, Jason Mercado, or GrafxKid online.

I brought him on to be the character animator, as I felt that animations would be the most time consuming aspect of the game. I would still help out by drawing props and backgrounds and I tried to help Jason as much as I could by providing him with art references and directions to make his tasks as clear as possible.

The very first sprite made by Jason added into the game. It was really just to test how his sprites would look in-game.

The sprite strip of the character, Susie, walking. It was genuinely magical to see these animations for the first time.

The sprite strip of the character, Pain Elemental, walking. The idea was that he would have a unique walk. It was tough to think and describe how he walked. I recall telling Jason to give him "a hobble" as he walked.

Jason was a genuine joy to work with and I hope to work with him again if I were to start this project up again, or just another project in general. Seeing my characters be brought to life with his animations was great to see.

Click here to go to Jason’s site and check out his other work!

A closer-to-final look at the game, showcasing background and character art. I even programmed in text borders to add contrast.

Put On Hold,

or An Amateur Designer Being Attacked By Scope Creep

As of writing this, Pain & Dave & Click is currently on hold. Reasons for halting production were mostly because of burnout and having to focus more time on work at DigiPen. In addition, new updates for GameMaker have introduced bugs that were not present beforehand.

However, that doesn’t mean this game is cancelled. I still would really love to pick this project back up when I get the time to and I plan on redoing the game’s dialogue system using a pre-made library to make development more convenient.