In my last post here on the website I was looking for an artist for my card game and I found one!
His name is Nicolai Troshinsky and the best way to get to know more about him is to check out his website at www.throshinsky.com. It contains Illustrations, Animations, books, games and other art projects that he has done. His stuff is truly great so I’m very excited about this collaboration!
I met Nicolai two years ago in San Francisco during Game Developers Conference where he was showing his very fun (and unusual) iPad game Loop Raccord. Recently he has been working on an animated short film called Astigmatismo. The film has its own website at www.astigmatismo-shortfilm.com and you can even watch the whole thing for free there. Actually I think you should do that now!
The game costs $5 while it’s in beta, we will increase the price when version 1.0 is ready. It’s very much playable right now though, so please try it out if you’re interested. Here’s the trailer:
For more information, bug reports and other inquires there is a twitter, facebook page and email. Finally we want to thank the Humble Bundle people for their nice Humble Store Widget that we use for selling the game!
Working very hard on finishing Clairvoyance now! To stay up to date with our work on the game, follow @ClairvoyanceApp and check out the brand new website at www.gameofclairvoyance.com
There is going to be a lot of programmer lingo in this post so if you’re not into that kind of thing – be warned! :)
I didn’t go to the Game Developers Conference this year but I did read stuff about what was going on there, for example this article from “The Indie Soapbox Session”. What caught my eye was Steph Thirion‘s talk about open source and how we in the computer game community should become better at sharing our code and helping each other out to improve the tools we use. I have been thinking a little bit along these lines before but never had the guts to actually share anything – mainly because it is so scary! I have also never contributed to an open source project for pretty much the same reason. Anyway, Steph and his talk made me take the plunge and a couple of weeks ago I put most of the libraries we have built for “else { Heart.break() }” up on github.com/eriksvedang. The gameplay code, art and sound is not up there though, so you can’t try the game (sorry!) Here’s a quick explanation of the different repositories that actually are available:
Grimm – A story scripting language that makes it easy to write branching dialogue, to listen for events and conditions in the world, etc. It doesn’t have any dependencies on our own game logic and can be easily extended from the client code. It is heavily tied to our own database system though, which is something that I want to remedy in the future to make it simpler to reuse.
Sprak – The programming language we have created to be used by the player inside the game. It is mainly inspired by Python and Ruby. The main goal has been to make it easy to learn and use, hopefully it will also produce better error messages than what is currently the norm. The test suite should give a pretty good view of how the language looks and behave. It will probably change a lot during development though, since we evolve the language as part of the overall play testing. It doesn’t have any dependencies so it can be tried out on its own.
TingTing – A tiny game entity framework. We use it so that we can run all our game logic separate from Unity in a MVC-kinda way. We actually have a working command line interface for the game also, but that’s a story for another day :)
Relay – a simple database we use for saving and loading of state. Used heavily by both Grimm and TingTing. We built this when our old, reflection-based save system proved to be too inconsistent. With this solution we can save all the state in the game as one big file if we wish. It makes everything very cohesive and reliable but unfortunately also forces its users into adapting certain paradigms that might not be optimal (specifically inheriting from a special base-object).
GameTypes– most of the other libraries use this component for some basic stuff like logging and a few basic data types that we need throughout the game. Should probably be split into a few more pieces but this is a practical solution to keep the number of projects down.
All the code is written by me and my friend Johannes Gotlén during the last 1½ years. If anyone wants to check them out or try to use them for something I would be very excited and I am willing to help out as much as possible! If you just wanna browse the code and give me some thoughts about it, that’d be interesting too.
After more than 1 year of pre-production, plus another full year of actual production (supported by the Nordic Game Program), I feel that it’s really about time that I reveal something about the project I am currently working on together with some friends.
It is called else { Heart.break() } and will be a kind of adventure game. Here’s an excerpt from the initial description I wrote for the game:
else { Heart.break } is a game about being able to change reality. It is set in a mysterious world made up of computers and their code; a place where bits have replaced atoms. The player – who is assumed to have no previous knowledge about programming – gets access to the code and is taught by other characters how to modify it. As the story unfolds the possibilities of what can be reprogrammed, hacked and controlled increases greatly. Eventually the inner parts of the gameplay code are revealed and the barrier between our own world and the game starts to dissolve.
The idea is to create opportunities for truly creative gameplay that goes beyond the kind of puzzle solving and stats improvement normally seen in games. Ideally it even allows the player to free herself from the designer of the game! The goal is an experience that borders the metaphysical, and to create a kind of game where thoughts and knowledge mean everything.
An arcade machine at 'Bar Yvonne'
Besides the programming aspect, we also focus on creating great possibilities for interactive drama. The game world will be inhabited by characters living their own little lives. Talking to them and becoming part of their world is a big part of the game and just being in the world should be a fulfilling experience in itself.
