1. Introduction: How Did the Process Begin?

Hello, I'm Arif. You are looking at the world's worst computer player! I was introduced to computer games when I was still a child. The first games I played were probably Super Mario, Need for Speed II, and Age of Empires. When the computer in our house suddenly disappeared, I was without games for a long time. In the following years, thanks to an "original" Atari with 1,000 games (!), I had the opportunity to play games like Contra, Circus, Adventure Island, and Bomberman. At one point, a PlayStation 1, which I have no idea where it came from, entered our house. Since we didn't have many CDs, I kept playing Tekken 3 and, I think, Metal Slug 3. Around that time, another computer arrived at our house: a CRT monitor, 256 MB RAM, a white case, an ultra-slow HDD, and Windows XP... My introduction to Underground 1-2 and Most Wanted happened then. Those were good years when you didn't make micro-payments and truly owned games... Then that computer broke down, and I didn't have a computer until I went to university. And I was without games for years.

My first computer was a used Samsung laptop whose model I don't remember. I experienced Ori and the Blind Forest and the first two games of the Metro series, my "raisin cake," Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. They were truly magnificent! But I wanted to try new games, especially The Witcher 3. I knew my laptop wasn't powerful enough. So, I added some money and bought a second-hand Lenovo Y50-70 laptop. I think it was 2020, and I started playing The Witcher 3 like crazy. But there was a problem: even though my laptop was better than the previous one, as the game progressed, my computer started freezing and shutting down. I upgraded its RAM, installed a new SSD, and renewed the thermal paste, but I just couldn't play the game. So, I decided to delete the game and not play games again until I bought a new one.

2022

One day, a YouTube channel I followed was talking about the game Dead Cells. It was a genre I liked, and visually, it was a magnificent work for me. I started playing the game. My computer was running like a tractor. Thinking I would need my computer for homework, I deleted the game...

January 2023.

My classes were quite tiring. I was exhausted and felt the need to do something different from what I had done before. A light bulb went on in my brain. There was something I had dreamed of for a long time: making my own computer game! But the problem was, I knew neither coding nor digital drawing. The idea of collaborating with others wouldn't be enough for me because I knew it would be a process that could easily overwhelm me. I had to be able to do both! The result? I couldn't. I just couldn't wrap my head around learning to code. And I didn't have the equipment to learn 3D design or do digital drawing. I only had my Lenovo Y50-70 laptop with an Nvidia 860M graphics card, an i7 processor, and 16 GB of RAM.

I did some research on what I could do and as a result, I came across the Godot Engine. Since I had no prior knowledge of this, I decided to watch and imitate a simple game that had already been made on YouTube. The name of this game was Flappy Bird, and I started making it. What's the worst that could happen? The problem is, as many of you have experienced before, I did everything in the video, absolutely everything. But no matter what I did, the camera would go haywire, and the obstacles would appear in random places. As a result, I deleted everything and looked for a simpler program. That's how I encountered Scratch. I downloaded the program with a heavy heart and started making the game. The game's name would be Mega Arif...

A Brief Look at the Project

I developed Mega Arif based on the classic Flappy Bird gameplay. Since I didn't know how to use the Scratch program, I benefited from a lot of YouTube content during this process. Normally, many people prefer to download an already-made Flappy Bird game and simply change the graphic elements to present it. But since I'm not a normal person, I watched "how to make Flappy Bird with Scratch" videos one by one for hours and made the game that way. I wanted to do everything myself, from the music and sound effects to the graphic elements and the story.

2.Character Design and Graphic Elements

Mega Arif

As a child, I really liked the character Chucky and I wanted to create a mischievous child character to use in my stories. Using my colored pencils, I designed a character similar to the one below. Although Mega Arif is not a bad character, I can say that I benefited from this sketch for the design. Also, I should mention, I did the pixel art design on pixilart.com.

If you're wondering where the name Mega Arif comes from, adding words like "mega" or "ultra" before any word makes it quite fun or absurd. When you think about it, it doesn't make much sense, does it?

Background and Obstacles

I had finished the game's coding. I had also solved the character design using my own methods. However, I needed to add a background to the game. I did all the background designs using PhotoScape. Since I didn't like the first design very much, I decided to draw a new one.

The first background felt quite tiring to my eyes. So I decided to design a second one. This one was simpler than the first and evoked a more retro feeling in me. That's why I decided to use the second one.

Next up was drawing the pipes, which you'll remember from the classic Flappy Bird game. Here, instead of using the classic light green color, I used grey and its tones.

As for the ground, drawing it was really difficult and tiring for me.

And Me

Close to finishing the game's graphic elements, I asked myself why I wasn't included in it, and I decided to add myself to one of the endings. Yes... I am quite an ugly person. As if that wasn't enough, I'm also cross-eyed!

3. Sound and Music

Music and Sound Effects

Adding music to my game was one of the most challenging parts for me. This is because I had no knowledge of making music. As a solution, I researched 8-bit music creation and luckily discovered an online site, whose name I can't remember right now, where you could do this. After creating the music, I made some minor adjustments with Audacity.

As for the sound effects... I really had a lot of fun with this part. For the "splat" sound that occurs when passing the pipes, all I had to do was snap my fingers. I created the sound of falling to the ground by recording the sound made when I hit the table.

Turkish Voiceover and English Dubbing

2025

This was a truly strange experience for me. Hearing my own voice feels weird. How do singers do it? I had used a phone when preparing the sound effects. Therefore, since the sound quality would be extremely poor, doing in-game voiceovers could sound bad. As a solution, I had decided to write the main character's dialogues right in the middle of the game. This was also quite time-consuming, until I got an affordable microphone. Then I deleted all the writings and voiced each sentence one by one using the program.

As for the English part of the work, this also took a lot of my time. I didn't know English. So, I translated the dialogues with the help of artificial intelligence and voiced them with Google Translate. After that, the only thing I had to do was memorize how the sentences were pronounced and voice them.

4. On Story and Different Endings

The game has a very simple story. According to the story, Mega Arif is trapped inside the computer, and we try to rescue him. The way to finish the game is to keep playing for a while and listen carefully to Mega Arif. After that, he will give you a hint about what you need to do. There are three different endings in the game: one good and two bad.

5. Scratch, Coding, and Failures

As I just mentioned, I didn't know how to code, and as a last resort, I decided to use Scratch, a block-based coding application. I absolutely did not know how to use the program, and I had to figure out everything myself except for the classic gameplay and visuals. Preparing the main menu was pure torture. I was encountering errors like all the buttons on the main page being visible when you started the game. I solved the problem. Now, if you ask me how I did it, I definitely don't remember.

And the game was finished. The game was finished, but we could only save it in .sb3 format. I didn't want this. I wanted to save the game as a single file in .exe format. It didn't work. I tried a few tools, but the folder it created contained dozens of files besides several .exe files. I gave up on this. Then I researched how I could embed the game inside an .apk file so it could be played on phones. I installed many programs like Android Studio etc. that could be useful. During this time, I got help from Gemini and ChatGPT. But I couldn't achieve this either. Using my incredible imagination, I did "scratch to HTML" with the help of HTMLifier, which I had discovered before, and it worked. Moreover, it also works on Android phones.

6. Conclusion

Result

To be honest, I don't think Mega Arif is a good game. I had the opportunity to play the games of many people who made games by themselves. Mega Arif is miles and miles behind them. Still, it wasn't a bad start, was it?

Thanks

I used many computer programs and a few websites during this process. All of them were quite useful. Therefore, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the creation of each of them.

I would also like to thank everyone who played my game. I hope you had a good time. And I hope I can make better games one day.

GOODBYE.

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