The born of Sunrise

In August 2019, almost at the end of the month, I took a part in a Community GameJam. I was supposed to make a game in a week. And, surprisingly, I did it. It is called lovely and you can find it on my itch.io page, but I wouldn’t recommend playing it. It was my first completed game ever and it shows. No pause menu. No options menu. Weird scene transitions. And even the art looks… weird.

However, it wasn’t the worst thing ever. It had some kind of story and you can actually look at the game. Plus, the animation isn’t the worst. With the given time, I think I did decently. I learned so, so much thanks to it – not only how important it is to complete games I start, but how much it helps me to grow. And many of things I learned with lovely I used in my second game, Homerun To Earth. 

Homerun To Earth started as a little side-project, a small break from my two big projects – Icarus and Planet Called Moon. I wanted something short and simple to learn more things in Unity. And, of course, to practice my drawing skills, because I wasn’t doing much for a few months. I was busy with school and life in general, but I also lost a motivation to do anything up to February, when I started with the Homerun To Earth. However, then I took another little break until April, when I got back to this side project. And here we are now – June 2020. The Homerun To Earth is published along with lovely. And I got inspired to do my probably best project ever. 

It started rather simply. I just wanted to do something with mental illnesses. And, since the theme is close to me, I got an idea to do it about BPD, or also known as Borderline Personality Disorder. But that still was too little to work with. And one evening, while thinking about completely different thing… I got it. The idea I knew that could work. Sunrise was born. 

It didn’t take me long to do a concept art of the main character. A little guy with unknown gender and a mask and a cape to hide their face. After some time, they also obtained a katana, Japanese sword, because… well, I want him to attack enemies. And it is based in Japan. So it would make sense to be even more weeaboo and use this, right? 

It didn’t take me long to decide which kind of background I want to have. Something that would scream Japan, but not in a too obvious way. Something that will show the beauty of the landscape and nature there. Something somewhat unique and treating the whole culture with respect. When someone says Japan, more than anime you would like to be reminded of their traditions. Of their forests and myths. At least I want to remember this when I hear about the country.

And so on spring of 2020 I realized something that was too obvious from the start, I was just too stupid to understand it completely: the most important thing about gamedev is doing a game you have passion for. You enjoy working on it 24/7, sometimes, you even forget the day-to-day necessities because of it. And I finally found my passion with the born of Sunrise. 

And with that, I would like to invite you on the same journey. On the journey to find the Sun of your life. Even if sometimes they are clouds and storm is playing with you, even though you are inside a terrible typhoon without obvious way out, the Sun is still there, patiently waiting for you to get out. 

This is the game I want to invite you to experience with me.