We are a team of five people working on the game: me, Johannes Gotlén (programming), Oscar Rydelius (sound design), Tobias Sjögren (graphics) and Niklas Åkerblad (art direction, music and graphics). Here are some drawings that Niklas has made for us:
So far, work on the game is going well but there is still a ton left to do though, so we won’t be finished for another year at least. Hopefully we can share some videos and smaller demos soon. Come back again for more information!
Hello, dear blog readers! I just posted this over at YouTube:
Clairvoyance is a 3D strategy game in which both players plan their moves simultaneously and then reveal them, often with a surprising outcome! Think of it as Chess meets Rock Paper Scissors — with robots and lasers. It’s played over the internet and players can enter their moves whenever they feel like logging in (asynchronous).
Right now the game is going through a lot of testing, but we hope to release it on Mac and PC pretty soon! (We’re also planning to do an iPad version in the future.)
The game is being developed by a small group of friends; Erik Svedäng, Johannes Gotlén, Niklas Åkerblad and Oscar Rydelius. This video shows the playback from a complete game where Erik takes on the vicious HAL. Enjoy!
Calling all strategic engineers of the imperium! This is your opportunity to adjust the way the universe itself functions within Tri-Tri-Triobelisk! Come up with a new Power-up!
Send your suggestions to us via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr or Email. The best ten will receive prizes and be selected for a second round of internet voting. The winning design will be added to the next version of Tri-Tri-Triobelisk.
Contest ends Dec. 21, 2011.
(…and of course you can just add a comment here below to participate, just remember to enter your email address)
My latest collaborative project TRI-TRI-TRIOBELISK is out on the App Store today! It’s is a faster and more extreme remix version of my previous creation Shot Shot Shoot. The new game features tons of music and art by the super-talented electronic music artist Triobelisk and you can get it here for the special launch price of $1!
I was one of the people who got quite excited when Apple announced their iPad back in January. Not because I wanted yet another gadget to let me surf the internet or read e-books in bed or whatever. No — what I was excited about was the possibilities of playing games together on a computer that is placed face up in the middle of the table. I’ve always loved playing board games and luckily I have a big family who’s also way into that. There is something about the tension of sitting face to face with your opponent that really excites me, maybe it’s because that’s how games have been enjoyed for thousands of years (anyone who’s ever played a game of Chess or Go knows what I’m talking about). The possibilities for games that take this kind of ancient setup and adds the special powers of a computer is really intriguing to me.
The moment I got hold of my iPad I started working on a small game for two players. I called it “Shot Shot Shoot” because it explains the gameplay pretty well. It’s fast, to the point and highly competitive. I built the game in my spare time during the Kometen project and every Friday for a couple of months I brought it to a bar in New York where a bunch of game developers go for beer.
One of the developers was Frank Lantz from area/code (he’s the guy on the right) and he seemed to really like the game. Motivated by his enthusiasm, and all the other positive feedback from people I have showed the game to, I have spent the summer here in Sweden polishing it, adding computer AI opponents and composing music.
And so… a couple of weeks ago the first world Shot Shot Shoot championship was arranged! Here’s how it looked in all it’s indie celebrity glory:
The game is live now on the App Store, get it there for only $1 during a limited time.
And here‘s the official page with more information, etc.
It’s a great pleasure to finally reveal the update for Kometen. Me and Nicke have worked hard on this for two months, adding lots of things and tweaking what was already there. Here’s the changes:
iPad support through universal binary. You just have to see this in motion :)
Different regions to explore with new and unique music, backgrounds and objects
Improved controls (quicker and smoother maneuvering of your comet)
More food, debris and other fantastic things to see on your journey (including five objects from the drawing competition, more info below)
Killing your comet now requires confirmation (tap five times in the upper left corner on the comet stats screen)
Various small bug fixes and improvements
So what are you waiting for, go get the update! And if you don’t own the game yet — buy it here.
Winners of the Debris Drawing Competition
A while back we had a drawing competition where we let anyone who wanted submit drawings with ideas for debris to be added in the game. We selected five winners and — drum roll — here they are:
By Ted Martens (click the image to see the awesome animation)
By Calegaster
By Inlagd Sill
By Rowan Tedge (things went out of control with this one!)
By Houille (this concept was too fun not to be done)
Congratulations to all the winners, very good job! And thanks to everyone who participated, there was a lot of great stuff :) Nicke has used these drawings as reference images for five new objects in the game (we also added some touches of our own). Get the update to see how they look!
It’s summer here in Sweden now and when Niklas and I are not sitting at the top of mountains thinking about life, we are working hard on completing the update for Kometen. We are keeping the game very much true to the original experience while trying to make it a lot more varied and surprising… we are very excited to see what you all will think about it!
Oh and by the way; winners in the drawing competition has been decided but will not be revealed until the update goes live. Thanks again to everyone who participated! And of course to everyone who has bought the game!!!
Thanks to everyone who has bought Kometen so far, it’s really awesome to see that so many people are playing and enjoying it!
