Post #18: Water Wonderlab Game Jam

Water Wonderlab Game Jam was held in last weekend and we're glad that we were able to squeeze some time to take part of it. It was again a great experience to see all local game devs making games and we were even able to take part in some of their process.
It's always great to be able to make a working game the whole team found fun to make and I think we managed to make something that everyone enjoyed.

And that's how we ended up doing 

Game itself isn’t playable on any sharing site, but if you’re interested, go and ask us on twitter or facebook (or here, but that’s a bit given) and we'll see what we can do. Of course game itself is a small prototype of a 2D sidescroller beat ‘em up, but we’re really proud to be able to make a working game that we’re can present and if we ever feel like it, we could easily (or we think we could) make. So as a prototype making event Game Jam is an experience we appreciate.

We learned a lot from 2D graphic use in Unity and how to make sprites for it. And it turned out to be far more easier than we thought.

Overall, we have learned a lot of planning ahead in these events and it’s starting to seem to be the one crucial thing to do when you do a Game Jam. Plan ahead. Sunday is always sooner than you think and while everything feels okay, always, always make plan B’s. We didn’t really need them this time, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
 But with this, we can already say we have learned a lot from taking part of these events and are going to continue to be in them to learn more. 

We participated in local game jam with additional talent. Like we usually do, because it’s a great way to broaden your horizon.
Music was provided Pauli Ondruska, who makes our sound effects for Peace Quarter so we have loved to work with him. He also made our music and sounds at the last Game Jam which we participated. You can find him from SoundCloud, but also from YouTube.
Additional graphics were by Lukki and Tia.
Thank you all.

_Rx3 Team

Blog post #17; Teaser trailer special.

Harkness in harm's way.

Teaser trailer for the upcoming adventure game. We're so proud to finally be able to bring it to public and show you what we have been doing all in the silence.

And now we have the teaser trailer ready for you.

And we want to thank everybody involved.

There's no backing out now.

_ Rx3 Team

Blog Post #14: New office, new team member and new Harkness

We finally got our foot in the solid ground (almost) and had ourselves an office space. Basically a second-floor room from one of our team mates home. We’re joking all the time that we’re like reversed basement developers, attic developers. But one cannot argue that it’s easier to do stuff when all of us can locate in the same space for couple of hours in a day. We also got a new member for our team, he’s going do our sound effects, all those WHIP, CRASH, BUM and PHAU noises we need. Which is pretty neat.

If interested, you should check both of our sound and music talents from they respective channels from soundcloud:

Pauli Ondruska

Adam Al-Sawad

We have also been talking about making the landing page for the game, teaser and demo. Probably we’re going to make an early gameplay teaser or something for the landing page when it will initially launch. We earmarked 21th this month for it, but like always life happens when you least expect it. Probably we crunch again in the last night. With Oh My Kitties we really tried to avoid it, but ended up doing the crunch anyway.

Harknes also got redesign and new 3D model.

"At first I wanted to find the shape for hybrids in general - even though NPC hybrids are way different than Harkness, they now share the same basic shape. After that I made the unique silhouette for Harkness that made him Harkness." - Dicenete 

"This is the first silhouette i made for Harkness, and as you can see, it is more MEH than the one in redesign. This one doesn't have the basic shapes" - Dicenete

At the moment we’re doing groundwork and doing necessary code and new graphics for levels which means that we’re on our way with the game environment building. Things are again happening so fast for the development that it feels pretty optimistic that we get the game ready and it will look good. And it’s a great feeling to have.

Our graphic artist started playing FFXV, because narrative writer made her.


_Rx3 Team

Blog post # 12: Health Game Jam May (fgj) edition

First and furthermost we kind a started Instagram to showcase between the scene work, we’re toning down selfies, but like graphic designs, concept work, graphic artist’s pictures when she has no ideas (at the moment) and more once we start working on Peace Quarter in full speed. Soon. Like really soon. In a week or two. Once we get our new “office” setup done. 

We had a great chance to make and held a workshop about game storytelling and narrative in general and visuals. Workshop was real fun to have and we learned much from our own work while making the workshop. And then there we had awesome conversations about game storytelling and then about visual design and how it shows to player. We also briefed Unity, but had no real chance to really dwell into the game making process on that end.  And because taking pictures of writing is a bit boring here's a some clothes designs for the workshop project we made. We chose to make a walking simulator to demo in the workshop and these are some of the concepts we had with us. 

Clothes design concepts.

Color chart for clothes. Which one would you choose?

Friday started Health Game Jam in Kuopio and our group made small dentistry game as it was health game jam. But then again, all games promote mental health when they are played for fun.Now that our whole team was on the jam we really get to see a fast game development process. It was really fun and from we might have learned a bit from our experience in last Global Game Jam and we were able to focus faster and realize our goals. Which was a good thing and if anyone is interested taking part in any kind of game jam, this is one thing you should try to apply to your work. 48-hours may seem long time in Friday, but it's a blink of an eye on Sunday.

