Credits

The Story Behind Swords & Crystals

My name is Job Timmermans, founder of Luminous Forest Games and creator of Swords & Crystals

I’ve dreamed about creating my own online fantasy world for most of my life.

Ever since I was a child, gaming has been one of the biggest passions in my life. Around the age of 6, I already knew I wanted to create games someday, and I was endlessly fascinated by how games were made behind the scenes.

Around the age of 11, I started experimenting with game logic and simple scripting by creating large custom maps in games like Age of Empires and Age of Mythology.

A few years later, around the age of 13, I started developing my first original games in GameMaker 7, an older and far more limited predecessor of what has since evolved into the modern version of GameMaker Studio. During this time, I initially used the engine’s built-in assets while learning programming, game design, and level creation.

By the age of 15 and 16, in the years 2010/2011, I created the following four games in the Crazyslimes series, featuring my own graphics, gameplay mechanics, objectives, and overall style:

Crazyslimes, a complete 2D adventure game

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Crazyslimes Space Escape, a 2D survival arcade game

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Crazyslimes 3D, an unfinished 3D experiment

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Crazyslimes Blue, a 360 degree gravity demo

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Everything I learned came entirely through self-teaching. Years of experimentation, trial and error, forums, old YouTube tutorials, problem solving, and persistence slowly shaped my understanding of game development.

I never had a professional game development education or mentors guiding me through the process. Back then, learning game development was far less accessible than it is today, which made progress slower and often frustrating, but it also forced me to deeply understand development from the ground up.

By the age of 15, I had already reached the point where I could create complete games entirely by myself, including programming, graphics, balancing, gameplay systems, and polished experiences from beginning to end.

Growing up, MMORPGs became one of my greatest inspirations, especially Old School RuneScape and early World of Warcraft. Those games shaped my love for online worlds, exploration, progression, player-driven economies, community, freedom, and long-term adventure.

From then I began seriously dreaming about creating my own MMORPG inspired by those experiences, in a 2D top-down style like the oldschool Zelda's.

The First Prototype

In 2015 at my age of 20, I created the very first 2D top-down prototype of what would eventually become Empire of the Wicked, and later Swords & Crystals.

In 2016, I began working on a much larger and more ambitious project called Empire of the Wicked. At the time, I was still inexperienced with projects of that scale, but the vision behind it was enormous: one huge online open world, packed with players, monsters, quests and towns.

But in 2020 at my age of 24, after 4 years of development, I realized the project had become technically unsustainable.

Much of the code structure was inefficient and difficult to maintain because I simply lacked the experience at the time to properly architect a project of that size. Many systems were heavily hardcoded, poorly optimized, and extremely difficult to expand cleanly. I had focused entirely on passion and ambition, without yet understanding long-term scalability and sustainable project structure.

Looking back, rebuilding the project from scratch became the only realistic path forward.

But those years were far from wasted.

They taught me invaluable lessons about game architecture, multiplayer networking, optimization, balancing, workflow design, and long-term MMORPG development. I also learned the importance of involving players much earlier in development instead of building in complete isolation.

Rebuilding Everything

In 2021, development restarted under a completely new vision with Swords & Crystals.

The goal was to rebuild everything in a smarter, cleaner, more scalable, and future-proof way, creating systems that could continue evolving for many years without constantly requiring major rewrites or breaking older content.

At the same time, GameMaker Studio 2 had just been released as a major overhaul of the original GameMaker engine, making it the perfect moment to start over using its modern tools, improved workflow, and significantly more professional development environment. The new version transformed GameMaker into one of the most powerful and respected tools for 2D game development.

During the first year of development, I collaborated with another developer and artist who helped shape the project’s early world assets and improve the overall structure of the game. After that first year, I continued development primarily alone.

Since then, Swords & Crystals has evolved into a true online multiplayer MMORPG with persistent accounts, real-time multiplayer gameplay, open-world systems, progression, exploration, trading, combat, bosses, quests, and a continuously expanding world.

One of the things I’m especially proud of is overcoming the technical challenge of creating large-scale online multiplayer systems inside GameMaker, something historically very difficult and rarely attempted at this scale. Most GameMaker multiplayer projects remain limited to small private lobbies or simple co-op systems, while Swords & Crystals aims to create a much larger persistent online world experience.

The Vision

Over the years, the project evolved dramatically both technically and visually.

From the primitive 2015 prototype to the far more advanced modern version with improved graphics, shaders, polished controls, scalable architecture, and mature gameplay systems, the game has grown into something far beyond what I originally thought I was capable of creating.

Swords & Crystals itself has now been actively developed for many years, but if you include the earlier Empire of the Wicked project and the original concepts that evolved into this game, the journey spans well over a decade.

So far, I’ve personally invested over 7,000 hours and more than $8,000 of my own savings into Swords & Crystals entirely out of passion, dedication, and belief in the vision, without earning anything from it yet. These hours and investments also do not include the earlier sketch versions of the project or the development of Empire of the Wicked.

Because of this project, I spent many years only working part-time in my personal life, earning just enough to cover my monthly expenses while dedicating nearly all remaining time, energy, and money to development. I sacrificed many enjoyable experiences, purchases, and opportunities in order to save both time and resources for the game, and at times I even pushed this dedication too far.

All of it was driven by a single goal: to create the best possible online top-down roleplaying game, something truly ambitious and unlike anything that had been made before.

This project has never been a quick commercial idea for me. It’s a lifelong passion project and one of the biggest dreams I’ve ever pursued.

My goal with Swords & Crystals is to create a modern MMORPG that recaptures many of the things that made older online worlds feel meaningful:

• Open-world exploration and freedom
• Easy game mechanics
• Simple oldschool like UI
• Rewarding long-term progression
• Relaxed and enjoyable grinding
• Competition and Challenges
• Player interaction
• A player-driven economy
• No pay-to-win/battle pass systems

The game will always remain free to play. Optional purchases will be limited to cosmetics and small convenience features only, never cheating like advantages.

One of the core philosophies behind the game is preserving the long-term value of player achievements and progression. I want updates and expansions to enhance the world without invalidating years of effort, progression, items, or accomplishments. Something many MMORPG players have become frustrated with in modern online games.

After launch, the game will continue evolving with expansions, seasonal events, new regions, bosses, items, systems, quality-of-life improvements, and ongoing long-term support.

No matter what happens, I will continue building this world.

And with the support of a passionate community, I believe Swords & Crystals has the potential to become something truly special within the MMORPG genre.