Celestial Tear: Demon's Revenge [RELEASE]

[trexrell]

I've been sitting on a certain thought for at least a week by now, so I might as well spill the beans. The last thing I want to see is a commercial project go through development hell...

Content Hidden

Certainly, in a TV, web or film series, episodes make sense, but games are more interactive and less of a spectator medium. Releasing these complex projects in episodes is certainly doable, Master of the Wind did just fine doing it this way, but I'm sure they all faced ramifications from this format. I'm not saying episodes are a bad thing, MOTW had a great fan base and did a good job, but it wasn't under the commercial and publisher pressures like your project is. Matter of fact, I would urge you to get in contact with Volrath and Artbane themselves and see if they have any "heads up" style advice on this subject.

I'm just skeptical of trying to maintain a commercial game this way, as with scope comes complexity and with that comes having to fix something from six episodes ago interfering with the here 'n now. I personally think it's better to make something from start to finish and QA test it to death and then, when you're confident it's mostly stable, release it to the wild as a complete package, hoping players will be coming back with only minor bugs.

I mean, yeah, it's all doable and you can get more publicity and feedback through episodes, but I'd imagine you'd have to have it established very early on everything technical that will be in the game. Also, one would need to be ready to append changes in the database so the player can keep passing on their save file from one episode to the next without accidentally overwriting what they currently have, ie the infamous "corrupt save file" bug.

I'm not trying to deter you from doing episodes, if that's how you plan to do it, but if you're doing it for the sake of your publisher's orders you might want to discuss these points with them. You and your team appear to be intelligent, talented and driven individuals, so perhaps you've already anticipated the challenges. You need to love your project because the project isn't always going to love you.

Not only am I looking forward to everything up and coming, I'm hoping you guys have success and am interested in learning more about your experiences with the making of this project; the good, the bad, the ugly. I've already got too many commitments currently, but maybe we'll work together in the future some day. Until then, keep that passion :)

We definitely considered all of that since we fully realized that we were indie devs that could not gather all the funds to make the project full and complete from the door. We also feel a certain obligation to do right by the people who were willing to fund the project to the point to where it is. We clearly could not have moved as fast as we have without that help, or garnered the attention from the publisher for that matter. We are trying to be competent as possible, our publisher in no way requires us a release date or force us to comply to a certain business model. Although we are open and willing to take advice from them, we push ourselves like any other serious business and set our own goals and deadlines that we work to achieve.

Thanks a lot Kain, we look forward to more feedback from you.


[We are coming very close to releasing the demo, we have worked very hard pushing each other and arguing with each other to make sure everything fits our combined vision. We feel that we have something that everyone will really have fun with. This month has been very exciting and we are eager to get feedback on everything that we have. Be prepared to lend us your unbiased opinion and let us know how you feel about everything when it comes out.

We are first going to be streaming the demo on hitbox with the Average Giants on Monday the 23rd at 9PM EST. Come see us get some direct criticism and see what Indie Game Magazine has to say about our game. If you guys can come and lend us the support, we would really appreciate it. It is always a fun stream and both Nicks are really cool people and usually very nice.


Battle Background animation

One of the cool things that we are bringing to the table and that gives the battle backgrounds a bit more depth is adding some really solid animation. We have managed to get our animator, Chris Lewin, back on the job and he has produced some really solid results check it out!



Ricky is at it again and he has done some really cool art work. He's interpreting our vision from my less than stellar story boards. He started working on the intros of the three main characters and so far, just looking at the first frame it is going to be epic!

How I feel about our project right now

We have learned a few things through these past few months about our game and what we really want to provide the players with. I think one of the most important things that we wanted to do as a developer is come up with something that is fun, engaging, and interesting. Then I believe somewhere beyond those lines we feel that we have a bit of a mature audience and we wanted to do something that would have meaning and a bit of social commentary without taking itself too seriously. At this point the game has sort of taken on its own identity and it is sort of developing into something that we would have never seen coming, it has matured into its own individual thing and like a parent to it's children we are very proud of it. Our game is dark and a bit grim at times and we feel like we really can not help it. We think our game is perfect the way we are writing it and we really hope you all feel like it is too. I hope that our central message is interpreted properly and everyone is able to find enjoyment with something we put all our heart into.


To give just a little more insight into how we operate and what we are thinking when we are working on the game, we never had a sense that we want people to think of this game as something from their past like nostalgia, nor did we want to recreate the wheel. We have played and have been big fans of RPGs and games in general. Our first priority has been to balance every part of the game and I feel when one part of the game starts to look, sound, or even feel a bit better than the other, there is a tiny voice in the back of my mind that is letting me know that the other things just have to measure up. I think to myself how could this part be just as good and that is the tough part about making this game with all the great artists, musicians and minds working on this project. We want so badly for everything to come together.

Thanks,

-Tyrell and Whitney White

PS: We work directly with Artbane.