I saw this game in the Kickstarter some time ago and I liked the whole idea of it. You have a great potential in your hands and I'm really looking forward to play it when it launches.

Can I also make you a question, how is the pipeline to create this magic effects and animations? How do you create, implement and polish it? I'm curious about how you are handling it, it doesn't seem easy to iterate and get the result you want and the result you are showing in your gifs.

Good luck for you guys!

After structuring our process we spent some time fixing some documentation and pre-production problems we were having (better do it know than let it scale and become a bigger problem in the future) and since it's our first project we want to make a product and launch in the market we are learning a lot in our journey and some people helped us a lot. We are participating in the Core Labs game accelerator and they have some great mentors and I would like to thanks some of them that helped us create that structure that will make possible the deliver of the game and they also gave us a lot of tips about team management for a game development, specially how to manage an artistic and creative team. I would like to thanks Tanya Short from Kitfox Games and Ray Mazza from Super Evil Megacorp. They really helped us a lot and the insights they gave us we will also take with us in the future of our company, not only for this game. So thank you!

We also got some new artists and to keep things consistent for the art of the game, along with all the documentation and structuring we are making an art guideline. For this we are creating some key scenes (they will not be our final art, but some concepts that translates the mood and emotions of our game and we will use them as a base for the final art) that will be used by the artists so they can know what our game is about, how to draw and make the art consistent and some feelings we want to pass to the player. Below are some examples of scenes we are designing.

Just some thought about how having a structured process and a better pre-production stage is influencing our project. A lot. It's way easier when you know where you should go and it also makes easier to identify when you are not going there and see what needs to be changed. But we already knew that, the only problem is that we didn't know how to do that. It's not easy to structure the work flow for your team. You need to take people in consideration, how everyone works and thinks, how to aggregate it all in your team in a way that works good for everyone and use the capacity of each member of the team together to take the team forward. We spent almost one week talking with each other in meetings just to see what documents we need, what have to be defined before producing our game, what was missing in the way we were doing things and in this process of knowing each one better we got a result that fits us. The key point is that there is no formula on how your team should work or how you should develop your game. There is a lot of cycles and methods and you have to find the one that will help you and for that you really need a person to look to your team and takes everyone in consideration. Sometimes you have to try and see what didn't work and why. Doing frequent post mortem helps seeing what is going right or wrong.
  
Last thing I would like to thanks Jovan Vesić one of the creators of Columnae a really cool game and worth checking out. I asked for some tips to structure the marketing and pitch of a game, specially for crowdfunding and he gave me some nice tips and links that helped me a lot and is still helping in the structuring of our business. Thanks Jovan!

[Progress with documentation and team structure:]

Progress with documentation and team structure:

So, all the things we made the last two weeks and all the time we spent structuring our team are giving us results. We are documenting some important things for our game development and we are seeing some things we didn't see before taking some time to reflect on our process, we are identifying points for our game that would help us take decisions, like design pillars (now we have it clearly defined and documented and it's not only on our minds), moodboard to have a reference of the mood of our game (we already had one before, but we spent some time complementing it and now we have a lot of references that we didn't have before, specially about the ambiance of the game) and we discussed a lot about some interface problems we were having, in inventory for example, when we decided what we will do to solve it.

About our design pillars:

• We want the story to be significative and the player to be immersed in it, so the story is a big point for us to focus
• We want to have an unique and significative art, that is why we are doing this hand-drawing art style, we want it to be unique and mean something to us and the players
• We want the story to progress in a way that when the player ends the game he will feel that he made an intervention in the story, guiding it to a better end (no spoilers )

Besides that I forgot to share, but IndieCade featured us in it's art wall :
http://indiecade.tumblr.com/post/149043465932/indiecade-artwall-white-lie

I'll update more things when we have it clearly defined and documented.

For those who want to see how our creative and production process are, here are some preview of it:

So, let's make a more complete log this time, I think today I have a lot I can say about what we are doing in Ambize Studio.
First, we are migrating our engine. We started making this game when we were in an iOS development program and it was just a project for iOS, at this time we didn't plan to make it a full game and deliver it commercially. When we decided to make it a complete game we could send to the store we also decided to migrate from Xcode to Unity, for a lot of reasons and I think the most important is that we want to deliver this game to PC/MAC/Linux also, not only mobile.

Second, we are structuring some things in our company, mapping some production process and make some documentation to make our work flow viable. We noticed we were having some problems to make some changes in the game, some things we have to change and we started making this documentation of things internal to the company. We now have our pre production and production process mapped, specially the things related to the art production, concepts, mood and mindset of the game and this creative stuff. Now that we can look to it we now each change we have to make what it will impact in the entire development chain and it's helping us a lot. If anyone want to have a look at our process, learn from it, do a benchmarking, feel free to send me an email, I would love to talk with you and share experiences, we can mutually learn and improve our work with games talking to each other (I talked to some people before finishing our process and it helped us a lot seeing other people work and process)

Third, we are trying to make some cover art for our game and some promotional art too, so I'll share some of them with you

For today that is what I would like to share and thank you all for the support.

I've checked this out but guess I've never commented - really like the atmosphere and story you've got. The art fits really well. Loving this!

Thanks, really glad you liked it

Just dropping a concept of a new scene we are working on. It will be the first time Greg sees The Tower.
PS: It will not be green.

