Nuevo Nuevo Mundo
Melee Studios
2010 · Founder & Lead Developer · archived
My first game, and the project that started Melee Studios. A point-and-click adventure where the Maya discover Europe. Four years of work, an award at Campus Party 2010, and cancelled before release.
Technologies: C#, XNA
Related expertise: Leading engineering
Spain, 1492.
Christopher Columbus has just left port, sails up, ready to change history and all that.
As he ventures into the open sea, his tiny three-ship expedition runs into something… unexpected: a ridiculously huge fleet — hundreds of ships heading straight for the Spanish coast.
They're full of Mayans. And they're about to discover… and conquer… a brand new world.
What if the Mayan Empire never disappeared? What if they weren't discovered — but did the discovering?
…And what if all of this was the result of me fooling around with time travel?
Overview
That was the opening of Nuevo Nuevo Mundo ("New New World"), a point-and-click adventure I started in 2008.
Video: Melee Studios — Presentación Nuevo Nuevo Mundo
Development
It was the first big project I came up with, and it's how my games company, Melee Studios, started. More about that time in My career in videogames.
I put together a team of writers, artists and developers. I met regularly with the writers to work on the story, and designed puzzles with them that fit the narrative, challenged the player and could actually be built. With the art team I designed the environments so the player could find their way through the story, and wrote the specs for character assets and animations. We also recorded voices for the characters. I led the development itself in Microsoft's XNA; we tried moving to Unity later, but it never went past some early tests.
In 2010 the project won the Movistar Campus Héroes award at Campus Party, was featured on the Spanish crowdfunding platform Lánzanos, and got coverage in gaming media.
Why it was cancelled
We worked on it for four years. When I started looking for investment, I found out the hard way that we weren't ready for a project that ambitious, and in the end I cancelled it.
It was still one of the most useful experiences of my career. I learned about managing a team, planning a project, pitching to investors, and what making a game really takes. I gave a talk about it:
How to attract investment to your project — MálagaJam · YouTube
Talk in Spanish.
My involvement
- Came up with the game and founded Melee Studios to make it.
- Led the team of writers, artists and developers for four years.
- Designed the puzzles with the writers and wrote the specs for the art team.
- Led development in XNA.
- Pitched the project to investors.