Hi, my name is Luke Kim. I am a game developer and designer based in NYC. I was a student, graduating back in May 2025. I have been making games for about 3 years and a year professionally. I primarily work with designing and implementing game mechanics and prototyping. I am a huge fan of storytelling, role-playing, and horror games.
Summit Drive is a driving game where you play as an anthropomorphic bird who must make their way up to the mountain summit for a view like none other. It blends the mechanical absurdity of Enviro-bear 2000’s controls with A Short Hike’s cozy, quirky aesthetic.
The concept was designed through a past trip where I took a small shuttle bus up a side of a steep mountain allowing me to see almost everything below from the right window. The fear of falling, while still enjoying the thrill of the experience and the breathtaking view was what brought my game concept to life.
I thought a lot about abnormal mechanics or difficult mechanics. I didn’t just want to create a game that uses the typical WASD keys because that would be quite boring. I wanted the mechanics to shine and be the source of what’s fun about the game. It was until I was recommended a game called Enviro-bear2000 by Justin Smith and that was when I added the bird’s hand as the mouse cursor. That small addition changed the game completely. Immediately I noticed that play testers actually enjoyed driving in the game and spent more time playing. So, I kept improving it.
I use Unity as my main engine of choice. There was a lot of bouncing about with game engines during my development journey. When I first got into game development I used RPG maker. However, my college program primarily used Unity which had me exposed to the software all the time, increasing my skills with it over time.
There were times where I thought about changing game engines, but realized that if I wanted to finish a game, I had to stick with what I know. That is more important than anything in game development.
There are definitely many different struggles a game developer could face including financial struggles, scope creep, and having scrapped projects. I think the biggest hurdle for sure is marketing. I am sure a lot of people in the game development space could agree. We’ve come to a point where it’s almost hit or miss and it’s a battle with the algorithm.
I think there aren't many development struggles with Summit Drive and I think that’s because of how low of a scope I made it. However, I started marketing the game after doing a soft demo release (no prior marketing). Getting your game out to complete strangers is something that isn’t easy for sure. Pretty much it’s all luck and that is what is hard. But I hope Summit Drive thrives in that the more I post about it.
Something game developers often say is to just make a game or to start, but I think that's terrible advice although it is right. That's advice that slows down the listener and sort of lowers their expectations. My advice, and this is for all levels of game development, “Don’t let your creative wants blind you from creating what’s fun.”
There are moments where we think of all the cool mechanics we can add into our precious game, but what’s more important is if those mechanics are readable and necessary for players to understand. Sometimes our creative ambitions (things we want) can blind us.
We keep adding more and more until our project is a complete mess. So create simple mechanics that you can explain in one sentence. Just like pitching a game, you should be able to pitch your mechanic. So once again don’t let your creative wants blind you from creating what’s fun.
Thank you for having me in the diary and I hope you get a chance to play it if you haven’t ofcourse. I’m always out to help other aspiring game developers out there when I can. And I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Summit Drive. Some great things are coming into the game in the future and I hope everyone who sees this gives the game a try.
- RagBell
