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[sorensilk]

HUGE UPDATE: Verde Station is on Steam Early Access Friday September 26th!

I added a post at the end talking through why I decided to go with Early Access. Check it out.

Early Access Trailer -



TLDR
Kind of like Gone Home + Stanley Parable in space but not really. Maybe a bit of Dear Esther? Follow here or Twitter.

Game Description
Verde Station is a first-person discovery and narrative driven game. I'll do my best to keep this dev log updated but a core point of the game is exploration and discovery so I don't want to spoil anything. The game is set in a space station named Verde Station. You explore it to figure out what you're doing there. Not very descriptive, I know, but #spoilers...  

I don't know if this will be helpful but the gameplay is closest to Gone Home (exploring your environment) with a hint of Stanley Parable (but not that kind of narrative and without breaking the 4th wall), and maybe a tiny bit of Frog Fractions (some surprises but not nearly as extensive). I just listed 3 of my favorite indie games of the last few years and I don't expect to get to their level but, hey, why not try? Basically I want to make a game that's fun to explore and can surprise the player more than once.

General Info
My name is Soren and I'm based in Austin, TX. This is my first official game and I'm developing it entirely by myself. My "company" name is Duelboot. I've done a few demos and a submission to the Oculus Rift/IndieCade VR Game Jam called Eruption. You can see a video of it

. If you have a Rift the download link is in the video description. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Right now I'm not looking for any help with Verde Station but we'll see how it goes. I'll almost definitely want a bit of help with voice-over eventually but we'll see. And I'm using Unity as my game engine. If you have any questions please ask. I'll do my best to answer. My goal is to update this dev log at least once a week, maybe more. I mostly want to throw this out to other devs to keep myself motivated and have others keep me accountable.

Platforms
PC, Mac, Linux
Oculus Rift support

Release Date
Fall 2014

Links
VerdeStation.com - Game Website
Game Twitter - Updated occasionally
Company Twitter - Updated occasionally
Personal Twitter - Updated daily, mostly game related, sometimes pictures of my dogs.
Duelboot - Company Website
IndieDB Page - Mostly the same info as here
Imgur Gallery - Some higher resolution shots

Screenshots

Click for higher resolution:

[JeremiahPena]

Environments look nice, I like the blue and green color palette. The space background seems a bit too bright to me, it might look nice to darken it and increase the contrast between inside and outside the station.

Looking forward to finding out some more about the story.

[nikolaus]

Hey man, have you seen this film, Silent Running?

[sorensilk]

Environments look nice, I like the blue and green color palette. The space background seems a bit too bright to me, it might look nice to darken it and increase the contrast between inside and outside the station.

Looking forward to finding out some more about the story.

It's funny you say that because I've been thinking it's too dark... Lighting is "fun". One thing I'm finding is that lighting can suck up so much time. I could spend days just tweaking it in one area, make it exactly like I want, then load it up on another computer and it looks all wrong. For now I'm intentionally not messing with the lighting too much. It's on my backlog for my polishing phase.

@nikolaus No, I've never seen Silent Running. I just watched the trailer though and I can see why that came to mind for you. I may have to watch it now.

[optischedel]

Those are some great looking interiors! They have a very real and convining feel to them, without going over board with dirt and wear. Any chance those post-it's are Mooninstpired?

Also, I really like the door. Looking forward to see where you take this!

[sorensilk]

@optishedel Yep, Moon is definitely an inspiration for me as far as visuals but not really for story. Great movie though.

[sorensilk]

Got my first demo/proof of concept/Level 1 completed this weekend.  Sharing it with a few friends and industry folks I know. Pretty pumped to start getting some feedback.  Even if it's 100% negative it'll help me figure out if people like the direction I'm headed or if I need to pivot a bit.

If it gets good feedback I'll post it in the playtesting section for anyone interested.

Oh, and IndieCade also featured one of my screenshots on their first #screenshotsaturday yesterday. Check it out and the other games on their Facebook or Tumblr pages.

