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[Rognirim]

Hey guys, thought I'd post a log for a part-time project I've been working on across the past couple of months.

Summary
Farkost is an interactive short story, a piece of science fiction centered around a mysterious mechanical orb seemingly drifting through empty space, suddenly becoming active in response to a signal emanating from an unknown source. Through uncovering these transmissions and learning of their origin you start to uncover a segment of humanity’s history, information which in turn seem to cause some form of change to take place inside the isolated chamber itself.

Farkost is currently in its final stages of development, with art, animation and scripting being done by myself and the story written by TimNore. We've been wanting to try our hand at creating an atmospheric short story for quite a while, and across the last couple of months we began working on Farkost as a part-time project. Once completed we estimate the playtime to end up at around an hour. I'll be updating this thread with our work leading up to completion.

Gameplay
We feel it's important to mention that although there might be tricky elements, we do not consider Farkost to be a puzzle game. Our goal has been to create a short story with interactive elements that symbolize different aspects of what is transpiring in the story. You progress by discovering text logs and recordings documented by a group of outer rim pioneers, hidden in the void around you. As you uncover new transmissions you affect the development inside the mechanical sphere itself, and start to unveil the reason for its existence.

If this sound like something up your alley we’re currently on Greenlight, where you can find further demo videos, screenshots and information!

Screenshots

[Sustrato]

The art style is great, really good color theory, and the writing is intriguing without being too cliched. I'm always down for a space mystery!

That pixel font is incredibly chunky though, it seems like there might be some eye strain playing a game mainly about writing with that as the font.

[Thaumaturge]

Intriguing. The video has a somewhat contemplative feel to it, which I quite like. I would like to see some examples of gameplay, if feasible! ^_^

A small grammatical note regarding your second screenshot (the one depicting the gathering in the main square): I believe that "lively" is incorrect here (it's an adjective, not an adverb); livelily is the adverb, although I'll confess that it feels a little awkward. Perhaps "in a lively manner" might work?

[Rognirim]

The art style is great, really good color theory, and the writing is intriguing without being too cliched. I'm always down for a space mystery!

That pixel font is incredibly chunky though, it seems like there might be some eye strain playing a game mainly about writing with that as the font.

Glad you like the look of it! :D Yeah I hear you, the font is a bit chunkier in that shot since I had to do a little resizing, here's one that's more accurate. We'll definitely have to be careful with it though, might have to do some tweaking.

Intriguing. The video has a somewhat contemplative feel to it, which I quite like. I would like to see some examples of gameplay, if feasible! ^_^

A small grammatical note regarding your second screenshot (the one depicting the gathering in the main square): I believe that "lively" is incorrect here (it's an adjective, not an adverb); livelily is the adverb, although I'll confess that it feels a little awkward. Perhaps "in a lively manner" might work?

Thanks for catching that! We'll throw the words around a bit. We do have a short clip of some interactions that are part of the story uploaded





It's simply showcasing opening up the mechanical sphere and locating transmissions in the void around you using sound. Most of them will be simple interactions to go along with what's going on in the story.

[Thaumaturge]

We do have a short clip of some interactions that are part of the story uploaded

...

It's simply showcasing opening up the mechanical sphere and locating transmissions in the void around you using sound. Most of them will be simple interactions to go along with what's going on in the story.

Ah, interesting. So light puzzles, in a variety of types, then? That could make for a pleasantly contemplative experience, I think. ^_^

[sidbarnhoorn]

This looks awesome, excellent music too, looking forward to more.