Update

Fall Update

Hey there,

A lot has happened since Summer and we continue to make progress on Amirelia. A couple of notable events: firstly we took Amirelia to Playcrafting NYC’s Fall Expo in October at Microsoft’s offices in Manhattan. The response to the game was overwhelmingly positive and it is a pleasure to see new people interact with the demo. We will certainly be more active in letting everyone know when and where they can play the latest build going forward. Secondly, we completed our submission to the Independent Games Festival! We look forward to hearing the results in the coming months.

Since August the levels Intimacy and Asymmetry have come a long way in their development. The overall progression of the levels have been established and their basic art assets have been implemented. We still need to devote time to carefully playtest and refine them so they are as streamlined as our Tutorial. We aim to add additional layers of visual polish and audio feedback to enhance the environmental narrative of the game.

Two of our core team members are moving cities this month and so our team becomes even more distributed, but we remain on track to finish development by the end of the year. We have a lot of work to do, but we are excited to put the finishing touches on the game! We will keep you posted.

All the best,

Studio FriendCannon

Week 7 Update

It’s week 7 and we are coming up to one of our major milestones; we need to make a decision about what we are going to be working on for our final project for the rest of the year by this weekend. Sword Dancer/Rhythm Fencer turned out to be a handy little prototype that came together into a proof of concept pretty quickly, and now the whole team is working on a prototype we are calling Trust Climber. The premise is that you play as one of two climbers who must work together to scale a wall, with one player leading and belaying, while the other catches up to them. We are trying to implement a rhythm element, which will most likely be negotiated by the player/players themselves, as opposed to requiring them to adhere to some underlying beat.

Climbing is achieved by pressing one of the WASD keys to grab hold of nearby handholds labeled with the same letter. When the Climber switches positions with the belayer, they control the rope with the left and right mouse keys. Some of the rocks fall after they have been grabbed in order to make the player keep up a pace of climbing, which we hope will translate into the rhythm negotiation mentioned above. We are also looking into implementing Xbox controller input, with both players using one controller. There is a definite progression that is developing through these last few prototypes, and we are hoping the underlying concepts in this prototype and the last two will all fit together organically into our final idea. The climb continues.

Matterhorn Ascent, Gustave Doré, 1865
Image Source

Week 6 Update

The 2nd year Grads just had their first presentation to the IGM faculty and received feedback on our various prototypes. Currently team BABBStone is working on different projects until next Monday. Bryan, Sam and myself are working on a prototype called Rhythm Fencer in which two players fence, but must move based on an underlying rhythm. Bryan has named Brace Yourself Game’s Crypt of the Necrodancer and Messhof’s Nidhogg as his main influences (many on the team have been gripped by Necrodancer fever for the last 48 hours). It will be a 2D, side-scrolling game, with Tiled movement and rock-paper-scissors style mechanics. We decided to try this prototype out, despite it’s lack of strong emotional target, to explore more rhythm-based interactions. The prototype will likely not be selected as our final concept for our thesis work, but perhaps will yield some interesting mechanics and interactions. I suggested that we try to implement a high-drama feel and one of our faculty advisers recommended creating tension in the form of rhythmic dissonance to help hit that target.

That’s all for now,

Bob

Gif sources:

Let’s Play Crypt of the Necrodancy

Nidhogg Wikipedia Page