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5 reasons why Mission to the Sun is more important than you think!

Here we are. Mission to the Sun (MttS for short). The game that has become a meme over the years. The game that I’ve been putting on my yearly to-do list for… let me check… last four years. Yep, it’s marked as plan-B on my 2012 wrap-up (alongside another game from this series: Mission to Earth). Would you believe, that previous “mission” game was released four years ago. That was during the 2012 game creation madness, when I set out to create one small game every month. Those were the days… However, there were some heavy hitters in the meantime, like gigantic Daymare Town 4 and two last games from the Submachine series, the last one taking whole of 2015 to finish. And those “mission to…” games were being pushed to the side. However,  creating those games was a part of a bigger plan, namely finishing up my 10-year long adventure with Adobe Flash.

1. Finishing up the Flash era. This game was kind of destined to be the transitional one since all those years back. My last (as in: the Last) game made in flash was Submachine 10 – for multiple reasons, one of them being I didn’t want to abandon people still playing flash games online right before the big conclusion to the series. That wouldn’t be right. However – after that was done it was time to move on. And here’s where MttS stepped in.
2. Being my biggest gamedev experiment to date. Yes. As I was switching from Flash to Game Maker – it was obvious that before going big and bold – I’d need to create something small just to test things out, or to check whether I’m even able to do anything in the new software. Remember – I’m just an old fart used to comfy surroundings of Adobe Flash, switching to Game Maker could’ve been a fiasco.
3. Being a successful endeavour, proving I can still do it. That’s right. It can be just a little avoider game, but to me it’s so much more. Now, knowing what I know about this new software, I can move to larger projects.
4. Opening door to larger projects. Coming up next – new 10 Gnomes game. Some might argue that mechanically gnomes are way easier than MttS, and you would be right, however time-consuming-wise gnomes will take much more work. I already have the engine for gnomes, that wasn’t that hard, but now, adding about 70 locations and gnomes to them – that is a hard, blue-collar work right there. Ok, maybe I went a bit overboard with that blue collar, but still, lots of work to do. After that I’m taking on something that will create foundations for the inevitable big game – the platformer.
5. Creating foundations for the big game. Right now, after finishing creation process of MttS I feel I can tackle something bigger and more complex. I’m still learning the language of Game Maker, I know that the code of MttS is a mess, but that’s why I still have three more games to do this year, to polish my skills and become prepared for what’s to come in 2017.

So this is it. This game was very important in my gamedev life, while still being so small. Do not underestimate the importance of this game. And go play it. Again: fun times ahead. Three more games this year.

You can help me create more games via donations on Patreon.