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Inspiration

We've always thought the ocean was one of the most interesting parts of our planet, but it's also one of the environments that gets overlooked when it comes to pollution and conservation. We wanted to make something that could bring more attention to that issue without just throwing facts and statistics at people.

The idea to make a game came from a previous project we worked on together, where we built a simple obstacle course game. We really enjoyed that experience, and since HowdyHack gave us a lot of freedom with what we could create, we figured this would be a great opportunity to try making something much more ambitious.

We wanted to go beyond a straightforward game with obstacles and objectives and instead build something with a more dynamic environment, interactive elements, and a real-world message behind it.

That's how we came up with TideKeeper, an underwater exploration game where players can explore different bodies of water and help clean up pollution they find along the way.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we're most proud of is that we managed to create a dynamic, working product that goes well beyond what we previously thought we were capable of building.

We had made a game together before, but it was a relatively simple obstacle course game. TideKeeper was a much bigger challenge, both technically and creatively. We wanted to build something with different environments, interactive gameplay, and a visual style that actually made the world feel alive.

Seeing everything come together into a functioning game was really rewarding, especially considering how many things we had to figure out along the way.

We're also proud that we didn't settle for something just because it worked. We kept improving the visuals, gameplay, and overall experience because we wanted to make something that we would genuinely be excited to show other people.

More than anything, we're proud that we pushed ourselves beyond our existing skills and managed to turn an ambitious idea into something real.

What we learned

We learned a lot throughout this project, especially when it came to taking an idea and turning it into a more complete game.

Although we had some experience making a simple game together before, TideKeeper required us to approach development in a completely different way. We had to think more about the overall environment, how different systems interact, and how to make the game feel like a cohesive experience rather than just a collection of mechanics.

On the technical side, we gained experience with Godot, GDScript, Git, GitHub, and game development in general. We also got better at organizing our project and collaborating on different parts of the game.

One of our biggest takeaways was that we're capable of building more than we initially think, even if that means learning new tools and figuring things out as we go.

We also learned that creating something we're proud of takes a lot of iteration. Getting something to work is one thing, but making it look good, feel good, and come together as a complete experience takes a lot more effort.

Overall, TideKeeper gave us the chance to build on what we already knew while challenging ourselves to go significantly further.