Mula: The Cycle of Shadows — Shipping an Original IP on Steam

Mula: The Cycle of Shadows was my first self-published Steam title — a 2D action-adventure game developed from concept through launch as the founder of Boozer Game Studios. The project spanned pre-production, art direction, gameplay implementation, and Steam publishing.

Designing for exploration

On the game design side, I made deliberate decisions about the 2D action-adventure structure — designing interconnected levels with gated progression that rewarded exploration with narrative reveals. The story was delivered through in-game dialogue sequences and environmental storytelling, with a branching narrative that responded to player choices at key moments. Level design followed a metroidvania-lite philosophy: ability-gated areas that encouraged backtracking and rewarded thorough exploration.

Self-publishing is a business problem

Self-publishing on Steam was a full-stack business experience. Beyond the Steamworks integration (achievements, cloud saves, DRM), I handled the store page optimization, capsule art direction, and community management through the Steam discussion boards. I learned to manage wishlist momentum, coordinate discount events, and respond to player feedback during early access — skills that directly informed my later approach to live-ops development.

The technical build

Technically, the game was built entirely in GameMaker 1 with GML. I implemented a state machine architecture for player and enemy behaviors, a sprite management system that handled animation frame pooling to keep memory usage predictable, and a custom dialogue system with typewriter text effects and portrait rendering.

The project was a formative experience in full-cycle game development: taking an idea from concept to a shipped product on a major platform, managing scope, and delivering a complete experience to players. It’s the reason I approach every project — game, SaaS, or framework — with the discipline to actually ship.