Hi.
I’m Joe, I like making games, and I hate making websites.
Background
I was born in 2006 in the UK, I like to program games and various software for people to use and tinker with, I primarily use Godot for game development however, I’ve recently started learning SDL3 with C++, using it to create my own basic game engine, for personal projects.
I started learning how to program since I was young (about 8 or 9 years old), and haven’t stopped programming since. I started learning game development using Godot about 4 years ago, and now worked on various projects, with large teams, working on some fan-games.
I’m currently doing a 3 year university degree in Software Engineering, where I have learned SDL and 3D rendering + physics.
My work
Super Mario World Remastered (SMWR)
image from: Super Mario World Remastered - Full Gameplay | SRandom156
A fully complete recreation of Super Mario World in Godot, you can play it right now if your interested. (link)
It was an incredibly fun project to work on, taking me just over a year and a half to complete. Teaching me basically everything I needed to know about the development timeline from start to finish, without me having to work out all the tricky game design + art bits. Allowing me to focus on what I do best: Coding.
I have since archived the repository, simply because I have moved on to other, far more organized projects, and I simply am not interested in revisiting it at the moment.
I hope to write a future post going into the full development timeline of the project and what I had learned and faced throughout.
Super Mario Bros Remastered (SMB1R)
A full remake of the original Super Mario Bros. Currently in development, aimed to release around September 2025.
After finishing Super Mario World Remastered, I was involved in another Mario fangame, however wanted to be able to make another traditional game, using all the knowledge I had learned from working on SMWR, and the other fangame project, which has yet to be officially revealed yet.
SMB1R features a full recreation of the original Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros. Special, and All Night Nippon: Super Mario Bros.
This project has been incredibly satisfying to work on, being able to apply all newly acquired knowledge into this project, and being able to learn much more advanced skills when working with Godot, including a custom Resource Pack system, which allows players to create their own assets, and have them override the original, also allowing them to edit in game animations too.
I also plan to write a future post about this game too in the future.
A screenshot of SMB1R with a resource pack loaded, overriding the games graphics, animations and audio to ones featured in the SNES remake of the original game: Super Mario All Stars.
Super Mario Maker Plus (SMMP)
image from: Small SMMP Showcase! | Vorzo
SMMP is a Super Mario Maker fangame, which aims to be the ultimate Mario Maker fangame, featuring new Game Styles, Level Themes, Course Parts, and a Dedicated Server, hosting all user created content.
This was the first time I learnt how to create a game server, which could securely store accounts and level data, and could be interfaced with using a Godot client.
Development screenshot of the games “Course World”, used to display a list of uploaded levels, which can be downloaded and played by the user, from the games’ server. (Subject to change.)
The game is still in active development, with the game currently not having a release date as of yet.
Story time!
During the development of SMWR, I was approached by Vorzo (SMMP’s director) to help out on the game with programming. Initially I said no, simply due to being too busy with SMWR’s development, however after some talking later on, we became good friends, and I offered to help out the game.
I don’t want to say too much about the quality initally, however the inital project I was given was a total MESS. Made in Godot like all my other projects, this was made by someone who was learning Godot and game development at the same time, and it REALLY showed, for a project as large scaled as this one, with the current codebase, it would have been near impossible to create something that was up to the final vision of the game. So I gave Vorzo a proposition, inspired by a quote, Nintendo’s late president: Satoru Iwata, gave to the development team of Earthbound:
“If we continue by working with what we have now, it’ll take years to finish, but if we start from scratch, and let me lead programming, we can get back to where we are currently, in a month.” - Me
Development screenshot of the original SMMP Godot project. NOT MADE BY ME
Vorzo agreed, and I became Lead Programmer / Producer on the project. the new restarted project, became what you see today! SMMP has been an incredibly fulfilling project to work on, teaching me invaluable project management and teamworking skills, with our team now hosting over 30 of the most talented and hardworking artists and musicians ever. I’ve said to many of them, that I would be interested in working with them professionally in the future, should the opportunity arises. That promise will forever ring true.
Funnily enough, I GREATLY overestimated the amount of time it would take to catch up to where we originally were, as it only took a single week to implement all of the content and features present in that original build, as opposed to the month I originally estimated in my proposition to Vorzo.
I’ll continue giving more details and anecdotes on the project in a future dedicated post.
Flow Below
This was one of my first games I ever made in Godot, going through SEVERAL project iterations, with different styles + goals.
This is something that I would love to finish at some point, however i started it nearly over 2 years ago, and is something that I would completely redesign from the ground up, should I continue it.
Basically, its a high speed precision platformer with short repeatable levels, with a focus on speedrunning, and movement-tech, set underground.
If I have the time, I’d love to write a blog going into a full analysis on this game, its ideas, and things I learnt.
Both this and the next project, were the first times I tried to do my own pixel art graphics.
Key Chain Pet Escape!!
This was my very first mobile game and game jam, made for the GMTK Game Jam ‘23, placing #1903 out of 6713 total submissions, which I was very proud of, considering it was my first game jam, I think I did well, I polished it up, and I planned to release it on the Google Play Store, however havent been able to, due to complications with Google.
I’m incredibly happy with the graphics in this, following a classic Game Boy aesthetic, in the polished up mobile port, it includes the ability to give your character hats to wear, with certain criterias required to unlock them, which was the first time I created an unlockable system.