Project 10 – Research

What are demakes?

Before any research can be done, I should establish the definition of a demake. A demake is usually a fan project, and consists of breaking down a game, so that it can be played on an older device, such as Halo on the Atari 2600. These games vary in quality, but some of them are really good, and have earned the admiration of fans of the original game. Some demakes are made by the actual company behind the original game, and are such called “ports”, and not demakes.

Primary research –

Residentvania –

itch.io. 2022. Residentvania by OcO. [online] Available at: <https://oco.itch.io/residentvania&gt; [Accessed 19 January 2022].

This game is a demake of Resident Evil Village in the style of Castlevania for the NES. To be more specific, it is the first level of Castlevania, mixed in with the style and story of the Castle Dimitrescu section of RE8, which works surprisingly well. The game itself plays very similarly to Castlevania, while also keeping some of the graphical aspects of the game loyal to the original. The player has the ability to break windows, torches and kill most enemies in one hit, and only has access to the gun later on in the game, which restricts combat to use of the knife alone, which is similar to Resident Evil itself.

The graphics are the main thing that caught my attention when playing, as the game is very graphically stunning. The game doesn’t stick to the original colour palette as NES Castlevania, as it serves as a rough inspiration for it. Personally, I believe this style works better for the demake, as RE8 is a visually stunning game, and a demake should reflect that in any way that it can.

The game also features very similar level design as Castlevania, clearly having borrowed level design elements such as the use of stairs and platforms to get around the level, either to progress or avoid conflict. The stairs in the game are somewhat clunky, as you have to use multiple controls, as well as being in the right place, just to be able to climb the stairs. The animation also feels slow and rather tedious, but this could be forgiven by the fact that the game had a 2 month development process.

Another, and arguably the main thing that links this demake to Castlevania, is the UI elements. I believe that this was done in the perfect way to stay as true to the original as possible, while also keeping the RE8 style. The score bar in the original is replaced by the “Lei” counter, which is the currency that the player collects and uses throughout RE8, which also happens to be the currency of Romania, the game’s setting. This bears a striking similarity to Castlevania itself, as the game series is set in Wallachia, a province of Romania, which is where the origins of “Dracula” lie.

Hollow Knight Demake –

sourceDemake], H., 2022. Hollow Knight Beta [Gameboy Demake] by Elvies. [online] itch.io. Available at: <https://elvies.itch.io/hollowknightdemake&gt; [Accessed 24 January 2022].

This demake, while simple, manages to keep the feel of the original Hollow Knight, but provides it with a retro spin that feels natural. The game manages to keep most of its core mechanics, with only a few of them missing due to technical limitations noted by the creator. The game’s controls are made for the PC, while the demake is made for the Gameboy. This leads to some of the actions using extra buttons/ keys that would not be possible to use on the Gameboy, so this demake wouldn’t be possible to make 1:1 on the Gameboy, though this is expected for a small fan project. This may end up being how my demake is made later on in the project, though I do plan on being as true to the original controls as I possibly can. The final point I can make is about the graphics, while the game does look good in a pixel art style, the colours are impossible to replicate on the original Gameboy, as it was in black and white. When creating my demake, I may do something similar with the graphics, as I would like the game to have a little bit of colour to it.

Metroid Dread –

Demake, M., 2022. Metroid Dread Demake by Elvies. [online] itch.io. Available at: <https://elvies.itch.io/metroid-dread-demake&gt; [Accessed 25 January 2022].

Metroid Dread demake gameplay.

Made in the style of the Gameboy Colour, this demake feels very similar to the original Metroid games, like Super Metroid for the SNES. This game is a fan demake of the first 3-5 minutes of the game, and plays quite similar to it. While the level design aspect is similar to the original, the game has had to sacrifice a lot in the way of gameplay aspects, due to either technological limitations, or just the developer’s inability to add certain mechanics.

The demake hasn’t fully been made in the style of the gameboy colour, as the developer has had to make graphical alterations in order to make the game look nicer,

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt –

For research, I decided to replay through parts of the Witcher 3, just to make sure I capture the feeling of a Witcher game. I decided to play through the “Cabaret” section of the game, this is because this is the mission my level is centered around, with some alterations to the story structure to make it fit into the demake. The video below shows where I was in the story and what I did for the mission, it also shows examples of the setting of the level. I would provide my own gameplay and screenshots, but I am unable to do so from an old PS4, that I play The Witcher 3 on.

