Image made by Zoni321.

Hello, KoGaMians!

We've got another builder to spotlight this month! This month, we’re casting the spotlight on a well-known Russian creator, known for his in-depth horror and story games!

About

Most likely you’ve stumbled upon this player already from his various horror games under the name of Ashbite. His game history is not too extensive, but their quality sure makes up for it, including a catalogue of marketplace models. In this interview, Ashbite will present how he became accustomed to the platform, how he got through difficulties, and what’s next for him.

The interview

1. Introduce yourself to the community. What got you into creating games in KoGaMa?

I got acquainted with the game on the Flash game website in 2014. The game seemed quite interesting to me, but my gaming experience only began in 2017, when I registered my account, after which in 2019 I began to actively develop in the game.

2. Looking at your created games history, there seems to be a massive quality jump from your 3 latest games compared to the rest. What's the story behind your great improvement?

If you look at the publication date of the last two projects in the game, you can see a difference of almost three years. During this time, I managed to publish 5 more games on my second account, helped other people build games and taught them how to work with logic. I also have unfinished or test projects that influenced some decisions in terms of visuals and game design during the further creation of games.

(“Forsaken 2”)

3. Your team game "Forsaken" is exceptional for being the best tale game we've seen thus far, both in terms of plot and quality. What was the approach that you and the other players took in planning this game?

Shortly, before creating Forsaken I'd already published two horror games, which allowed me to use some gained experience working on a brand new project. The quality of my work also was influenced by the collective, as the projects I developed before were made by me completely alone, or with a bunch of people speaking different languages. Forsaken became the first project, when I was building it with my Russian-speaking friends, which let me feel comfortable and united throughout the process. Not less, the essential key to this project's success is the teaser which got upvoted by Michal himself, and this brought us a huge wave of motivation, as well as the trailer, which got some attention and hearts of most players in the Community.

(“Forsaken”)

4. There's also a sequel to "Forsaken", called "Forsaken 2". As of right now, it's still in demo. How does this differ from the original and will we ever see it finished?

The development of Forsaken 2 included some mistakes from the first chapter. To get better performance, the game was separated into a couple of "stages" with transitions that were made by some. Gameplay has become more exciting because of visual upgrades, adding more difficult quizzes, too. Unfortunately, I'm not planning to finish this project, due to the reason that my life plans have changed, and I will not have free time to create a worthwhile ending for this game. Despite that, even this kind of demo version got much longer and overall gameplay is more saturated compared to the first part of the game.

(“Forsaken 2”)

5. Your game "House of Nightmares" has an interesting mechanic where you have to fend off monsters till dawn. Did you face any difficulties during the construction of this game?

House of Nightmares was my first game where I used a lot of logic. At that time I didn't have much experience in this and the implementation of game mechanics was difficult for me. The biggest problem was the very limited space for placing all the game elements, which very often led to confusion.

(“House of Nightmares”)

6. There's another game of yours similar to "Forsaken", and that's "Silent Prison". It looks to be set in a far creepier atmosphere with a lurking antagonist in the midst of it. How did you end up designing the final monster?

Yeah, these games are for sure quite familiar. We had an idea in our mind to create Forsaken as a sequel to Silent Prison, but just because the owner of Forsaken was a different person, we decided that it would be two unlinked games. The prototype of the final monster in Forsaken is one of the monsters that can be found both in House of Nightmares and Silent Prison, but for the wide corridors it appeared to be too small, so I decided to make a new upgraded version of it.

(“Silent Prison”)

7. To summarize all of your games, they're mostly in the horror genre. Was there anything that inspired you that made you choose horror to be the best option for you? Will we ever see any other game genres from you?

Horror - my favorite genre because of its creepy and mysterious atmosphere, but I have also created games in other genres, such as Polaris, where two military factions fight on a large icebreaker, or Eternal Night, where players can walk together along a city street at night, play in a casino or visit other interesting places.

(“Eternal Night”)

8. Aside from games, you seem to have an extensive and popular Model history as well. They range from Minecraft assets to realistic room models. Was there any particular reason or motive for the Models that you created?

Creating models was the main source of earning gold for me. I create models that can be useful to a large circle of players or simply inspired by what I liked. The idea of ​​creating block models from Minecraft was suggested to me by one of my friends who liked to create pixel art.

(“Minecraft PVP”)

9. Looking back at your creations, it's easy to see that lots of effort has been put onto them. Have you ever faced burnout from creating on the platform?

Yes, burnout has been a big problem for me, and I have been unable to complete many of my projects. To combat burnout, I would recommend taking a short break and finding new inspiration for your work. You can also share your work with friends or on the official KoGaMa Discord server. I am sure your work will not go unnoticed and you will be motivated to continue working.

(“Forsaken 2”)

10. Do you have any future projects or developments that you'd wish to share with others in KoGaMa?

I will never be short of ideas, but after playing this game for over 5,000 hours I decided to "retire". However, I continue to receive questions and suggestions from players, such as testing their new game or helping them implement some of my mechanics in their projects. Perhaps I will now take on the role of a "teacher"

If you are interested, you can learn more about Ashbite’s collage of works [here.]

Interview conducted by InstantRadish, original Russian interview answers translated to English by InstantRadish and CherryCupCake.

Be considered for the next Builder Spotlight

To be considered, join the official Discord Server [here] and leave us a detailed message about why we should spotlight you next month to the HotW Suggestions bot. The Highlights of the Week Committee will review your message and they will take it into consideration if they like it.

To read more about Builder Spotlight, its criteria and benefits, the link to it is [here.]

This News Post is brought to you thanks to the whole members of the HotW Committee.