KS : Update #40
Team Update!
Hello Drifters. It's been a bit of time since our last update, and I wanted to keep everyone in the loop on happenings with development and the process we've been going through.
We had a good few weeks of team building behind the scenes, paperworking for trademarks/press/platforms/employment/permits and all that incredibly fun stuff (which takes far more time then anyone wants to think about), and intense discussions about mechanics and story and the world we've been building. I'll let Casey and Teddy fill you in on their progress below:
Casey Here!
The interesting and slightly frustrating thing about my part in the process at this point is that most of what I've been doing I wont be sharing with any of you! 'Cause you know, spoiler alert! We aren't about to give away the rich narrative experience we're crafting before the game is even playable!!!
Right now, the world building and narrative development has focused around discovering the landscape itself. That's right, we've been designing maps! Its part geographical survey, part anthropological study, part history lesson.
To wrap our heads around all of this, Alex and I have been ping ponging rough sketches back and forth, poking and prodding, acting as cartographers of a sort. Its also been super helpful to diagram it out, allowing us to quickly iterate different placings of the land masses, towns, and dungeons. We've used Xmind for this. It's got a few fussy annoying things. Anyone have any other favorite mind mapping programs?
This overarching narrative and world design has also significantly influenced certain game design concepts moving forward for the better.
Oh, and here's a page from my sketchbook. Some enemy doodles!
I look forward to breaking out more little bits to show off to you all! Bear with us! And if anyone has any questions, we'd be happy to hear them. They probably won't be answered directly for a while, but it will help inform the process. Thanks for tuning in!
Teddy!
Hey Drifters! I have been paddling through the great ocean known as Game Architecture. As we prepare the game to blossom into a shiny, finished experience, a lot of the old prototype code has to be cleaned up and made more flexible, to support the new enemies, weapons, and world systems we're adding. Like our protagonist, I'm ripping out technology from old systems, to be used to make the world a better place.... through video games.
Last Bits
This projects deserves some attention, as I played the hell out of the original Dino Run, and the team behind it is supremely enthusiastic:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixeljam/dino-run-2
Also congratulations to Scale for getting funded! I'm looking forward to this fresh and clever game.
For our backers: surveys will be sent in the coming month(s), as we want to allow people time to figure out what system they'll be grabbing for the next (it's here!) gen. We'll get everyone's orders sorted through that process. T-shirts will likely come out first, then the printed boxes - plus we will have a small run of these on our site soon.
The Drifter plushy is in deep development by Rita, and should be ready soon! Secret stitching.
The Companion Art Book we plan to coincide with our game release; it's a good while down the road, though we'll continue to post up process sketches and screen shots and videos throughout the entire dev process. I'm shooting for at least one new video with weapon or game mechanic or enemy reveals a month, if not more depending on how hard it is to contain my excitement.
The prints I'll be finalizing this week, so everyone can finally get a look at the finished product! We'll have the small versions (not the luxuriant specials) available online shortly, so stay tuned.
Any other questions please feel free to send us a message, preferably through info atheart-machine.com. Keep in mind we're all wrapped up in development and it may take a day or two extra to respond if we have a flood of questions.
For those that pledged for the monster and mid-boss design tiers, we'll be reaching out very soon to get the ball rolling on it and have a blast generating the beasts.
Side note: the sunsets have been magnificent lately. Such intense and vibrant pinks and oranges with flecks of blue. Catch one sometime, if you can; it's a worthy way to spend a few precious moments.
