Zia and the Goddesses of Magic is one of OrionSoft's previous games
A new crowdfunding campaign has gone live for a Windows and Linux tool that aims to make the process of producing retro games for classic systems more straightforward.
OrionSoft's Retro Game Designer "uses a very simple user-friendly graphic interface allowing you to import assets such as background images, sprite sheets, tile maps, musics, sfx and combine these together into a game, export this game to a ROM file or CD ISO so you can play it on your real retro hardware using a flash cart, a CD emulator or a CD-R," according the Kickstarter page.
Using the tool, you'll be able to create a game and then easily export it to systems such as Dreamcast, Sega Genesis / Megadrive, Game Boy Advance, Playstation 1 and Atari Jaguar.
OrionSoft – which is effectively a single man, Cédric Bourse – is responsible for games such as Elansar, Alice's Mom's Rescue, Escape 2042, Alice Sisters and Zia and the Goddesses of Magic. "This tool will gather all these years of experience of creating multiple game engines on multiple retro systems into one easy to use tool for you to create your own game on your favorite retro gaming system," says Bourse.
The campaign's initial goal is 22,000 Euros, but multiple stretch goals are in place which will enable Bourse to add more 'game engine' functionality to the tool.
"All the games engines are already made from the previous games I made since 10 years, but I need the Kickstarter to fund the creation of the tool itself and to tweak each game engines so that they can be personalized with the tool," he says.
"This process requires months of work to simplify the game creation process using a graphic interface for non-coders. Each game engine require several layers of things to edit in order to create a final game, for example an RPG will need much more work than a simple text adventure game, that is why I made several goals from the simplest game engine to the more complex one. When you buy Retro Game Designer you will buy the tool allowing you to create games with engines up to the goal that will be reached by this KickStarter campaign."
