Our friendly neighborhood sound artist Mr. Richard Jackson has started a series of blog posts about the audio in Mandagon - You can have a read here

...On the other hand, while I've done certain frame by frame animations by hand in the past when computers weren't around, at this point I definitely prefer the power of automation and wouldn't do something like this by hand: 

   

Frame by frame animation is an admirable endurance! I used to do a lot of hand drawn animation back in college. Also random childhood memories of using a Game boy camera to make stop-motion stuff!

This is looking very beautiful! Keeping an eye on this one 

Felt like I could do with a break from staring at a computer screen . . . So I went ahead a made a little paper cube fella. Happy hobby crafts!

Really cool atmosphere and scenery/setting. I love the odd main character as well.

Cheers man! I've been lurking a bit on your dev logs, that pixel art of yours is super adorable!!

Current state of mind . . .

That was fast!

The only thing I noticed is that I couldn't make out the game title at the end.  It just blended in with the surrounding artwork.

Yep, been racing! Due a crash soon I'm sure! And also yep, good point RE: the logo in the vid - My aficionado for subtle unassuming branding will be my downfall! Definitely something to conciser for future promo stuff

The pixel style, tone, and layout of the background elements just scream Fez, which is ok because I liked Fez. Had I seen a picture or video of this game without context, though, I might have incorrectly assumed this was somehow related to Fez. It's that similar, imo.

Again, this is a-ok by me, I'm all for it

Ha! right you are, the look of fez is a big influence - I'm super new to pixel art, so as such I'm a bit of a sponge and am very much wearing my influences on my sleeve! Game like fez, Titan Souls and Swords and Sworcery have been a MASSIVE inspiration!! As well as an odd combination of games like Journey and Dear Esther for story telling.

Mandagon is something of a playground for me and the team, We're just experimenting a little, dipping our toes into greenlight and getting a feel for how things work!

You can see my usual visual approach here in the dev log for our main game adam.

[MANDAGON is up for voting on Greenlight]

MANDAGON is up for voting on Greenlight

click the button below and show your support!

Hello everyone - Cheers for the advice and kind words regarding Mandagon! You can now vote for us on Steam Greenlight.

Love how this game is coming together!

This looks incredible! Loving the ritualistic vibe.

Yes, most definitely! I feel that for a developer things like weather or not you're being controversial shouldn't be a factor. I think you should tell the story you want to tell as honestly as you can, let the narrative and gameplay weave together. The way things seem to be now freedom of expression is high and there's a plethora of games exploring a broad range of interesting and forward thinking themes. There will all ways be 'Shoot the thing III' but it's easy enough to avoid those games on a personal level.

Since controversy is essentially impossible to quantify it's potentially aimless to actively try to be controversial - it's those instances that can sometimes come off as contrived - shock for shocks sake. I feel that acting honestly and staying true to the game you want to make is the key factor - the resulting game may be read as controversial to one person and benign to another. Games are relatively young when compared to things like books and film, they've had plenty of time to push the barriers wide, it's a shame that those same barriers can't just be applied to games too...

Taking your audience into account is super important, but fear of hypothetical players Taking offense should not get in your way! You can't please everyone, usually playing safe is playing dull!

I can think of many times when games have brought me to tears, or caused me to laugh out loud, or enlightened my view point on life. I can't remember a time when I've been shocked by a game...  But I'm most likely taking a far too binary approach to controversy!

(side note -  I'm developing my opinion on this subject as I write about it. I'm not trying to make any solid statements - this stuff is just fun to think about)

The way killing is treated in a lot of games is interesting in of itself - games like mortal kombat are still causing controversy today, along with grand theft auto and alike. Whereas violence is treated very differently and hardly gets a mention if you're playing as the American hero. You've also got Nathan Drake, so boyish and loveable you forget he's been mass murdering his way across the continent!

But you'll see a lot of controversy around games like gone home, not for its content but for its lack of content I guess. People stumped asking 'how do I win?' 'when do I get the gun?'

Gone home even went as far as to play on people's expectations of the genre to essentially troll it's players! (disclaimer - I really enjoyed gone home)

I think the trouble is - it's difficult to gameify serous and controversial topics without making light of them. A struggle with mental health becomes a 'sanity meter' or you might find something like 'mash X to escape rape'.

But as we've seen from games like gone home, the act of altering or stripping back what players come to expect from a game causes enough controversy to eclipse the majority of the games actual content.

Regards of all that, specifically aiming to be controversial is just as silly as censoring yourself. If you're telling an honest story and telling it well through an interactive medium, controversy won't be a problem.

That's just my rambling thoughts vaguely linking to what you brought up - nothing I say should be taken too seriously! 

Can't wait to see more of this - the blue sea/sky, the isolation set against the warmth of community, surviving within a minimalistic lifestyle. All in a whimsical, consistent and very well actualized art style! Looking forward to getting my hands on a copy!

In the meantime, here's a peek at another one of Mandagon's talkative statues -

Looking good!
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I would certainly like to spin this building around like in FEZ. 

Cheers, although no spinning I'm afraid. But if you tap LT it turns into super meat boy

Damn all the colors in the game are wonderful..

Cheers very much man. I've obsessed over those colours, glad it's not gone unnoticed!

Been working on this introduction level recently so I figured I'd share some screenshots -

(also gameplay/story trailer will be here very soon)





We'll be looking to run MANDAGON through steam greenlight in the near future so keep eyes peeled!

Ah well, I'm sure it'll still look rad either way! The proposed new art style was perhaps a tad cutesy for my personal tastes, but still very decent.   

will most definitely be keeping an eye on this game. It looks unreasonably beautiful!

Ahh please find a way to work with matwek! Freedom Planet and Poncho are beautiful games. I'd love to see matwek's sega genesis vibes applied to your puzzle mechanics! 

I love the overall feeling of the game. Graphics are so nice and in some way relaxing. I'm going to keep an eye on this

Cheers tanis, our music man is doing some wonderful work at the moment to help solidify that relaxing vibe, while adding a slight sense on forebode. Looking forward to people being able to hear/see it all together!

In the meantime here's some concept art stuff. Just for fun




Also I've been playing around with the lighting in some of the rooms recently - up next is set decoration