next »

[santaragione]

Hello everyone, this my first post here on TigForum...I've always been fascinated by the Famicase Exhibition, therefore this contest seemed to me as the perfect opportunity to get in touch with the indie community, here on TIG...

Santa Ragione is the name of the small indie game studio that me and a friend of mine just started a couple of moths ago, in Milan, Italy, where we live...since the indie scene in italy is practically "non-existent", we're happy to share some thoughts and work with you, thanks to the great work the indie community do in connecting people that love making games.


enough with personal info, lets get down to the game me and my friend are working on! :D


---------------------------------------

GAME

Cover: "Tales of Unspoken World" by Shizumu from "My Famicase Exhibition, 2005" ( http://famicase.com/ )



---------------------------------------

DOWNLOAD

here are the links for PC (no hand) and MAC (hand) versions:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8987830/TOUW-PC.zip
or
http://www.santaragione.com/touw/TOUW-PC.zip


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8987830/TOUW-MAC.zip
or
http://www.santaragione.com/touw/TOUW-MAC.zip

---------------------------------------

INFO

control scheme:

up / move
space / jump

here's a quick video of the tutorial:


and the 3rd level:



We were mainly inspired by the cover art, those white lined threes on black background, looked to us like some kind of metaphysical world, a nowhere forest where to place the path of our character...gameplay is very simple...first person run and jump.

We're still trying to come up with something good about the title (Tales of Unspoken world) but it's a bit more difficult; we thought the character might quitely mumble something about the surroundings while he runs...

here's some pics about the working process :


we need to capture a quick animation of the character moving arms

 

very professional green screen




early screen of ingame world





other news sooooon  

[Pineapple]

This is looking pretty good!

[tipp]

Wow. This looks so cool. I hope it turns out to look and sound very lonely and slightly creepy.

[J. R. Hill]

That looks fantastic!

What is the story going to be like?

[santaragione]

well at the moment we're focusing on the jumping, you will basically have to run trough this forest (and some other stages if we'll have enough time to build them) and perform several jumps to avoid obstacles...the idea was to create a sort of vibrating forest life, popping out the black environment while you run trough, but I guess we wont have enough time to work on so many animations T_T we're still not as fast as many of you guys 

[Mr.A]

Forza e coraggio ragazzi!
The screen you posted has a Twin Peaks sort of vibe... Hope it's gonna be a kick-ass game!

[J. R. Hill]

Your production techniques are far more high-tech so I think a longer production time is expectable.

[santaragione]

don't be foul by the glass JR Hill we're not that high-tech  

in the maintime, here's some shots of some other environments we're working on...not quite sure we'll use them, but who knows!

[santaragione]

Hello everybody, have a look at our early beta of the tutorial!
The music is take from Escape from New York.... We've just watched it and it felt nananananana...

Thank you very much for the feedback!







PS. does vimeo have strict copyright policies?

[deathtotheweird]

Not quite sure about the copyright policies, worst they could do is remove it 

The game itself looks fantastic, such an ingenious way of doing graphics, it looks nice.

[PlayMeTape]

No they're not overly strict. They wouldn't remove something if they weren't contacted by the copyright owner or the entire video (not just the audio) is breaking copyright policies.

That looks great though! I would prefer it if the hands were just a little bit lower down as it felt like they were obstructing the view sometimes. But do it however you prefer it!

[santaragione]

here comes the first game build!  

Gameplay is pretty straightforward:

- press: up to move and space to jump (the longer you press the longer you jump).

- 3 short levels + tutorial.

yesterday night we actually had a big problem with the pc build on the hands animation, and since we don't have time to work on the bug now, we just decided to isolate and remove the hand animation...hope we'll be able to put it back on before the competition ends!

here are the links for PC (no hand) and MAC (hand) versions:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8987830/TOUW-PC.zip
or
http://www.santaragione.com/touw/TOUW-PC.zip


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8987830/TOUW-MAC.zip
or
http://www.santaragione.com/touw/TOUW-MAC.zip

(I'm making a video of a full run, for those who won't play it or can't see hands, I'll post it tonight or tomorrow... )

Well, now we're waiting for your feedback, let us know what you think, what whould you change, etc...

Thanks everyone!

[Poopy McPants]

Great game. The landing feels wrong for some reason, maybe you should have a roll or a thump on the landing. I think the arc of the jump might also be a little off. Also a button to quit would be nice. 

[Melly]

I really like what you guys have here. Yeah, you need a proper quit game/go back to main menu button. It was sometimes difficult to judge when I should jump, and I agree that some more intense feedback for the landing would be nice. The second level seemed to be the hardest to judge the right time to jump and I died there maybe 20 times.

I suggest you guys play a little of Mirror's Edge for ideas if you can, as it was pretty good with the first-person-parkour style.

The game looks very nice too, and I really like the audio, though like I said some more audio feedback for landing and the character's vocalizations would be nice. I could actually see this expanded into an exploration game where you run across a vast alien landscape.

Nice job so far. :handthumbsupR:

[santaragione]

Great game. The landing feels wrong for some reason, maybe you should have a roll or a thump on the landing. I think the arc of the jump might also be a little off. Also a button to quit would be nice. 

thanks Poopy,

yep we totally forgot the quit button...if feel a bit embarassed now  lol...

for the landing, with hands it should feel more "right", but we defenetly have to work on a better animation that deliver a kind of "hit" feeling

[santaragione]

I really like what you guys have here. Yeah, you need a proper quit game/go back to main menu button. It was sometimes difficult to judge when I should jump, and I agree that some more intense feedback for the landing would be nice. The second level seemed to be the hardest to judge the right time to jump and I died there maybe 20 times.

I suggest you guys play a little of Mirror's Edge for ideas if you can, as it was pretty good with the first-person-parkour style.

The game looks very nice too, and I really like the audio, though like I said some more audio feedback for landing and the character's vocalizations would be nice. I could actually see this expanded into an exploration game where you run across a vast alien landscape.

Nice job so far. :handthumbsupR:

we feared the 2nd level was unbalanced, the asimmetrical mesh of the platforms and long distance jumps make it a bit too hard to get the right timing...thank for pointing that out

we also wanted to implement a slide action in the game (talking about mirror's edge), but we simply did not have enough time to work on that 

we're thinking on working on this concept a bit longer, even though we don't have much time right now...bigger explorations level might be fun, also, we defetly need poligonal hands and a good old fashoned doom's face of the main character 

Thanks for the feedback Melly 

[deathtotheweird]

For what it is, I enjoyed it immensely. Loved the graphics and sound effects. I kinda enjoyed the overall quietness of the runner, for some reason it sucked me into the game more. Made it feel like I was daydreaming or something.

[Rob Lach]

PRetty cool. Very atmospheric.

I agree with the comment about the soft landings. Giving it a roll or something of that sort when you land would increase the depth immensely.

[Sos]

Arsome graphic style! Also, I suggest a roll-land for hard mode.

[santaragione]

Thank you guys for the feedback, much appreciated!

as promised, another quick video:



I have to say that to many, felt like hands were taking much more screen space than necessary...the idea would be to have a good poly model, but animated robot-like, and maybe having different characters (like animals, so you might see dog feet, robot claw, etc)...but I also start thinking they might be smaller, though