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 #13: New tech demo plan

How we must make hard cuts to designs and ideas we love. Not only in Peace Quarter, but also in other projects too. But especially in Peace Quarter. We would love to fill it with everything we love and thought in the first place.

But, not everything is usable or even clever to put in your work. It may seem like it is the best thing ever, but like they say in writing, 'kill your darlings'. It doesn't necessary mean that the idea is bad, it just, you cannot do everything even if you like to do. Like, at the moment, our graphic designer is pretty convinced she will make new model for Harkness and visit Harkness design with new eyes.

But famous ‘kill your darlings’ example is closer than we would like to admit. We had this idea that Harkness would repair things along the way. He still does, but at that moment we thought we would introduce three key ways to repair, fix/build/connect. We had them all figured out. For what you would use them and how they would affect the surrounding world.

But that didn't even last for our first tech demo, we took those ideas away and instead left only repair.

In tech demo we had our core mechanics displayed. TSUP, MTV and teleports. (And in a note of tech demo we’re on our way to make a new tech demo, showcasing new Harkness model and little from the first playable level, Finite Horizon. You can follow for more news from here or from any of our social media, we tend to be happy we’re able to do the next tech demo.)

We were happy with all of the core mechanics we had in the first tech demo. But we decided to merge some of them together to make it more simpler and hopefully easier for players to grasp the idea. It’s always hard to start guessing how much too much or too little, and middle-ground is harder to find that you would think in the start. 

We see how good we did once the new tech demo is completed and we get some feedback.

_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 #9: Progress bar

This is our friendly reminder that we have made progress with the game, not only by getting most of the narrative scripts done, but also by starting soon with assets. We have almost set with the first draft for the short story that is going to come with before the release of the Peace Quarter and then with the released game for backstory, because we love backstory and lore.

Lately we have been busy taking part in different happenings locally and being part in events in near region that promote healthy game culture. Which is nice, because did we wanted or not, were part of the gaming culture by just being and then of course just being gamers. So, it's great to see our gaming culture being treated nicely and presented for kids all ages as a legitimate hobby rather than something only nerds do in the basement. And we know as a fact, that can't be true, because no one of use is living in the basement, so we don't qualify as a gamer? Maybe gaming is just something normal like playing sports or collecting postmarks. You can be passionate for it (like, I don't know, start making them) or treat it as a hobby and nothing more. And that's okay. And of course, everything between those two. Maybe you're passionate about gaming, but not passionate enough to start making yours or passionate enough for some game to start competitive gaming.

GemFall Workforce Inc. has been downloaded past two months a lot, or at least more than we imaged by now, because it's our first game and all and some of the idea was to just make a game and get to know our own working process with it, so it would be ready when we need to start with Peace Quarter. But it has been better and we thank you for downloading and trying it out. We really appreciate it. Thanks.

Our first promo art for Peace Quarter is also in the corner (of your eye) and soon we post it here and it's going to rain rainbows and kittens. Talking about kitten, Oh My Kitties release have been delayed a lot lately, but that is, in a weird way a good thing, because it means we have much on our plate. But we're doing it and going to give you a Oh My Kitties - out of open beta, ASAP. Meanwhile, you can still download the game from Google Play Store in it's open beta stage you can also try out our cool clicker app that our coder made.

It helps if you're working in anywhere where you need to count people, or coffee cups or anything.

_Rx3 Team
Now working on: getting the narrative scripts to life and finishing the promo art. You will see, you all will see. 

Other: Binge watching Firefly because it's going to be taken from the Netflix. 

Next stop, promo art. Stay tuned.

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