So this year we went to E3 for first time and did two things we have never done before.
First, we took part in an E3 show, the PC Gaming Show, and showed off a brand new trailer. You can watch that trailer here:
This showcases the player's first encounter with a type of creature that roams this part of the game, and gives some hints on how to best deal with them. This clip is a bit shorter than we wanted it to be and therefore misses some build-up and is a bit hurried. But one minute was all we were allowed for the show. Still, hope you all liked it!
Second, we showed off a public demo of the game (something we only did after release for previous games).
Choosing a demo for SOMA proved to be quite difficult as we wanted to have something that we felt represented the game properly without giving away lots of spoilers. The problem is that SOMA is not the sort of game that can be easily explained in a short session. For E3 we had to make it last 15 - 20 minutes, which for us is really short indeed.
SOMA is a slow burn experience with a primary focus on the exploration of high-level concepts. Trying to showcase this is very different from showing off a game that is about exploring an environment or one that's focused on a set of core mechanics - in those sort of games it's much easier to find a short segment that serves as a good example. But for SOMA, that sort of segment really doesn't exist. SOMA is designed to carefully introduce the player to a variety of concepts and to ease the player into a certain kind of atmosphere and state of mind.
The best solution would have been to do a special map, similar to how we did with the announcement video. That way we could have tried to condense the intended experience into a shorter level. But this takes a lot of time. Setting up the announcement video took several weeks. Doing one meant for public demoing would take even longer as we'd have to make sure it was bug free and that the gameplay worked as intended. So the next best thing was to take something from the game and modify it slightly to avoid big spoilers.
But the problem was: what section from the game should we use? As I noted above, SOMA takes its time to establish concepts and atmosphere, and any 15 minute segment we just chopped out would lack the context needed to properly understand the situation at hand and to be immersed in it.
Our first plan was simply to take one of our more intense monster sequences. That would provide a quick demo that was easy to get into and would provide a thrilling experience. But the issue was that we then would fail to showcase what's special about our game. The game would just look like yet another "run from the monster"-ordeal, and making sure that people understand that SOMA is something way beyond this is very important to us.
So after much discussion we decided to rip the latter half of a level that is about 1-2 hours into the game. This part would showcase player choices, environmental storytelling, our philosophical aspects, provide an underwater revelation at the end and (if the player chose to take a particular path) would have a short monster encounter.
However, our choice of demo was not perfect. Most importantly, by itself, this part of the game isn't particularly scary. This in part is because the demo lacks a lot of the intended build-up, and in part because it wasn't (apart from a final monster encounter) designed to be all that frightening. And while SOMA doesn't focus on "run from monsters", it is a horror game and we are very much intending to induce terror in our players. Therefore it felt annoying to have a demo that didn't bring home that aspect. But still, making players whimper from fear is not really a unique concept any more, so given the choice, it felt much more important to give a taste of the disturbing feel our themes give rise to.
Another issue was that our demo took place in a section of game that we'd already showed off in our release date reveal trailer (check it out here). I think this has led to a bit less coverage than we'd have had otherwise. There was quite a bit of new stuff that players could do in the demo, such as checking out black boxes on corpses, interacting in different ways with "Carl" the robot, exploring the computer system etc. and a previously unseen sequence at the end. But the demo still took place in the same locale and all of the major elements were still the same.
That said, I feel we did the best we could given the constraints we had. And judging from the reactions that we got at E3, people enjoyed it quite a lot and almost all the players came away with the right impression. Both Ian and Aaron (the Frictional Games team members that attended E3) were actually quite surprised how well most people picked up on our deeper aspects. This despite playing the game under far from optimal conditions (a well-lit, loud and crowded room is not all that great for games that thrive on immersion and introspection). Again, just like in our last round of testing, the way people connect to the themes in SOMA went way better than expected, and that makes us even more even more thrilled to unleash our creation on the world!
On that note, SOMA is less than three months from release now! So close!
First, we took part in an E3 show, the PC Gaming Show, and showed off a brand new trailer. You can watch that trailer here:
This showcases the player's first encounter with a type of creature that roams this part of the game, and gives some hints on how to best deal with them. This clip is a bit shorter than we wanted it to be and therefore misses some build-up and is a bit hurried. But one minute was all we were allowed for the show. Still, hope you all liked it!
Second, we showed off a public demo of the game (something we only did after release for previous games).
Choosing a demo for SOMA proved to be quite difficult as we wanted to have something that we felt represented the game properly without giving away lots of spoilers. The problem is that SOMA is not the sort of game that can be easily explained in a short session. For E3 we had to make it last 15 - 20 minutes, which for us is really short indeed.
SOMA is a slow burn experience with a primary focus on the exploration of high-level concepts. Trying to showcase this is very different from showing off a game that is about exploring an environment or one that's focused on a set of core mechanics - in those sort of games it's much easier to find a short segment that serves as a good example. But for SOMA, that sort of segment really doesn't exist. SOMA is designed to carefully introduce the player to a variety of concepts and to ease the player into a certain kind of atmosphere and state of mind.
The best solution would have been to do a special map, similar to how we did with the announcement video. That way we could have tried to condense the intended experience into a shorter level. But this takes a lot of time. Setting up the announcement video took several weeks. Doing one meant for public demoing would take even longer as we'd have to make sure it was bug free and that the gameplay worked as intended. So the next best thing was to take something from the game and modify it slightly to avoid big spoilers.
But the problem was: what section from the game should we use? As I noted above, SOMA takes its time to establish concepts and atmosphere, and any 15 minute segment we just chopped out would lack the context needed to properly understand the situation at hand and to be immersed in it.