When referring back to things that happened in the level, I’m going to use this video as it shows the entire questline in one video. This is not my gameplay, but almost perfectly shows what I did and how I did it.

While I believe the setting and mission itself works for the game I intend to make, I believe the time in which the events take place may need to be shifted about a little so that it works within the confines of a construct 3 game.

Pokemon first gen –

Through my experiences with playing the first generation of Pokemon games, I have found that I quite enjoy this style of gameplay, the turn based and adventurous nature of the gameplay drew me in and made my overall experience a lot more fun, the main downside of the game is the story, as I feel like it is lacking in some regards. This is one of the reasons I decided to demake the Witcher 3 in the style of Pokemon, as I enjoy the gameplay of Pokemon, and also enjoy the story of the Witcher. Combining these two seemed like a good way to create a demake.

The first generation pokemon graphics are 8 bit, whereas the graphics of the Witcher 3 are held in quite high regard, especially for the time the game was released, so I might make my demake in the 8 bit style of pokemon, with the colour of The Witcher 3, to keep the graphical styles of both.

Secondary research –

This video was the first result that most people will see when looking for videos on demakes, the reason for this is that it is a complete and comprehensive breakdown of what a demake is, as well as what demakes exist and what exactly makes a game a demake. Scott goes into detail with examples of demakes, referencing Halo 2600, the Atari demake for Halo. With this, he mentions that the person that worked on this demake, worked on Halo itself at some point, which brings up the argument that Halo 2600 is more of an official demake than a fan one.

Demake ideas –

Initial ideas

My first idea when thinking of demaking a game, was to demake The Witcher 3. This is probably because of me relatively recently completing a playthrough of the game, which meant I should make it while my memory is still fresh. I initially wanted to demake it in the style of Hotline Miami, which could have been an interesting game to explore, as Hotline Miami includes a lot of bloody violence, similar to The Witcher 3. I ended up researching more demakes, and came across a video on the Gameboy’s Pokemon Blue, and I had the idea to use it as a foundation. I decided that Pokemon’s RPG style works quite well in regards to the Witcher series, as the games are also in the RPG genre, I also decided that Pokemon’s turn based combat would work well as a contrast to The Witcher’s reflex based combat.

3, C., System, A. and System, B., 2022. A Basic Turn-Based Battle System ★★★★★. [online] Construct.net. Available at: <https://www.construct.net/en/tutorials/basic-turn-based-battle-system-2705&gt; [Accessed 14 January 2022].

With the knowledge that I am given much less time than usual for this project, I decided to look for assets that would save me some time in the future, this included looking for premade 8-bit music, as well as pre-written code for construct 3, which would allow me to implement mechanics into my game faster. The link above is for a turn based battle system for Construct 3, if it works as intended, it will save me a lot of time and will allow me to implement other mechanics or details.

Audience chosen game research –

Looking at the reviews of the Witcher 3, they are overwhelmingly positive, with a user metacritic score of 9.3 and a critic score of 93, a huge success in comparison to other critically acclaimed games. These results show that an large percentage of the people that have played this game enjoyed it, and most likely continue to see it as an incredible game. The game was also the recipient of several Game Awards, those being Most Anticipated Game, Best Role Playing Game, and the coveted Game of the Year award. In addition to all of this, Metacritic have valued the game as a “must-play”, believing this game to be one that most people should play in their lifetimes, an idea that is held up by a majority of the Witcher community.

This tells me that a Witcher 3 demake will most likely be taken very well by the Witcher community, as they seem to like almost all things Witcher related. The game is rated 18+, which on paper means that a majority of the community are adults, though this is usually not the case with most 18+ games, as I, for example, first played this game in 2017.

The above shows the Metacritic scores for The Witcher 3, for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. These scores are very similar and almost identical across the board, this shows that audiences of this game on different platforms all have had similar experiences despite the differing hardware. These scores however, contrast with user scores from the Nintendo Switch version of the game.

The Switch version has a miniscule number of reviews compared to the other versions, as well as not having any critic reviews to back up the number, but from these numbers alone you can see that people playing the game on the Switch had a less enjoyable time playing the game, but not enough to warrant a score considered low.