Prey for the Gods
News

Direct all your love for Shadow of the Colossus this way

No Matter, a small team of three, began working on Prey for the Gods in 2014 for two reasons: to work on their own thing, and to make games similar to the ones that drove them in this direction in the first place. It’s clear which games inspired the team, or at least, which single game had the biggest impact on them. Upon first looking at Prey for the Gods, the first thing anyone familiar with it is sure to think of is Team ICO’s Shadow of the Colossus (2005). That’s not an accident by any means; in fact, the studio itself cites…

Mare
News

Mare will use your gaze to guide a lost girl through mystical ruins

On June 3rd, 2016, a little over a week before E3 2016 began, Visiontrick Media quite boldly announced a new game. Called Mare, it’s to be the studio’s first virtual reality game, one that places an emphasis on exploration and the player’s senses. In the announcement post, Visiontrick noted that they’re still working on their other game, Pavilion—a fourth-person puzzle/adventure game we’ve been eager to get our hands on—but they felt it was time to let the world know about Mare too, especially as it was to appear at E3 as part of the IndieCade Showcase. Visiontrick wanted to make Mare while…

The Mind's Eclipse
News

A grungy machine-age videogame prioritizes storytelling over difficulty

In The Mind’s Eclipse, players will take on the role of Jonathan Campbell, a scientist who wakes up to find that he’s seemingly the only person left alive in the ruins of a fallen utopia known as the CORE. His only companion is an AI known as L, who is just as mysterious as her single-lettered name suggests. Jonathan must rely on her as he explores the world he finds himself in, in an attempt to find his loved ones. The game is a visual novel that touts emotional and intense narrative moments. As team lead Donald Campbell explains, the story told by The…

Clique
News

Upcoming game aims to give insight into growing up African American

Neil Jones and Daniel Wilkins are frustrated with the lack of diversity in videogames. They say it’s what has driven them to make their own game, and one that hopes to provide “a better insight into African American culture.” However, everyone they’ve approached for additional funding for it has told them to “focus on a ‘different type’ of character or story.” Which, yes, completely misses the point. Their game is called Clique, and both Jones and Wilkins, two-thirds of the Detroit, Michigan-based studio Dead Art Games, are determined to get it out to people. This is why they recently launched a Kickstarter. Clique is described…

Zen and the Art of Transhumanism
News

A cyberpunk pottery game gives you something to think about

When Ludum Dare announced the theme for its 35th game jam would be “shapeshift,” it triggered something within the mind of Deconstructeam’s creative director, Jordi de Paco: a memory about a short story he once read in the book Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking (1993). This story, combined with a couple of other books on zen, and de Paco’s own interest in transhumanism, led to the creation of the studio’s game jam project, Zen and the Art of Transhumanism. The aforementioned short story, incidentally, tells of a pottery master and his students. The master divides his students into two groups: one…

Perfect
News

Upcoming album will use videogame worlds instead of lyrics to tell its story

Perfect is not something its creator, Sean HTCH, would call a ‘game.’ In fact, he says it’s better described as software that has “elements of 2D exploration games, web browsers, music albums, and nonfiction interviews.” Ironically, the game’s name and its setting are almost at odds with each other. The world of Perfect is actually a city-sized building that was once a “big box warehouse store” known as “Perfect Mart;” think the natural progression from Target, to a Super Target, and so on. In this imagined future, people live within Perfect Mart, and other buildings like it, because the outside world has been…

Scanner Sombre
News

Scanner Sombre finds the mystery in laser-based surveying technology

After working on one thing for an extended period of time, sometimes the best thing to do is to step away from that particular project and work on something else for a while, if only to get the creative juices flowing again. This is what happened to Introversion, the studio behind Prison Architect (2015), a game in which players act as both the warden and the titular architect, as they manage and expand their very own prison. Last year, the team decided to take a month off from Prison Architect and create two prototype games. They became Scanner Sombre and Wrong Wire. Introversion’s lead…

Teviot Tales
News

Using Twine games to preserve modern folk stories

Teviot Tales is a game that shares the stories of residents living in the Teviot Estate in Poplar, London. Developer and writer Hannah Nicklin spent six months at the estate, exploring the nearby area and conducting interviews with locals. Alongside the poetry and game design workshops she ran during her time there, she also held one for storytelling, where she invited and encouraged people to tell whatever stories they wished to tell. There’s Terry, who speaks of his time spent with his best friend John back when he was 12-years old, as they smoked Weights and listened to Temperance Seven records; Margaret, who always puts…

Luna Antonio
News

How babies can help teach game design

There are many different types of people to consider when making a videogame and a lot can be learned by discovering their needs. There are those that don’t normally play games, children, as well as the elderly, but there’s one group that’s easy to dismiss, if only because they seem too young: babies. Babies themselves are constantly learning new things and conveying their thoughts and feelings in a way only they can. Observing the way they learn and applying that to game design can be incredible beneficial, as a child learning about the world is similar to a player interacting with a new…