[sorensilk]

I started getting some feedback on the demo that I sent out. So far, mostly positive. A few nit picks from people but most of it was already on my backlog to fix/add. The majority of people played through it the way I hoped they would so my level design appears to have worked.

This week I've been working on tweaking the look of the station interior and planning out the next portion of the game. Going back and forth between writing and textures. It's all coming along quite nicely.

Oh, and today I had a ton of fun with normalmaps: https://vine.co/v/M1adubEVjwv

[wccrawford]

I'm loving the visuals.  Very nice.

[sorensilk]

Thanks, @wccrawford.

I've been working on my walls a bit. The previous version was a bit too generic for my taste. Maybe not generic but not enough contrast with all the grey. I like these a lot better. Also a few other minor visual tweaks. Still not done but it's getting better. And working on more script stuff but that's not very fun to show off. 

Click for higher resolution:

[srslypretentious]

Gone home AND Stanley's Parable...hmm...I'M IN!

Best of luck with it, looks great so far.

Followeded. 

[fryingpanic]

You had me at

Kind of like Gone Home + Stanley Parable in space but not really. Follow here or Twitter.

 

Looking forward to see it, visuals are nice so far.

[sorensilk]

Lots of progress the last week or two but not much I can share just yet.  I'm submitting my progress to IndieCade so I've mostly been focused on that build. Lots of polishing, testing, bug fixes, rinse, repeat.

I'll be submitting it tomorrow and then making minor updates until the final submission date of May 15th. 

[sorensilk]

Bumping this up to 20% complete. I've officially submitted to IndieCade...

I also finalized my flowchart for game (image below #nospoilers). That might not sound like much but my entire game is centered around exploration and motivating the player to keep moving forward. I'm putting a huge focus on balancing how much information/story to give the player as they move forward. Too much and they won't be surprised enough through the whole game or worse curious enough to continue. Too little and it will be frustrating and confusing.

I will obviously need to do quite a bit of playtesting throughout development to make sure I keep the balance. So far, the majority of my testers are right in my sweet spot and want to play more, so that's encouraging.

Speaking of playtesting, I'm going to post my IndieCade build in the playtesting section once it's finalized for anyone that's interested in checking it out. I'll post again here when it's up.

[Razzek]

Hoping for "Silent Running" the game.

[sorensilk]

Hoping for "Silent Running" the game.

I've lost count of how many people have mentioned that movie in reference to my game. I've never seen it but I watched the trailer after the 3rd person mentioned it. I'm actually intentionally not watching it until I finish my game so I'm not influenced by it. But, from the trailer I think my game might be somewhat similar. Sounds like that's a good thing.

[sorensilk]

Been working on Oculus Rift support this week. Rift support was planned from Day 1 but I got rid of my Dev kit a few months back because I thought the Dev Kit 2 was coming out sooner than it is. I was able to borrow a DK1 from a buddy of mine until my DK2 arrives and started testing Monday.

Unfortunately, it meant I had to rebuild a bunch of my game because some objects weren't sized properly for the Rift. It's possible to resize the player/camera but that can introduce a whole other set of problems with your IPD since you use two cameras for the Rift. It was better in the long run to just properly size my objects. Luckily it didn't take too terribly long and it will make my life much easier going forward. I also changed the greenhouse a bit so you can now walk on a glass floor and look down at space. Feels pretty weird.

It's so surreal to feel like you're inside the game that you've created. I'm sure other Rift devs know what I mean. Anyway, my environments have been fixed, I just need to switch some code, I was previously using mouse pick events for a few things and raycasting seems like it'll be much easier with the Rift.

Back to work!

[sorensilk]

Been working on a lounge/library area this week. It's very early but looking alright. Once I move to the next area it's going to start getting very difficult to post screenshots without some level of spoilers. I may have to start making screenshots click through so those that want to see can...

[sorensilk]

Been way too long since I've updated. Still working strong, just busy. Early screenshot of a creepy chair and the Kitchen area. Lots will change but the layout will probably stay about the same. Back to work!

Click for higher resolution:

[sorensilk]

Having fun with physics: