Time to reveal the first of the two protagonists of Solstice. Meet Yani, the not-your-average-maintenance-person.
YANI:
They say that maintenance is an easy job. Twist some knobs, pull some levers, and learn to speak about the most mundane activities as if they were arcane knowledge.
But what if maintenance involves a system hundreds of years old, developed by scholars and practitioners of the Faith alike? What if people go missing around it?
Then, you send Yani.
As promised, here’s a short video presenting how Solstice actually looks in motion. Not really a trailer — more like a moving screenshot.
We are especially curious if you like the animated characters. It’s a small change, but we think it makes a big difference.
We hope that 2013 is treating everyone well, aside from a few cases of terrible hangover. So far it looks like it’s going to be a pretty great year and turning the calendar’s page is always a good moment to talk about future plans.
Cinders December promotion is over now. Many thanks to everyone who supported us, especially with the Investment Bundle. We really appreciate it!
Solstice is our main focus. In a few days, we are going to release a short video presenting the new animated characters and how the game looks in general. The development is going to take at least several more months, though. We’ll keep you updated.
Bonfire went through a closed testing session recently. The feedback is rather positive and very clear on what needs improvements. The game needs a gentler learning curve and a better tutorial (doesn’t they always?). It’s pretty complete otherwise and you can expect the Alpha to come out within the next two months.
We also want to refresh our website a bit in the upcoming days. Especially the Games section needs an overhaul. As the number of our titles increased, it became a little hard to read. Other changes are going to be cosmetics mostly, but should make the website look nicer overall. We hope you’ll like it.
Have a wonderful 2013, everyone!
On the second day of Christmas… Rob finally released Cinders Soundtrack!
Click the image to get the soundtrack
Cinders OST includes extended versions of all the game’s tracks in high quality MP3/FLAC format, along with some cool extras (I especially love The Medley of Themes).
Rob made the download available on name your price basis. You can get it for free if you want. You can also send a few bucks his way as a token of appreciation for his work. Which I heartily recommend, as I think he did an outstanding job with this game’s soundtrack and he charged us next to nothing because we’re indie.
When I look outside my window, all I can see is snow, snow, and more snow. Well, it’s Poland in winter.
It seems like the perfect setting for the announcement of our next game — Solstice. A fantasy mystery with no right answers, set in an exotic city in the midst of a frozen desert.
Solstice is an original story by Hubert and Agnieszka — the writers who joined us during Cinders development. There’s crime, there’s mystery, and there are two player characters trying to figure it all out. The game moves away from trying to find a singular solution to the mystery, and instead focuses on learning all its whereabouts and underlaying motivations of the characters involved. It’s going to be all about the secrets.
You can learn more about Solstice’s story on its dedicated subpage.
We also aim to top the production values of Cinders with this game. No sense in doing anything if you are not making progress, right? The presentation is going to be more dynamic, with animated characters, special effects, etc.
I’m going to publish a short video showcasing the new features shortly after the Holidays are over, so keep your eyes peeled.
December has come. With it, most of the world got into the grasp of two things: frost… and sweet, sweet consumerism.
Criticize it all you want, but the truth is that deep inside we all love this excuse to indulge a little. Especially if it’s related to bringing a smile to someone else’s face.
With that in mind, we’ve decided to run a sale for the whole December. Up until the New Year, you can get Cinders for half the price!
The promotion is now over. Thanks, everyone!
You can also opt to buy it as a gift. If you think that a warm visual novel is what someone may need during cold winter evenings, just tick that gift checkbox when making the purchase.
And speaking of giving — we re-introduced the Investment Bundle for those of you who would like to support our studio during its growing pains.
Support us and get all our current and future games!
For $60, you get all our games as well as all our future PC/Mac releases for free (Bonfire and the next VN being the nearest). You may also get yourself a set of flying sled, as you would be our own personal Santa Claus.
Have a nice gamey winter, people!
As our work on Bonfire continues, we’re trying to settle on its final look. Find the right balance between cute and dark.
Right now it looks like this. Better than on the last screenshot?
The overall progress on the game is also going rather well. We’re missing only one more feature, some art, some FX, and Rob’s music before we can make the Alpha build publicly available for those who would like to support us and test the early versions.
Found some photos of our team laying around on my hard drive since forever.
Some were made during the Cinders launch party, some during daily work or other events.
We uploaded everything to the team album on our facebook page (which you should totally like if you still haven’t). Check them out and have fun!
Planning complex and branching storyline isn’t a simple task. Maybe you even wondered how our writers do it. Do they use dedicated tools? Map it in some graph software or maintain a complex spreadsheet?
Well…
This is how real professionals work! And before you ask — yes, the calendar with naked male torsos is absolutely mandatory. Or at least that’s what the writers told me. Have you seen all those psycho hideouts in movies? With walls plastered with notes, newspaper scraps, and whatnot? They were designing their VNs too.
In other news: after getting some feedback from fellow game developers, I decided to replay the Ace Attorney games. Now I want to commit seppuku. Our VNs have still some way to go before they reach that level of quality and dynamism. Damn you, Phoenix Wright! Aren’t you well made and cleverly designed, leaving this poor indie developer with a strong case of inferiority complex!
But just you wait… This week we’re doing a series of meetings on how to raise the bar in our next VN. Just you wait…
It’s fine time to announce another title we’re currently working on. A personal project of Kate’s and mine, that should make fans of Magi (and challenging strategy games in general) happy.
Bonfire is a battle roguelike with a puzzle element. The puzzle is: “How the hell am I supposed to survive this!?” You can learn more about it as well as check some early screenshots on its dedicated subpage.
It started as a prototype made during one of the DBC game jams. A few months ago, we decided it had the potential to be a really fun and challenging little game, and we’ve been working on it whenever I get a break from our next VN.
We plan to do a little experiment and release a playable alpha relatively soon. The idea is that you will be able to get it very cheaply, and with each update its price will increase towards the final one. Alpha players get further updates for free and can to shape the game through their feedback (and finding crazy overpowered combos). Because the gameplay is focused on mechanics, it’s just as fun to play even in earlier stages.
Other indies have been successful with this model and we’re curious if it will work for us. If it goes well, it may be a great way to fund bigger mechanics focused games as we develop them, without having to worry that much about running out of money halfway through.
What do you think about this idea?