It’s not uncommon for indie developers to reverse-engineer popular games like Batman: Arkham and The Legend of Zelda in an attempt to learn more about the industry from scratch. In many cases, the re-created mechanics are essential to the original game and have even come to be accepted as industry-standard practice. Developing a video game can take years, and even that may not be enough time to do it right. As a result of COVID-19 concerns, a number of previously planned titles have been postponed for various reasons.
The postponement of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League pushed the title back to 2023, even though no specific explanation was stated. When it comes to games with intricate mechanics that have never been used before, delays like this might be an indication of a variety of problems in the development process. Twitter user and independent developer Andre Cardoso has put on an astounding demonstration of how difficult and time-consuming game development can be. Cardoso has spent the last three years re-creating gameplay mechanics from popular games in order to better understand the art form.
Up to this point, they’ve produced 30 films, including the wall merging from Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, the star launch from Super Mario Galaxy, and the free-flow fighting from Batman: Arkham Asylum, among others. Like-minded, budding developers appear to be inspired by Cardoso’s unique method of self-education to share their experiences and ideas in the hope of improving the product.
In addition, the independent developer’s article has received a lot of positive feedback, which might serve as an extra motivation for others to attempt learning in this manner as well. One commentator even proposed combining all of the re-created mechanics into a single title. Cardoso’s presentation is important since it shows how tough it may be to design a game. Thirty pre-existing mechanics took one developer three years to replicate from scratch with the fewest graphic assets.
That shows just how long it takes some of these massive titles, especially when they are extremely ambitious, to come to fruition. As with Cyberpunk 2077, the consequences can be disastrous and require the developers to play catchup. On the other side, titles like the Batman: Arkham series are the result of crafting seamless, mechanically sound experiences.