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SHOULD I RETURN TO MARDEK??

5 years ago1,531 words

Everyone else is doing it!!

I've recently been playing the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, a faithful remake of a set of games I played and loved as a child. I also just saw on the Switch store that there'll soon be released a 3D remake of Link's Awakening, a Gameboy game I also enjoyed as a child. It was £50, and even though I don't have money to throw away, I bought it without hesitation (though with some frustration at the price), without even really looking into what it was, on the power of nostalgia alone. Disney's remaking its old animated films in live action (if tons of CGI counts as 'live' action), and some of those are now among the top-grossing films in human history. Among many other examples.



In Spyro Reignited, every line of dialogue, every pickup placement, is exactly as it was in the originals. There's a constant sense of deja vu, of familiarity, of recognition and nostalgia. No surprises at all. I've read that the Disney remakes are shot-for-shot reproductions too, for the most part. The old is kept essentially intact, just with a new, modern paint job.

A few different people have suggested over the years that I upload the original MARDEK games to Steam for 'easy money'. I don't think it would be easy money, though, because of technical issues and the fact that it'd open up more requests for a continuation of the series. I had eight episodes planned, but it's impractical, especially since I didn't really plan what was to happen anyway, and my enjoyment for the series dissipated when the third took so long and earned so little.

And yet... I've also been talking recently about needing to make some money to keep doing this, and I'm dragging my feet with the publishing stuff for Sindrel Song because I know the magnitude of the task that awaits me. It'll be hard to get people interested, and choosing a publisher would take a lot of time and effort, then there's the risk of loss of intellectual property or just them not feeling that such an experimental game is even worth their investment.

I haven't actively thought about Spyro or Link's Awakening since I first enjoyed them, many years ago. It's not as if I'd been a part of communities surrounding them, or that I'd looked forward to a day when I might see them given life anew. But none of that was necessary because I bought them instantly on the power of memories alone.

How would you feel if I were to try to make my own faithful remake of the MARDEK series? And to finish it, too, in a way?

I don't mean that I want to spend years of my life slaving away on eight gargantuan chapters. I'm thinking something more like this:

A first chapter could contain the original first and second combined.
Then a second would be the original third.
A third, new chapter would act as the finale, concluding what was established in the previous ones.

I've already tried to return to the series in the form of a couple of reboots. One, Taming Dreams, made use of skills and ideas I'd accumulated while maturing since the originals, though I didn't stick with it for very long, I released it stupidly (only on Android, the first two episodes were free and I planned like 20+ more for $3 each), and real life got in the way so I had to give it up. It was made in Flash, too, which became obsolete.

My latest project, tentatively titled 'Belief', is also a reimagining of the MARDEK story, set in the Alora Fane world and with (in my opinion) more interesting mechanics and a limited but more deeply explored cast of characters. I still plan to make that, but I haven't actually done anything with it in a few weeks because I've been trying to sort out the Sindrel Song release (or rather, procrastinating instead of doing what I should be doing).

These past few days, though, I've been wondering whether I could return to MARDEK.

I've actually been thinking about it for a long time, but I've always been so reluctant because I feel I've come so far since then. Games like the original Spyro trilogy and Link's Awakening were made by a team of competent adults even in their original forms, while the original MARDEK was made by a naive teenager in his bedroom. I feel that a lot of it just wouldn't stand up to modern scrutiny.

I've explored some possible ways to address this - for example, a continuation could be set years later, where Mardek is a reclusive has-been who has to piece together what happened in his past by talking with other people, or another where it starts off with Mardek and Deugan playing MARDEK as a game, but it turns into some kind of exploration of the dark and light sides of living in the past - but nothing's really gone beyond a vague idea.

Another possibility came to mind a few days ago, though. I'm imagining that one character becomes aware that they're playing a role within a story, and a rather puerile one at that. Maybe it's Rohoph, and instead of saying his normal lines, instead he constantly breaks the fourth wall and points out the absurdity in the tropes being explored. Not in a mocking way, more like concern or worry about being trapped in a story that's working this way. Or something like that. Other characters might say their lines as normal, but look concerned or confused as they do so after he's drawn attention to things. Eventually it might break beyond the established boundaries deeper into the story (where I'm exploring new ground).

I don't know whether people who aren't me would find that compelling or just irritating though. On the one hand, MARDEK did that kind of fourth-wall-breaking anyway, so it'd be in keeping with the spirit of the game, and people do find in appealing in a general sense (plus it might reflect some of their own grown-up thoughts), but on the other hand it'd be surprising in a way that people willingly diving into an experience they remember might not appreciate.

Since the games already exist, it wouldn't actually be too challenging or time-consuming to remake them in Unity. I already have all the maps, events, items, dialogue, etc to refer to as a base, so it's less like writing a novel and more like transcribing one. There'd be some technical challenges, but I'm imagining using assets I might create for this again in Belief, when I get around to that. Character base models and animations, for example, and a movement system (I'm not sure whether I'd use a 3D tile-based approach like in my recent experiments, or whether to use free movement (which I've already got in Belief) and areas that copy the spirit of the originals but not every single tile).

How would you feel about something like this?

And, importantly, when was the last time you actually played MARDEK? I haven't played it myself in years, so I'd have to replay it myself before jumping into this.

Do you think that it'd actually be of an acceptable quality for a modern game? Or might the whole point of this kind of thing render that irrelevant? Spyro Reignited is actually quite frustrating to play in parts, because it's so faithful to the original. They could have improved a lot using all we've collectively learned since then about what makes games fun, but they chose instead to remain faithful because that seems to have been deemed more important.

I'm not actually sure whether to go through with this or not, but it might make sense considering the nostalgic Zeitgeist, how the work I do for this would be quicker and easier than making something from scratch, and how assets I make for it could be useful for my future projects like Belief. I'm struggling with money and attention, and this might draw many more eyes to me in a way that something more original might not, which would then hopefully help the sales of any future work. Plus it'd be a chance to finally address the irritating sense of the story being incomplete in my mind and the minds of many others.

This isn't a decided intention or anything, more like curious speculation. I do think at this point though, the deep reluctance that's made me avoid the thought of returning to it for years has dissolved, partly because it's been nice returning to games I played in the past through these remakes, partly because I've come up with a way to do it without devoting an insane chunk of my life to it, and partly because someone recently mentioned the Epic Battle Fantasy guy, who seems to be doing way better for sticking with that than I have for giving up MARDEK.

Would you be interested in something like this? I bet the answer is "no, of course not, I'd rather see Sindrel Song 2: Memody Gets Charged instead", from everyone.