Developing My First Game: After Rain

I’m in my nostalgic era. Retro is the future, after all. I’ve been teaching myself how to draw pixel art for the past year. I’ve got a photography background, but absolutely no skills when it comes to traditional art. But I’ve been getting better and enjoying the process. It only made sense to use Pico-8 to make my first game.

Pico-8 has made me focused on making small things, which is great because scope creep has kept me from finishing several projects. It’s been less intimidating than larger engines, like Godot, but there’s still so much depth to it. And for a first timer, I like that I can focus less on code structure, and more on just making the game.

The game I’m talking about is called After Rain. It takes place a 100 years in the future after the planet has suffered devastating droughts. The player controls a rain cloud with the goal of restoring the Earth, converting the grey tiles into green tiles. The player has a couple of minutes to water as many tiles as they can until the day ends. At the end of the day the amount of acres watered is shown.

Originally, I was thinking of the player controlling a helicopter that releases water, but my wife convinced me to make something more neutral, like a rain cloud, that appeals to a larger audience. And honestly, I think that’s a more original idea.

After Rain isn’t complete. I’m still actively developing it, and I have plans for additional maps, power ups to increase the rain radius, boss fights such as the sun (okay, I’m thinking the sun could be this cool, complex boss that’s helpful, because plants and grass need sunlight, but also too much sun will cause things to dry out, making it an enemy. Still playing with that idea).

You can check it out here: https://mike-input.itch.io/after-rain

More coming soon!