Devlog Noxem #01 – Nice to Meet You, Luunyn

Hi, I’m Luunyn, the solo developer behind Noxem, and this is my very first devlog. I’ve been working on this game for about 5–6 months now, but I hadn’t thought about doing a devlog until now. So I’ll need to start a bit from the (not so recent) past. In this first devlog, I want to talk a little about my journey leading up to the beginning of development.

My history with games goes back to my childhood, like most gamers. The shift from being just a regular player to someone who cared more deeply about games happened around three years ago, when I started writing reviews of the games I played. Since then, I’ve written reviews for 164 games. Writing them helped me analyze games from new perspectives, notice nuances, and really reflect on what I was experiencing. I began to see games as more than entertainment - I started seeing them as art.

After reviewing over a hundred games, I decided to make my own. To be honest, this isn’t the first time I’ve made or tried to make a game, but it’s definitely the first time I’ve gone through the entire development process on my own. I’ve had a few experiences with game development in the past - three in total. The first was during college, when we developed a game as a class project involving 14 people. I was part of two teams: the art team and QA. The second was an unsuccessful attempt to make a visual novel with a friend, which unfortunately lasted less than a month. The third was a game jam I participated in with another friend - he handled programming, and I did all the art and game design. The game we made is free and available on itch.io. It’s called Mystic Ocean.

Mystic Ocean page on Itch.io

Noxem is the first game I set out to make completely solo, and it’s definitely the biggest one so far. And when I say solo, I mean literally solo. I do all the art and programming myself - no contractors, no one else involved. Why did I decide to go that route? Well, I’ve always dreamed of making a game, but I never really managed to complete one with friends. After all, it’s not exactly easy to convince someone to commit to a years-long project without any financial compensation. Why not just join a game studio? Although I don’t consider myself a beginner - I have a degree in Information Systems - I also don’t see myself as experienced enough to work in a studio yet. I need more experience, and what better way to get it than by developing a commercial game on my own?

The production process began with some basic decisions. The first was choosing which IDE (or game engine) to use. That wasn’t a hard decision - Unity seemed like the obvious choice, especially since I was sure I wanted to make a 2D game. It’s worth noting that, at that time, the controversy involving Unity’s revenue share model hadn’t happened yet. As for the art style, I went with 2D pixel art because I’m not really skilled in traditional art and I know nothing about 3D modeling, so 3D was out of the question. In terms of game design, everything came from me - my experiences so far have formed the foundation for my development process.

When I started thinking about what kind of game I wanted to make, I remembered a project I had worked on with some friends a few years ago. We had started sketching out a board game where each player would control a wizard and compete to reach the end and obtain the Arcanum, a stone that held all the magic in the world. We even created a prototype, but the idea never moved forward. Still, it served as an excellent starting point for developing my game.

After making the necessary adaptations, I considered creating a turn-based battle game on a hexagonal grid—naturally keeping the idea that all playable characters would be wizards. My main reference was Alina: Battle Arena. I started writing a GDD (Game Development Document), created a prototype for the spell cards, and even sketched out the game’s HUD and designed the various screens.

However, my concept shifted again after a conversation with a close friend—the same one I did the game jam with, nicknamed Farofa. Something he said changed a few of my ideas: “If I had to make a game by myself, I’d make a survivor-like.” I thought about the basic mechanics of that genre, and it actually made a lot of sense. It’s a relatively simple concept, so I decided to change my initial idea and go in that direction instead. From Arcanum to now, only one thing has remained the same: my game is still about wizards.

Figma project of the initial concept for a turn-based battle game.

Before diving into game design or narrative, I started with the basics: playing as many games in the genre as possible. This was at the end of 2023. I want to make it clear that I didn’t just play the games - I completed all the objectives possible in each of them, because I believe it’s important to have a full experience in order to truly understand what works and what doesn’t. After playing 4–5 games, I had a solid idea of what I wanted to do. That’s when I began thinking about the game design and actually started developing the game. This was at the beginning of 2024. I worked on the game until April, then paused development until January 2025, when I picked it back up - and production has been going full steam ahead ever since.

A final note: The pixel art below was the very first one I ever made—it's a self-portrait. I always like to use it as a reminder of where my skills were when I first started. So get used to seeing this artwork on my social media, website, and YouTube channel!

What I’ve done so far - those first steps - will be the subject of the next devlog. Until then!