If you have something to say I would be glad to hear, anything

We were submitting our game to an acceleration program when we have to made a video to show them our game. So i will share it with you guys too. We are still improving a lot in this first act of the story (the video don't cover it all) so this is not the final version of what this video should be, when we have it finalized i'll share it again.

If you have and suggestion, question or feedback feel free to ask, we love to meet new people passionate by games like us

A board game would definitely be fun. When you have more time in the future you could try a kickstarter for that.

Ohh, I love this game. The animation you put into the battles improved a lot the experience from the videos I saw before buying the game. Some battles feel so epic that is incredible to think it's only a card battle.

Ohh, I love beautiful games. Did you choose all the colors and art style all by yourself?

Ohh, we were repainting one of our first level and when found some old concepts, from the beginning of the project.

We even thought about using watercolor, but we decided to change and the final image is the closest to what we are using today in color palette.

This game looks so beautiful. I'll download it and play

Hello nice people!

Hi!

Today I would like to share one interaction in Emma’s room we are implementing. It’s her toy’s chest, where you can interact with some objects and get the locket for a future use.

Below is the chest.



Below is the locket.



For today that is what I have to show.

Please if you have some feedback we would love to hear it!

I like the color pallete and the noir/unsure setting here - works perfect as a nightmare.

Very nice visualisation of entering into dialogues - it feels unsafe. It is effect you want, right?

Actually we never thought about it as something to make the player feel unsafe, we thought about it looking more like a children's book of fairy tale, visually speaking. But I can agree with you, it makes you feel unsafe and that could be a good feeling in the athmosphere of the game.

The hand drawn style graphics looks simply beautiful, but my dirty mind can't get over the fact that that chimney resembles something stiff. Oh well...

Thank you for apreciating the art style. And oh well...

[Interactions in game]

Interactions in game

Hi!

Today I would like to show some interactions we are implementing in the game. Our game is a point and click and we need some interactions to show feedback and give some options of actions. We need to say something to the player and the player need to say what he want to do in the game, how he want to interact with objects and characters.

What we have iterated so far is a menu that pops up in the center of the screen with the relevant information or with options.

Above is the example where you interact with some object and the game shows some feedback. In this case it’s used to describe the object. This was an important object in the past, Emma used to watch TV with you and it’s one of the most vivid memories you have of her. We want to use this feedback so when the player interacts with the object the game shows that this is an important object and describe something to complement the narrative.

Above you have two options of actions. You can choose what you want to do and the game will respond accordingly.

We tried to use something more iconographic but we couldn’t find something to fit the aesthetics and atmosphere of the game (Dropsy did that flawlessly). We tried something like The Book of Unwritten Tales but we don’t have enough screen space for that, so that is what we are using so far.

What we want to do now is write the name of the object of the interaction. When there is an object next to another, specially in mobile, you can be confused about with one was selected, like in the image above, so we will try to write the name of the object in the top of this menu, or we will write the name in one of the options, like in the previous example.

If you have some feedback, idea or some example from a video game you liked please share with us, we would be really grateful.

Once upon a time, there was magic creatures living in the forest. They had the ability to imbue life into objects. From some fallen tree branches little creatures were created. The fairies needed to protected a special place with important memories, but since they couldn't do that alone, a whole village was created near this place. The little creatures and the fairies lived in harmony, protecting what was so important to them.

But when Greg’s memories started being erased this creatures burned to ashes. Some still remain alive and hidden, since what is happening seems to can’t reach everyone in the world.



Playing as Greg you will need to search in the village for a way to enter the place with important memories. You will need to find the hidden creatures and get help.

Do you have any of the puzzle dynamics worked out?

We actually have two puzzles worked out. The first one consist of three circles that you need to rotate and align. Every time you rotate one, the others adjacent to it rotate in the opposite way. Currently the art is an apple but we are changing it to look more like a clock, it will still be an apple, but the inside will be a clock, like a surrealistic dream.

The second puzzle we have is in the village of the fairies. While exploring the scene you discover some pieces that will be used to open a door. After this door you will find a stair leading to the top of the trees, the next place you go after this village. I will talk more about this village in a near future. This puzzle is about fitting all the pieces.

See you next time!

[White Lie]

Hello TIG community! (Website/Twitter/Facebook/Newsletter)

Welcome to the White Lie Devlog. We recently discovered and joined TIGSource and we're very excited to start sharing and hearing some feedback. We started developing this game a few months ago and we are still working on it.

White Lie is the heartwarming journey of Greg, a plush rabbit toy in search of his missing owner in a surreal and desolate world. Overcome the challenges from your past with Emma, and uncover the truth behind everything that is happening.

Recent Updates

Book Memory
Reveal Teaser
New animator on team
We are still alive!
Happy Holidays!


...

Who are we?
We are Ambize Studio,A game studio developing games with high artistic value, aiming to be recognized in the indie ecosystem for it's original creations and innovative art styles. . White Lie is our first game and we are learning and improving as development goes. That is why we need feedback and support. And we will keep updating things as the game development progress so you can help us.

People working on the project:

Gabriel Carioca - Business Developer/Producer
Cynthia Liz - Art Director and Artist
Patrícia Miyazima - Animator
Caio Piologo - Gameplay Programmer

People who helped on some stage of the project:

Gabriela Shima
Matheus Zaggo
Augusto Garcia - VFX Programmer

You can also look for news and updates in our website: http://www.ambize.com/
Twitter: @AmbizeStudio
Facebook: AmbizeStudio
Also submit to our Newsletter

See you next time \o/