Hey everyone!
You’re reading the latest devlog for our upcoming horror game My Beautiful Paper Smile! Today I want to tell you the story of how MBPS came to be, and what inspired it’s style and creation. Let’s dive in!
First I’m going to give you a quick background regarding where I came from before the development of My Beautiful Paper Smile. I began learning game development in late 2013, and spent about a year making and abandoning small test projects. In 2014 I learned to use Unreal Engine 4 and soon began iPhone development. I released a few small games on the Apple App Store, before moving back to PC development. I spent a few more years making other small projects while trying to sharpen my skills in preparation for a larger project. Up until then, game development had been nothing more than a hobby that I enjoyed when time allowed. I knew I wanted to do indie game development full-time though, and to do this I felt I needed to make something big.
I began developing a first-person horror game about a woman who sails to a seemingly abandoned island, where spooky scary things happen, in an attempt to find her dead sister. After a few weeks, I realized that while this game might be cool, it wouldn’t be different enough to attract any attention, and on top of that, it wasn’t as personal as I wanted a long term project to be. I wanted to make something that people could love, and that I was also passionate about. I scrapped said game and spent months trying to come up with an idea for a horror game that would be as unique and different as possible. All I knew was that the idea should have lots of masks, and a new art style.
You’d be surprised how difficult it is to make something that looks new and different! I spent months trying different styles, pondering what might look cool. One day, I was cleaning out some boxes, and going through piles of notes. I found one page that was full of scribbled drawings I had made. There was one drawing in particular that caught my eye. It was of a creepy little goat character.
I decided I could make a game that looked like this cute little goat. So I did! I began crafting a story around this drawing. I took the goats gruesome smile, and made it a primary part of this new world. What if this society values happiness above everything else? What would happen if happiness was mandatory? And how would this shape the citizens of said society? And thus My Beautiful Paper Smile was born. It explores my take on an extremist world where you need to put on a happy face, no matter what.
I hope this gives you a little better insight into how the game was conceptualized and gets you more excited to see more as we continue this journey!
Thanks everyone! Keep smiling :)
