It's been a while since I've sailed these TigSource waters! Thanks for all the love, folks! Yep, the game's out now on Switch as well

It's been a wild ride. Real fun releasing this old dream of mine. I'm really happy with how this all went. Thanks for the support again! <3

Just caught up on a bunch of updates. This game looks better every time I see it! Continued luck all!

It's been great following the open development of this stuff! Your own problems and solutions are helpful to other devs too. Continued luck gents!

Neat puzzle game -- gives a Mini Metro vibe while clearly being its own thing. Posting to follow, but I'll try the demo out too!

Ohmigosh I've been hiding my head from posting congratulations because I bought it but I've only played for like 30 minutes so far and I feel bad about that

I really really liked what I played. So congratulations! I'm excited to finish it, maybe this weekend?

Thanks much! Glad you're having a good time

Also I'm so happy you followed this whole time. I'll have a few more updates thanking the dev team in the coming weeks.

[RELEASE]

RELEASE

This is it! A Case of Distrust is officially out! (I've been shaking all morning.) You can get it on Game Jolt, Steam, or itch for 15% off this week! Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible!

And a very special thank you to the folks who follow on this forum. Many of you have reached out personally to tell me that, while you don't reply, you love the updates. TIGSource was the first devlog I started, over a year and a half ago, and it's been a wonderful ride!

---

Edit: Feels good to finally do this:

Last Screenshot Saturday before A Case of Distrust releases! (I'm so excited!!!) Let’s end with the same character we started with. Here’s Connor Green smiling!

The game is now one week away from release! Eep! I can't contain my excitement!

Can't wait to see the finished game, good luck on launch in two weeks & congrats for the SXSW nomination!

Don't know how I missed this -- thanks much! Loving all the updates on Crest!!

[ROTOSCOPE]

ROTOSCOPE

The art in A Case of Distrust is created with a technique called rotoscope. This involves selectively painting over frames of a filmed sequence, creating a style that mixes incredibly realistic animation with fantastical lines and colors.

A Case of Distrust isn’t the first game to do this (Prince of Persia is the most famous example, and the upcoming Desert Child by akuparagames also uses rotoscope) but, for the past few decades, the technique has mostly stayed within film. This helps give my game a unique flavor when compared to other contemporary titles.

So how do you rotoscope? Everyone’s approach is different, and depends on subject matter and desired style. For me, I had actors — mostly volunteers from the Toronto stage scene — perform various emotions (angry, sad, smile, shock, etc.) while reading from the game’s script. As you can see from Fanny Green’s actor, costume shapes were more important than colors.

From that footage, my next step was to define each character’s look. I grabbed one still-frame that I thought embodied that character’s personality, and then I painted over that frame until I found the appropriate lines. You’ll notice the silhouettes are quite stylized, so this step took a while.

After that, I selected individual frames to create a complete emotion (around 5-7 per animation). Rinse and repeat for every emotion, and then for every character, and I had an array of emotions that I could drop in wherever I wanted in my game.

Because of the massive number of frames required, I eventually enlisted the help of my friend Taylor Pereira to create some of the art. And Virginia Woodall, owner of Toronto-based production company DV8 Productions, was invaluable in coordinating the actors and filming a lot of their scenes.

Of course, the filming itself led to some hilarity — stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes soon!

I’m honored to share that A Case of Distrust has been nominated for the SXSW Gamer’s Voice Award! If you’re around Austin in March, swing on by to see the game and cast your vote for it!

After spending two and a half years making it, A Case of Distrust launches in two and a half weeks. I'm still kind of numb to it right now - we'll see how long that lasts.

For now, let me share the launch trailer with you!

Whoops, late on a Sunday, but I don't think this thread will get paged!



Here's a GIF of a travel conversation, with a terrible historical error. Find out what in the devlog!

In preparation for A Case of Distrust, I plunged myself into the 1920s. I read histories — about police departments, about cities, about prohibition, and about gangsters. I studied modern art, I searched for magazines, I listened to music, and I took courses. And still, I made mistakes. I left one in the demo — did you see it? Look at the conversation above. "He looked quizzically at me through the rear-view". The rear-view mirror? Sorry, Ben, those weren’t standard issue until the 30s — most people in 1924 would never have seen one.

Writing any historical fiction can be a minefield. Oh, I love reading it! I can learn about a time period while enjoying a story. And writing it can be fun — all the lore has been established, you just have to write the characters. But mistakes are easy to make if you aren’t careful. Did you know that AmTrak was only established in the ’70s?

Beyond just a historical story, I’m writing a mystery. And I’m wrapping it with an adventure video game. Those genres are already niche — I don’t want to require love of the Roaring ’20s to the enjoy the game. So how do I incorporate history while maintaining fun?

Put it in the game, but let players seek it out.

The taxi conversations are a perfect vehicle for this type of content. Nothing is integral to the plot, and yet, for those interested in the history (like me!), those details can be magical.