Our first plan was simply to take one of our more intense monster sequences. That would provide a quick demo that was easy to get into and would provide a thrilling experience. But the issue was that we then would fail to showcase what's special about our game. The game would just look like yet another "run from the monster"-ordeal, and making sure that people understand that SOMA is something way beyond this is very important to us.
So after much discussion we decided to rip the latter half of a level that is about 1-2 hours into the game. This part would showcase player choices, environmental storytelling, our philosophical aspects, provide an underwater revelation at the end and (if the player chose to take a particular path) would have a short monster encounter.
However, our choice of demo was not perfect. Most importantly, by itself, this part of the game isn't particularly scary. This in part is because the demo lacks a lot of the intended build-up, and in part because it wasn't (apart from a final monster encounter) designed to be all that frightening. And while SOMA doesn't focus on "run from monsters", it is a horror game and we are very much intending to induce terror in our players. Therefore it felt annoying to have a demo that didn't bring home that aspect. But still, making players whimper from fear is not really a unique concept any more, so given the choice, it felt much more important to give a taste of the disturbing feel our themes give rise to.
Another issue was that our demo took place in a section of game that we'd already showed off in our release date reveal trailer (check it out here). I think this has led to a bit less coverage than we'd have had otherwise. There was quite a bit of new stuff that players could do in the demo, such as checking out black boxes on corpses, interacting in different ways with "Carl" the robot, exploring the computer system etc. and a previously unseen sequence at the end. But the demo still took place in the same locale and all of the major elements were still the same.
That said, I feel we did the best we could given the constraints we had. And judging from the reactions that we got at E3, people enjoyed it quite a lot and almost all the players came away with the right impression. Both Ian and Aaron (the Frictional Games team members that attended E3) were actually quite surprised how well most people picked up on our deeper aspects. This despite playing the game under far from optimal conditions (a well-lit, loud and crowded room is not all that great for games that thrive on immersion and introspection). Again, just like in our last round of testing, the way people connect to the themes in SOMA went way better than expected, and that makes us even more even more thrilled to unleash our creation on the world!
On that note, SOMA is less than three months from release now! So close!
We at Frictional Games are yet again part of a Humble Indie Bundle and this time it is quite the pack. Our contribution is Amnesia: The Dark Descent and it is joined by Limbo, Bastion, Psychonauts and Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery. This pack of games is offered to a price of your own choosing, and part of the revenue, you chose how much, will go to charity. This video will explain more:
I think the all of the games that Amnesia share the bundle with are quite special, and are all really worth playing if you haven't yet.
Sword and Sworcery was my top from last year and there is a lot to learn from playing it. Foremost, it has this magical blend of music, gameplay and graphics that really shows of the strengths of the medium. It is clear that this is not a game that has been created to be some kind of competition, but to create a special, mystical experience. This is something we need more of.
Limbo manages to create a very tense atmosphere, but more importantly it how to use a very simplistic control scheme to create great variety. Nowadays, game often require you to learn tons of buttons, but in Limbo you understand all required controls after a few minutes of play. And yet the game manages to give you varied activities from start to finish. It also never takes away control from the player, allowing for a highly interactive narrative experience.
Bastion is excellent in the way it builds up its fiction. The constant voice over gives meaning to your actions and also let you see the world in a quite different way than you would have otherwise. As the flowing narrative unfolds, enemies stop being cannon fodder and instead feel like proper denizens of the world. By small means a lot of depth is added to the game, and I highly recommend it in a lesson on how to do story exposition.
Finally, Psychonauts paint up a vibrant world filled with quirky, interesting and yet human characters. What I liked best about it is how the core theme of the game, to enter people's minds, really merges both gameplay and storytelling. Actually playing the game does not simply servers as some filler between plot points, but actually adds depth to the narrative.
Also, note that the sound tracks of all games comes along with the bundle! I mean, the awesome sound track from Sword & Sworcery is enough reason to buy the bundle alone. The music from Bastion is not bad either...
I think the all of the games that Amnesia share the bundle with are quite special, and are all really worth playing if you haven't yet.
Sword and Sworcery was my top from last year and there is a lot to learn from playing it. Foremost, it has this magical blend of music, gameplay and graphics that really shows of the strengths of the medium. It is clear that this is not a game that has been created to be some kind of competition, but to create a special, mystical experience. This is something we need more of.
Limbo manages to create a very tense atmosphere, but more importantly it how to use a very simplistic control scheme to create great variety. Nowadays, game often require you to learn tons of buttons, but in Limbo you understand all required controls after a few minutes of play. And yet the game manages to give you varied activities from start to finish. It also never takes away control from the player, allowing for a highly interactive narrative experience.
Bastion is excellent in the way it builds up its fiction. The constant voice over gives meaning to your actions and also let you see the world in a quite different way than you would have otherwise. As the flowing narrative unfolds, enemies stop being cannon fodder and instead feel like proper denizens of the world. By small means a lot of depth is added to the game, and I highly recommend it in a lesson on how to do story exposition.
Finally, Psychonauts paint up a vibrant world filled with quirky, interesting and yet human characters. What I liked best about it is how the core theme of the game, to enter people's minds, really merges both gameplay and storytelling. Actually playing the game does not simply servers as some filler between plot points, but actually adds depth to the narrative.
Also, note that the sound tracks of all games comes along with the bundle! I mean, the awesome sound track from Sword & Sworcery is enough reason to buy the bundle alone. The music from Bastion is not bad either...
Amnesia on Steam now comes with with 20% more horror and 10% less cake. Enjoy this brand new flavor of canned horror - manufactured with license by Aperture Science.(Might contain traces of potatoes)
UPDATE:
Now with the Portal 2 ARG over, we will release the new content, an add-on story called "Justine", for all non-steam versions of the game aswell. And there might be other surprises too ;)
