Hi everyone,
In this third edition of the devlog, we’ll help you get to know the development team a bit better. First we'll talk about the team and then I’ll kick off with introducing myself.
The team
Our team consists of only 2 people:
- Harry Lane: Artist & illustrator
- Alexander Van den Bulck: Game designer & programmer
The project started with the original prototype I made back in 2019. The prototype contained the core gameplay that the game still has today. It was made with primitive shapes, placerholder art and ‘programmer art’.
Lacking any art skills, I knew I would not be able to release this game on my own. I reached out to artists online who might be interested. Harry quickly responded and joined the project in 2020. He reworked all art assets and significantly improved the visual appeal of the game. We’ve been working on the game together ever since.
Introduction: Alexander
As Harry is currently very busy, I thought I would kick off with introducing myself. My name is Alexander Van den Bulck and I live in Belgium.
I’ve been playing video games ever since I was young. The first games I played were The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64 and Super Mario Land on the Game Boy. Although I realize that my opinion about these games is a bit clouded by glasses of nostalgia, I still consider them to be one of the best games I every played.
While growing up, I spend most of my time playing games. My favorite games of all time are the Final Fantasy series. I love the story, the fantasy and the turn-based combat. Especially Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy X hold a special place in my heart. They helped me greatly during rough times. Playing them felt like I was able to charge up every time I needed before facing the challenges of the real world.
I’ve also spent a lot of time in MMO’s like Everquest, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. Connecting with people there felt so fun and easy. Grouping up with my friends that I met online and going out to kill monsters, enter dungeons or do big raids. There was a real sense of connection.
In the recent years, I find myself playing mostly Indie games. I’m amazed by the great games made by just a handful of people like Slay the Spire, Faster Than Light, Into the Breach, Stardew Valley and many more.
When it became time to choose what I wanted to study, something with computers seemed the only logical choice as I had spent most of my time on them. Although that’s not the greatest reason to choose a career in IT, I was lucky enough that the programming part of it really clicked. Programming languages gave me the feeling that I could create anything. Although I never felt I could fully experience that part of programming with business software. Once my education was finished, I became very ambitious. I tried to learn as much as possible and felt like I had to keep getting promotions. It felt like getting experience and leveling up.
After some time, I realized that ‘leveling up’ in the business world did not really provide me with any fun or satisfaction. After some hard introspection, I realized that I wanted to do 2 things: Teaching and creating games. Shortly after I started my job as a computer science teacher and started learning how to create games.
Right now I’ve been teaching computer science for about 5 years and Command Line Pilot is now live on Steam in Early Access. The challenge of teaching and creating games, connecting with students and players, has provided me with happiness and satisfaction that I never got from my days in the business world. My next goal is to make Command Line Pilot as good as we can possibly make it and then I’m looking forward to creating our next game!
That's probably more than enough about me. Hope you found it interesting to read. We'll be back with a new devlog in one month on Friday September 24, but we'll be back soon with some other news about the next update!
Have fun out there pilots!
Alexander