Go to a well-known location. Ask characters about a newspaper. There are many small, subtle avenues to add historical touches to the game, without turning this into a textbook.

I love that my players can learn a little bit about a time period while enjoying themselves.

I just need to be careful. Writing any historical fiction can be a minefield.

[EXTENDED SHOWCASE DEMO]

EXTENDED SHOWCASE DEMO

Haven’t played A Case of Distrust at game conventions? Or, maybe you have, but you’d love a bit more? Now, through the magic of the internet, you can try the Extended Showcase Demo!

(!!!)

Okay, real moment, I’m terrified and exhilarated. This is the first time my game — the thing I spent almost two and a half years making — will be played worldwide. I’m shaking while typing this post.

So what is this build?

I’m calling it the Extended Showcase Demo. Basically, it’s what I’ve brought to events, plus a little bit more. (For those who have played the shorter demo, you’ll actually get to go inside Southern Coffee.) I’m sharing this now so we can chat about it — so that I can dissect elements of the game (like the travel conversations) in future blog posts. It will let me lift the curtain to more clearly show you the inner workings of the game’s development.

At shows, the demo typically took 10 minutes to get through, so I’m guessing this should take 20 minutes — maybe a bit longer if you linger.

The entire game takes about 3-4 hours, so this is just a taster. Remember, you’ll be able to get the full game on February 8th! But for now, please enjoy this demo.

I hope you like the flavor!

[FEBRUARY 8TH]

Big news today! A Case of Distrust will release on FEBRUARY 8TH!

It all started with a letter...

[SLOWLY, YOU WILL]

SLOWLY, YOU WILL

I’m proud of A Case of Distrust. In world where I didn’t make this game, but instead stumbled upon it by chance, it would instantly rank among my favorites. I love this thing.

It wasn’t always clear that I would.

March 2016, in the melting Penang heat, I was dejected. Four months of development, and I realized: my game sucked. Four months of scrupulous research, exhaustive plot creation and writing tests, extensive visual art trials, and meticulous code structuring. None of it mattered. The game sucked. The game suuuuuuuuucked. Why did I ever leave Visceral Games, or BioWare, or even EA Mobile? (God damn I had some good times at ol’ EA Mobile.) What made me think I could create my own thing? What hubris possessed me to give up my fantastic life? To do what — to make it better? Augh. I will never make a good game.

And then I did.

Slowly, I did.

So fucking slowly. It’s been almost two years since that Penang sweat. Both the tortoise and the hare have retired, but I’m still going.

In the interim I discovered something rarely shared: Every good game you have ever played has sucked. Go to GDC, E3, PAX,  or IndieCade — find a developer, hand her a drink, and ask about the worst moment. It’s unlikely she’ll tell you about the hard crunch. She’ll share that point where the game was far along, and then, she realized, it sucked. The game suuuuuuuuucked.

And then, it didn’t.

Slowly, it didn’t.

So fucking slowly. But with careful analysis — a deep breath and critical questions (why does this suck, how can it be better?) — the game improved.

If you are at that low moment now, or if you ever get there, I encourage you to keep going. (Hell, if this is future Ben Wander, once again struggling to find the fun: keep going!) Be honest with yourself, but be hopeful. You’ll get there.

Slowly, you will.


Image by William Warby

A lot of people have seen the outside of Southern Coffee in the demo for A Case of Distrust. But there's an inside too!

It’s been a week since A Case of Distrust entered “Content Lock”. For me, that means my game is shippable. I’ve given it enough love to release tomorrow — and if it did, I’d be proud of it.

Yes, it also means you’re close to playing it. (Excuse my massive exhale.) More on the release date in the near future.

So what’s happening now? Fixing minor bugs takes a lot of time. Issues like “the music doesn’t fade nicely here”, or “a saved game takes too long to load”. These things wouldn’t sink a game, but they would fracture a player’s experience. An old friend once told me to make every interaction magical. Anything that breaks the spell must be polished away.

There are also quality-of-life features, which includes accessibility features for disabled games. Able Gamers has great articles on issues around accessibility, and Game Accessibility Guidelines offers a good checklist to consider when building a game. I likely won’t be able to implement some of the items on that list, but each item I add improves the game for a largely ignored group of players. That’s worth it for me.

Finally, you’ll be hearing a lot more from me lately. I took pains to update a weekly devlog during my first year of game development. The second year, which involved a lot of writing, was more difficult to share without knowing my final script.

(Maybe that’s true. But maybe it’s also an excuse. Having spent a year abroad without being close to finishing my game, I think I dove too deep into development. Sure, being a solo-developer means that any time I’m not working on the game there’s zero progress. But I ignored the fantastic people that got me here — the ones who lifted me up when I wanted to throw this all away. Thank you.)

Now that the story’s complete, I have more room to breathe. I’ll give you a peek into certain sections, and explain how and why I made my decisions. Expect many more posts in the coming while.

Thanks for following!