The full version of Aeon Nightmares, my story focused 2D platformer, is finally out. I worked on the game solo for the last 5 years, and the main sources of inspiration for the project were Cave Story, Yume Nikki and LISA.
You can play it here: Indiedb.com
The game features roughly 2-4 hours of content, including:
A story about a strange girl, a strange world and a strange gun.
A wide range of environments that you can explore slowly or breeze through using recoil and rocket jumping.
Multiple boss fights and challenges to overcome
A great deal of optional content, items, lore and random chance events.
Cute angelic characters that go through horrible experiences
A banging (mostly) original soundtrack
I can't believe the game is actually done. When you work on something for this long as a solo developer, it really feels like it's never going to be ready. Cave Story, probably the biggest inspiration for this game, also took five years I believe. I think I finally have an idea of what Pixel must have felt like working on that for so long. If, by any chance, you are a solo developer reading this, I hope you know what you are getting into when you try to make your dream game a reality.
When I started on this thing, I thought it would take something like 2 years. As the project dragged on and on, I asked myself countless times whether it's even worth it to keep going or not. That being said... Now that it's finally done, I really feel like it was worth it.
I don't think I'll make a game of this magnitude ever again though. Surely, my next project is only going to take 2 years max.
I hope you'll give my game a try and thank you for reading!