Intro

I got the idea for Intergalactic Highway while replaying an old favorite of mine, Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue. The game is very unique in its combat and world exploration, I’ve never played anything else like it. Inspired by the battle system, I set out to create a game designed entirely around it.

About

The year is 89804. Damien and Micheal Roadbuster are on their way to Coloma Galaxy to visit their grandmother. As they pull up to the warp drive, they discover it’s down for maintenance indefinitely. With no other choice, they decide to take the long and dangerous path. I-95, the Intergalactic Highway.

In Mega Man Battle Network, the battle takes place on two 3×3 grids (the left half being the players side, the right side for the enemies) and while the player is fighting, a meter fills up. Once the meter is filled, the player can open up the chip menu, where they are dealt random chips from their deck that they can select and then use in battle.

There are 3 major differences between Intergalactic Highway (IGH) and Megaman Battle Network (MMBN). In IGH, you are locked to 3 lanes, but you can move freely to the left and right. Also, you can open up the chip menu at any point during gameplay. Instead of a chip meter, IGH features a power bar. Shooting and using chips both drain the power bar.

Only one level was finished, with 8 chips, 2 enemies, and 5 waves.

Development

While IGH has been an ongoing passion project since its inception, the bulk of development happened over the Summer of 2020. The development process was a back and forth between asset development and gameplay integration. I would create as many assets as I needed for a given section, then bring them into the game engine and add functionality.

Retrospective

Intergalactic Highway is my proudest work so far. Unfortunately, it suffered due to the laid back development process. The idea for Intergalactic Highway was small enough that I could hold it in my head at all times, but this came back to bite me. Since I never wrote anything down, I never developed a design document or any roadmap of development. Because of this I lead with my heart instead of my brain and got a poorly organized project. Without clear direction, my passion eventually fizzled out and the project was shelved.

Despite not being finished, I still consider IGH to be a massive success. Even though it went to shelf purgatory, I conquered a lot of hurdles on the way. The enemies had so many bugs with moving and shooting that I still can’t believe how much I was able to refine it. Try as I might, I can’t think of one singular part of this game that I’m the most proud of. The chip system, the enemies, the player functionality, each one was plagued by its own problems that were equal parts frustrating to see, and so satisfying to fix. For me, IGH was programming at its best, just a series of puzzles to solve.