Putting my abandoned GTA project to rest
This post is about a game I spent developing between 2014 and 2019 that I recently uncovered on an old hard drive. It was called "Hostile: Haven Bay".
This was made back when indie games were having their moment, such as Minecraft and Hotline Miami. I had entire scenes already planned out in my head, music and all, before writing any line of code. In the end, it looked like this:
The idea was to make a fully cinematic game but top down. I always enjoyed the art side of development and learned the code as I went along. Unfortunately, the code became so bloated that fixing one thing would break the other, so all that ambition went out of the window.
The game was inspired by GTA Vice City and set in the Mediterranean. The city was supposed to be a drug trafficking route where the story would take place. All this was watered down to just one core loop, wherein you earn points through finding and delivering hidden packages to the docks, or cause havoc to earn points that you can exchange for better weapons.
This club has a chainsaw and people dancing
Points also allow you to access more areas of the map and interiors such as the club, coffee houses, or play mini games on the arcade machines or even as a barisa at the cafe:
this was an unfinished sidequest but a game in and of itself
Graphical assets exist for scuba diving missions that require you to shoot and attach packages to the body of a ship, so the world wasn't intended to just be top down. Unfortunately we never got to that stage because the code became so bloated.
Perhaps the coolest feature is being able to free and control a bull that tramples over people for some extra points. However, mind you, the collision boxes are pretty atrocious.
After so many years, it's pretty cool to feel like a player playing the game rather than the developer. I was also surprised at the attention to detail, such as NPC's smoking, sitting on benches, painting on a canvas, fighting with each other, etc. Other features include:
- Destructible objects (benches, newspaper stands) that become improvised melee weapons
- Being able to read the newspaper off the floor
- Hotline Miami-style takedowns - tackle, punch, gore
- Shootable gas pipes that ignite and set enemies on fire
- Dumb joke weapons, like clobbering people with a fish
- You can dance in the club, or do the Scarface bathroom scene homage with a chainsaw while the music blasts
- Lose your wanted level by hiding in dumpsters. You can find weapons and packages here.
- An escalating notoriety system that eventually brings in the FBI (I totally forgot about this)
- Relieve yourself in the toilet or sink
- Die, and you respawn near a charity bin instead of a hospital
I am working to decompile the demo and simply add in all features from the get-go. I'm yet to backtrack and understand my own code after so many years, but there is a playable demo you can download on GameJolt here: Hostile − Haven Bay : A video game inspired by Grand Theft Auto and Hotline Miami by LV154 - Game Jolt
There are some things I dislike about the project with the main one being the awful sound engine. To be fair this entire game was built on Gamemaker 8.1, though the NPC profanity in Spanish and weird vaporwave music radio stations are kind of cringe now. If copyright wasn't an issue, I'd definitely have a list of 80s summer hits to play, though.
But anyway, I'm not looking to sell you this game because it's by all measures a commercial failure. However, the feeling I got when uncovering my old hard drive and diving back into this forgotten world is indescribable. It symbolizes a time when I had far less things to worry about, far more motivation, patience, ambition, and optimism in my life. I'm a 30 year old dude now who is doing completely different things, so if I were to give advice to current indie developers, I would say: motivation and passion are good things, but don't do it all alone if you can avoid it. I was gatekeeping a failed attempt at something that could have fared better with a team. I hope one day someone else can create a better vision than I did, but I hope you get a giggle out of the demo anyway.
Note: If you wanna play the demo, please have a mouse on hand. The game uses old school WASD tank controls, and you press "Q" to interact with objects.