Nebula Nuker
Quick Facts
| Date: | January 2017 - December 2017 |
|---|---|
| Cost: | $250 |
| Link: | Nebula Nuker on Steam |
In 2017, starting in my 2nd semester of 8th grade, I started working on an arcade-style video game. It was modeled after the classic arcade game Asteroids. Originally titled Nebula Fighter, its name was changed on my brother's suggestion to Nebula Nuker.
I started developing the game in January 2017, using GameMaker Studio. Art and assets were made in Microsoft PowerPoint, with editing performed both in MS Paint and in GameMaker's own image editing tool To keep the 'Nebula' name accurate, the background designs in the game were actual nebula imagery sourced from NASA. These were pictures taken by the Hubble telescope and available in the public domain.
I wrote all of the code for the game in GameMaker's language, which is a dynamically-typed scripting language similar to JavaScript. By the end of development later that year, I grew to dislike this language for how complex and unreadable it made the code, although I acknowledge my ignorance of good design practices may have also played arole.
To distribute the game, I formed a sole-proprietorship company, Octopi Is Not A Word, and registered as a developer on Steam. Nebula Nuker launched on Steam on December 21, 2017. As of 2026, several hundred people have purchased the game, which isn't a great sales number over 8 years but impressive to me nonetheless.