Momodora IV: Reverie Under the Moonlight
Team Size : 3
About
Momodora is an action-adventure video game series launched in 2010 with Momodora I. The fourth installment, Momodora IV: Reverie Under the Moonlight, features a side-scrolling platformer design, wherein the player views their character running, climbing, and jumping through various levels.
The storyline of Momodora IV was written as a prequel set 400 years prior to Momodora I. A priestess named Kaho adventures through the Kingdom of Karst in an effort to find and put an end to the curse that has been ravaging her village and the surrounding areas. To stop the curse, Kaho must collect the four crest pieces needed to enter the Karst Castle and, once inside, kill the queen to end the curse.
While working with Active Gaming Media on their game development team, we were responsible for porting Momodora IV into PlayStation 4. The game was initially developed in GameMaker: Studio for PC systems. It was also converted to run on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, alongside our work with PlayStation 4.
Challenges
This project was a bit of a challenging experience because it was the first time I had done a port into the PS4 platform with a GameMaker game. By this time, I had extensive experience with Unity coding, so GameMaker’s primary use of a drag-and-drop visual programming language and Game Maker Language meant that I had some learning to do.
However, since all game engines share common behaviors, adjusting to GameMaker’s platform did not set back our project. It was also my first time working with PlayStation 4’s Dev Kit. Overall, it was an interesting and enlightening experience for our game development team.
Approach
As with any other porting project, our approach focused on optimization to ensure the best outcome and make the players feel like the game was originally developed for the PS4 platform. To do this, we made sure to change the shaders according to PlayStation 4’s GPU. Other important aspects of the project included introducing the PS4 ecosystem into the game and adding controller support.