We’re currently working on the first update of the game and to spice things up a little we are going to have a competition. To participate you have to draw (or scribble) anobjectthat you think would be interesting for a comet to find while traveling through space. Send the image file (scan it in first if you drew on a paper) to niklas [at] grafikbyran.com
The five objects we like the most will be translated into watercolor space debris by Nicke and put into the next version of the game. The original drawings will also be put up here on the site for display (with the name of their creators of course). We might do something with the other submissions too, but first we have to see how many people want to participate.
Deadline for the competition is Wednesday, May 26th.
So don’t be shy, take the chance to get your idea into Kometen! Post any questions in the comments below.
Take care,
Erik & Nicke
PS. We do this just as a fun thing so please don’t try to sue us for stealing your idea or anything. Peace!
A while ago my friend Niklas Åkerblad (“Nicke” for short) and I decided to do a little game project together, kinda just for fun (and to see how well we could work together). We decided to work with the iPhone and iPod Touch since it seemed neat and a good fit for our small idea. Of course it still took way longer than we thought to get it done — game development never fails to surprise you… Anyway, it’s been a really nice experience to work together and now we’re finally starting to wrap things up. Exactly when the game will be out is hard to say since Apple has to approve it for the App Store but it shouldn’t take too long. Until then, here’s a little trailer:
The art (which is all watercolor) and music is made by Niklas while I have been doing the programming and game design. The overall concept is something we’ve worked very much together on though. In short the game is about exploring space to find art, while at the same time learning how to fly around in a graceful way. There isn’t any scoring system or way to lose, instead it’s all about self improvement and judging your own performance. I hope you will find it as much fun as we do!
Finally I have finished writing my article about the making of Blueberry Garden. It’s not a classic post-mortem since it primarily discusses my thoughts on the design while leaving out production details. Hopefully it can give some insight to what I wanted to achieve with the game regarding interactive storytelling and where I think I succeeded respectively failed.
At last I have finished the first patch of the game. It shouldn’t have taken this long and I’m terribly sorry for that… I could give you a bad excuse or two but instead I will present what the improvements are:
Blueberry Playground — Brand new play mode where you can place fruits and creatures into the game world and see how they interact. Easy to use interface and a custom made level for your scientific pleasure!
Slightly redesigned level design — A more perfected experience that will work better for new players.
Museum Mode – This can be turned on only from the settings.xml file in the content folder. When on it disables the option menu and exit command. The game also restarts automatically if left unattended, perfect for exhibition environments!
Alternative key for teleportation – You can now use ‘H’ if your computer lacks a Home-key.
Added support for some more screen resolutions from the option menu – If you still need another one, tell me (or change the settings.xml file).
You can now use the mouse to navigate the menus
Improved stability – I hope that this version will remove quite a bit of the crash issues that some people have experienced
Last Friday I went to Assembly in Helsinki to give a seminar. The title of my talk was “Creating Blueberry Garden – how to get away with bad design choices (sort of)”. It went pretty ok and some nice people in the audience even wanted to get me as a speaker at their uni :)
Apart from giving the talk I mainly spent my time with Petri Purho and Cactus (who both were giving their own lectures) in some of the nice parks in Helsinki — great times!
Great tip for everyone interested in indie games (and everyone else). This weekend Steam is having a huge bundled sale and Blueberry Garden is included. Read more about it here! 75% off!!!
UPDATE: The sale has ended, big thanks to everyone who bought the bundle!
What an amazing destiny for these couple of piano tracks I published on the Internet a couple of years ago ! I was miles away from imagining that one day, they would be selected as the soundtrack of such a beautiful video game.
I hope you will enjoy listening to the music as much as I liked to compose it, and that it will add a little something to your journey through the garden.
I am sincerely grateful to Erik for bringing me into the Blueberry Garden adventure, from the release of the trailer to the San Francisco prize ceremony and now, for giving me this opportunity to blog about Blueberry Garden’s soundtrack, “Et Apres”.
Finally, I read many nice comments you left about the music: thank you so much for this ! I might one day publish the scores, but I am unfortunately not really good at writing them… I hope to tell a bit more about the stories behind the tracks in a future post.
Seems like there are some problems with the Steam release stuff, will probably take a little while to sort it out. I hope you have some patience with this, it’s the first time I’m doing this kind of thing you know. I’m terribly sorry and I will do all I can to get the game out as soon as possible!
Ok, so the game is supposed to be released very soon and to celebrate I decided to have a little party, chilling out in my apartment with some friends. I’ll update this post with pics of what’s happening as the evening progresses.
The Swedish site gameplayer.se arranged a game developing competition together with Paradox Interactive and now they have choosen Flipside of the Divine as the winner. Here’s the motivation:
Flipside of the Divine demonstrates that innovation alone is not enough, but innovation, mixed with rock-solid development is the killer formula for a high-quality compelling game. Plus the pace of Flipside constantly keeps you on your toes. However good game mechanics is not enough you also require a high standard of technical quality to support this. Flipside is not just the best game in this competition – it is a great game, period.
Great news, try the game if you haven’t already. :)
By the way — tomorrow I’m off to the Nordic Game Jam in Copenhagen. Exciting!
