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Quite a bit going on, but I wanted to take special note of it being THREE YEARS since Big Robot released our science fiction FPS, The Signal From Tölva. It's the creative accomplishment I am most proud of. It's on sale today, to celebrate: https://store.steampowered.com/app/457760/
So... thread
So... thread
Originally called Highlands, the game took shape via a period of prototyping by myself and @TomNullpointer. We were interested in something sprawling, highlandy, and visually ambitious. It took a while for that to take shape: it was thanks to the two key artists that it did so.
We'd already worked with a couple of artists to design the robots and parts of the world, but @ianmcque, to my enormous surprise and gratitude, was the concept artist who eventually agreed to create the materials on which the game was based.
After Sir, You Are Being Hunted's British countryside generator, people had naturally assumed that we would continue to build procedural worlds, but it became clear early on that what we wanted to do was to build something by hand. Fortunately, @Olninyo also joined, providing...
...astonishing assets for me to work with, as well as a remarkable eye for and knowledge of colours and lighting. It was down to his efforts that we were able to get anywhere near the striking visuals that McQue had produced in his paintings in our game.
My aim for the game was for it to have an atmosphere unlike other shooters: eerie, even elegiac, but under blue skies. To make this possible I began to create a game world of haunted AI, with events that had taken place without humans. It's an atmosphere I love quite deeply.
While I indulged my love of Not Much Exposition in the game itself, the wildly talented and excellent @casskhaw joined me to create a lorebook that we shipped with the game. It's a piece of work that stands on its own, I think, and probably worth the $20 we asked for the game.
That game world, which we called Magnitudes, is a mad old slab of ideas, all essentially conceived to back up the conceit of the game itself, which actually emerged from our not wanting you to have to reload: you're not the robot you control, you're another entity, but what?
A few people worked it out, on odd posts here and there on Steam forums and such. Seeing people connect with that, admittedly fairly obscure, way of doing things was neat. And yes, we know what tölva means.
I digress: the project was possible thanks to beautiful people: @MakesLtd did extraordinary design work on impossible non-euclidean puzzle spaces and key systems, while Mike Manning (no longer of Twitter!) nailed the sound. @DanPuzey made Unity work, and magic grass. And sky fish
The game came out on April 10th '17, and I think it's fair to say that, after the stratospheric 600k+ sales we'd experienced with Sir, You Are Being Hunted, this was the difficult second album, and it didn't do nearly so well. I can't say I'm not disappointed, but sigh ;[
It didn't end there, of course. We went on to create a second, free, full-length campaign, with a totally new map, and new assets. The Ice Regions was, arguably, better than the original game, and I am enormously proud of it. I not only did some sexy work, but Olly was a genius.
(And yeah, the expansion took longer than it should have done, because I was widly burned out after overwork on Tölva. I had pushed waaaay too hard, and with a bunch of other stuff going on in my life it was time for me to sleep for three months. I wish that were hyperbole.)
Anyway! I just wanted to remind everyone that WE MADE THIS. I marvel at the force of nature that @TomNullpointer has been in the making of our games, and I know that I've been absurdly privileged to make fine things with people who have more ability and talent than I ever shall.
THE SIGNAL FROM TĂ–LVA is on sale now. At a shocking, ludicrous, *haunting* -80% off! https://store.steampowered.com/app/457760/The_Signal_From_Tlva/
(And you should also buy ANCIENT ENEMY.)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/993790/Ancient_Enemy/
Love you!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/993790/Ancient_Enemy/
Love you!
Oh and will still stream/narrate/dev blather Tölva at some point, but circumstances have meant Not Today.