 

Thanks to Lukki and Pauli for working with us on the jam game. See YouTube description for full credits. 

_Rx3 Team

Blog Post #11: Exhibition and Oh My, Kitties + other news

Our promo art for Peace Quarter (PeaceQ) is part of Design Week Kuopio. We also got Oh My, Kitties fully released and then we also are working on a workshop for local happening. 

Which also raises the question would we need Instagram account for BTS stuff for our game development. I myself like the idea of making the development more open. But, then again, it’s always something more to do that just game development. Maybe we need it, maybe we won’t. Anyway, it has been amazing to get our promo to the exhibition and it looks great printed even though we had no chance to sent the real print file. Anyhow, our talented Dicenete is so proud.

We also got Oh My, Kitties full release on Google Play. I can say that even though we really though we could dodge the last evening crunch, we still ended up fixing sound effects and cut scenes just the night before. With GemFall Workforce Inc. we kind of decided that we would never fall victim for last night crunch plague, but I guess it’s just something that happens. And you can arm yourself against it, but it’s just something you should be aware of that the last night before deadline is always the best time to work. I don’t know why… Productive deadline symptom.

And on the other note, we also got chance to be part of local happening and are reading a demo for workshop we’re having there about narrative and visuals and how find them. It’s like storytelling approach to video games and we’re making a brief demo of a walking simulator game just called Turnip Princess now.  Idea is to walk through our creative process from narrative ideas to scripts to visuals and finally how it all comes together in interactive media of video games.

Right now, our team is also caught up playing Persona 5 and Overwatch Uprising. And Final Fantasy XIV free return campaign is also here so, that’s nice. And, a bit inconvenient when you should be doing stuff.  But hey, you learn writing by reading, so you learn making games by playing games. (Disclaimer: Both need also learning skills, but you get the idea… And an excuse to read or play.)

_ Rx3 Team

Special Blog Post #10: New promo art.

And here it is. Our first promo art. Gaze your eyes on fine art made by our amazing Dicenete. The art is also going to be possibly part of local Design Week exhibition so we're really happy about that. And probably telling you as soon as we know.


Harkness is gazing over Sektor City while enjoying his old cup of joe.

_Rx3 Team

Blog post #8: Updates

We have been busy with making our second mobile game and with other stuff life keeps throwing towards us. But nevertheless, were determined to start working on Peace Quarter again ASAP.

In April, we're taking the narrative script to the public or at least semi-public for the first time. After getting approval that the narrative works we can finally start really doing the concepts for the game that are not changing so easily. This means actually that our narrative writer is going to be hanging out in a creative writing sessions through Easter and come back home with lot of new ideas and good tips. Because, as we have said here many times, it is easier to start really building the levels and gameflow when we know, what we really need and what we want to make. Also, something that really helped was making the pitch for our game. Which is something we have had in our minds for a long time, but you know, when you don't need to do stuff, you won't do stuff. 

Now, life keeps throwing stuff to us and we're keen to get both our mobile games better.

If you're interested, we now have let's plays for both. Check this GemFall Workforce Inc. video by Leon House from below and maybe even give it some love by liking and sharing. 

This week we also gave a first ever pitch about Peace Quarter on Tuesday (which we probably need to learn to do better) and then we participate in school info day with GemFall Workforce Inc.. So in the end, we have been busy. 

_ Rx3 Team

Blog post #1

Well hello everyone.

This is our brand-new blog.

We're happy to be able to start Peace Quarter, but more about that later. For this blog, then, we thought it would be fun to follow our process with the game and share our journey with you. Because trust me, we need to learn so much in the process and yeah, it might be hard, but worth it.

But yet, it would be stupid to start jabbing if you don't even know who we are.

About us then. We're indie game company from Kuopio Finland. We have made games so far for mobile (Android) but we're about to continue with our PC project that we started far back when we were just a hobbyist team. After making it official, in 2016, we wanted to make something before we dive into the hardship that is PC game development. You can find us also here. 

Peace Quarter is going to be 2D platformer made with 3D graphics. It's a sci-fi adventure following a hybrid named Harkness in his quest back to home. If you stick with us, you find out more what it's a hybrid and maybe see a glimpse of Harkness' home. 

If you're already interested in Harkness, you can find him on our mobile game. Which is basically his workday. Seriously, if you want to see what his up to lately, you can go download GemFall Workforce Inc. - Harkness' Shift (available for free download on Google Play Store) and try it. And if you gives a word, we can even fix you an ad free version of the game.

       

We hope to see you with us on the next post. At that time, we have started working on the first levels and dived into the game development. To be continued... 

_Rx3 Team