Castle of the Winds is a old game. By old I mean the 80s. It used to run on Windows 3.1 on a 1.44" floppy disk! And the full version came in a separate floppy disk. You can find more information on the game on wikipedia.

This game holds a special place in my heart because it inspired me, unknowingly at the time, to become what I am now. A disillusioned software developer working in corporate wishing he’d followed his heart instead and become a game developer!

So this devlog is here to set some things straight.

  • Document the full lifecycle of a indie game remake (mind you I’ve started about 5 games, including the last CoTW remake attempt and they’ve all failed to see the light of day so this could be a VERY short document indeed)
  • Prove to myself that indeed this old dog can learn some new tricks
  • Teach the reader a little about MeteorJS

This is not a ‘How to’ tutorial that spoon feeds you the basics. There are alot of resources that teaches the basics and frankly, I don’t think I’m qualified to nor am I interested in regurgitating another slightly different tutorial on how to install Meteor or write your first line of code.

What I hope to write about is the technology choices I’ll make, game design choices (yes even for a remake), architecture and patterns, tools and workflows that I’ll use to make this particular game.

For avid readers interested in doing something similar, this devlog is hosted on the same open source github project. So you’re welcome to clone it and run it for yourself. Or try out the work-in-progress version.