Shadow Raid Dev Update #1 — Foundation, Lore & First Tutorial
13 hours of solo dev grind. Eight major systems shipped in a single day. One vertical shooter taking shape. Here's what happened.
The Project
For those just joining — Shadow Raid is my second mobile game, currently in development under the Alastis Dev banner. It's a vertical shooter inspired by classics like River Raid and modern hits like Sky Force. Top-down, touch controls, dark sci-fi aesthetic, four-act campaign.
And it's coming to Google Play later this year — alongside Shadow Blocks (which launched last week and you can grab on the Play Store right now).
Today's Shipping List
One day. Eight systems. Here's the breakdown:
The Story I'm Telling
Here's where it gets interesting. Shadow Raid isn't a story-light arcade game. It's structured around four acts with a plot twist I've been quietly designing for weeks.
The setup: You're a recruit. An old captain — battle-scarred, cyber-eye, military medals — recruits you into the Black Ops Consortium. He's neutral, professional, almost fatherly. He sends you on missions across the galaxy.
Act 1 — The Pirate
Captain Krev. Pirate cyborg. Well-armed, missile-equipped, dangerous. But not the hardest fight you'll face.
Act 2 — The Cyber Boss
Weak alone. But his fleet support is massive. Multiple ship levels, escort waves, defensive armada. The boss isn't the challenge — surviving long enough to reach him is.
Act 3 — The Alien Empire
Vex. Hidden behind an asteroid belt. UFO drone swarms. Narrow corridors. Pure skill check. Pure agility. Pure focus.
Act 4 — The Captain
Yes. That captain. The one who recruited you. He removes his mask in the final mission and the truth comes out — he was the most powerful enemy from the very start. Every boss before him tried to warn you. You didn't listen.
It's a Code Name Viper-style reveal, executed through subtle visual storytelling rather than exposition. Players will see things, sense things, but never quite be sure — until the mask comes off.
The Tech Behind the Day
Solo indie dev means making smart choices. Same stack as Shadow Blocks:
- GameMaker Studio 2 — pure GML, runtime 2024.14.4.268
- MacBook Air M1 — primary dev machine
- Pixel 7A — Android target device
- Photopea — sprites, portraits, UI assets (free Photoshop alt)
- Claude + Gemini — AI-augmented workflow (Claude reviews architecture, Gemini handles daily GML)
- NotebookLM — project lore & design docs
- Git + GitHub — version control with private remote backup
What Almost Killed The Day
The Tutorial Loop Bug
Around 8pm I hit a wall. The tutorial manager was being created in an infinite loop — 15 instances, all trying to pause the game simultaneously. Game frozen. Console flooding with debug messages.
The cause? A copy-paste mistake. The Alarm 0 event had Create event code pasted into it, including the line that resets Alarm 0. Recursive infinite loop. Five minutes to find, one line to fix. Welcome to programming.
The Brain Wall
Thirteen hours is a lot. Around hour 10, my autistic brain hit serious diminishing returns. Typos in code. Missing punctuation. Slower problem-solving. Knowing when to stop is a skill. Tomorrow the tutorial gets finished — with a fresh mind, in 30 minutes.
What's Next
Tomorrow's roadmap is short and clear:
- Wire up tutorial triggers (steps 1-7) — captain reacts when you destroy your first drone, dodge your first asteroid, run low on fuel
- Mini-boss with 5 HP — ends the prologue
- Begin Boss Krev properly — 5-stage animations, 200 HP, 3 attack patterns
- First Pixel 7A device test of the new build
Release target for v1.0 is still being calibrated, but the goal is clear — release Shadow Raid v1.0 on Google Play with four full acts, polished gameplay, and a story that makes you want to replay.
Why I'm Doing This
Indie game development is brutal. I'm a solo developer working from Sunderland, UK, juggling depression, autistic burnout, and parenting two amazing autistic boys. There's no team. There's no investor. There's just me, my MacBook Air, and a stubborn belief that if smaller studios can ship games, so can one person with a laptop and good tools.
But every system that ships, every line of code that compiles, every portrait that comes to life — that's a small win. And small wins compound.
If you want to follow the journey — Shadow Blocks is on Google Play right now, and Shadow Raid updates will keep landing here every few days. Indie devs survive on community.
More updates soon.