Kandria
Kandria: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big[1]
Nick: Concepting, Looking, Bugfixing
First, the good news: I did more concept work and aside from the discussions with Tim on the character profiles and plot outline, I merged my thoughts on the culture and other factors into the lore document, which you can read here. I also did redesigns of Catherine and Jack and drafted up some first sprite forms of them:
Then I added a rather important feature to Kandria that I somehow had forgotten about all this time: the ability to look up and down.
Finally there's been a couple of bugfixes and the beginning of proper support for Steam Input, Steam's input library that allows using Steam's controller remapping features. Kandria already supports gamepads out of the box, but I consider Steam Input an important feature since it integrates better with Steam and especially allows people a consistent interface to remap their controllers.
Now, on to the bad news.
The SwissGames Showcase application for mentorship was declined. We don't know why, only that we were rejected, as they offered no further comments or insight in their response. I've contacted them and asked if they had any feedback for us, but so far have not received a reply. I thought we had a pretty good trailer and line up of material for the game, so it comes as a bit of blow that we were rejected after all. I can only surmise that this means they considered a bunch of other games to have more potential than Kandria. Without actual insight into their judging process, it's hard to say what exactly made the decision, though.
This isn't the end of the project of course, we're going to carry on as before, but it certainly wasn't a nice present to get for Christmas, especially not for my generally low self esteem. For now I'm trying not to think about it too much and am just looking forward to the holidays.
Now, the winning big part is the big question. Part of the reason why I'm looking forward to the holidays so much is that I've been burnt out even before the news from Pro Helvetia came in this Wednesday. The past month has been hectic and I've been working on my off days as well a lot of the times. Trying to get your own company and game project off the ground is a huge undertaking and it brings with it a big heaping of stress. The fact that this is "what I always wanted" isn't making the whole deal any easier, there's a lot of pressure around for this to succeed, and by far not enough experience and confidence around for me to just be able to shrug that off.
I do have a fair amount of confidence in my artistic and programming capabilities, so I think I can, especially with the help from Fred and Tim, get Kandria actually done. What I'm far less certain about is whether I can do so within a reasonable time frame, and whether it will actually sell enough in the end, too. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no marketing guru and generally have very little enthusiasm for promoting myself. And yet, the marketing and outreach is probably the most important aspect when we consider the ultimate financial viability of the project.
That in mind I've been thinking a lot about what could be done to make the project more visible and get more people interested in it. A Steam page and press kit definitely are steps in the right direction for that, and I'm still convinced that this very mailing list you're reading (thank you!) is a good idea, too. But, there has to be more that can be done, too.
I'm not sure when conferences and awards and such are going to happen again, but those would be something to look out for for sure. I know of some in Switzerland, and if they do happen next year, I'll have to see whether I can get a booth there to promote the game. Going international with Gamescom or other bigger things would probably also be a good time investment.
Beyond conferences and the marketing I'm already doing though I'm not so sure what to do – I don't want to spread myself too thin and I can't be spending all my time managing social media accounts either. If you have any good ideas on how to further promote the project, please let me know!
Fred: Dodging Pets
I revised some more of the animations and added petting:
Tim: Setting Up
Another documentation heavy week for me. My work on the Setting & Backstory has been reviewed by Nick and folded into the central lore webpage we’re maintaining. Nick was happy with my second iteration on the plot outline too, which I’ve also ported to the web format. The primary characters, which the player will encounter in and around the main settlement area, and which will be appearing in the vertical slice, have also now had short bios written to flesh out their traits, backstories and personal arcs.
All of this narrative "dark matter" so to speak (I think it was Ed Stern who called it this at a narrative talk a few years ago) can and no doubt will be tweaked and even changed as we make the game - but this gives us a strong foundation and reference from which to begin writing the narrative script and making other assets, without going overboard into encyclopaedic detail about every facet of the world.
Coming Up
Well, coming up is... two weeks of well deserved holidays! We'll be gone from the 21st to the 3rd, and there will be no work done on the project. Not because I don't want to, but because I think it would genuinely be better to force myself to think about other things for a bit.
There will be one thing at least, a long yearly wrap-up up everything that's happened with Kandria this year. There's a lot that could be talked about, so I'll have to see how to cut it down without sacrificing the pacing. In any case, I hope you'll look forward to it!
Finally, I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for following Kandria and reading these entries! There are so many great projects and games out there these days, so many ways to be entertained and keep oneself occupied, it really means a lot that you chose to follow this project out of all the thousands out there. Thank you, thank you very much! I'll try my best in the next year to make Kandria into a great game, but I also want to continue and improve the experience for everyone like you that's following along with the development. To that end, if you ever have anything you wanted to say, just reply to the email! I read and reply to every response I get.
That said, I hope you have a great Christmas time and see you in the new year!