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[jamesprimate]

WOWOWOW things are really really coming together this month. Adult Swim had us on a pretty insane ambitious timeline, and despite literally wanting to die for the past few weeks (i worked 25hr straight yesterday for instance), somehow it all came together for this build. Rain World is now a 100% playable game, with a (gorgeous) menu, saving, progression. First round of polish is done for all 12 regions. Gates are functional and spiffed up with some new visual effects, UI is looking surprisingly good, in-game map is complete and has had some nice polish. ITS HAPPENING GUYS 

Anyway, I know i cant show too much now but wanted to keep you guys in the loop 

EDIT: oh, before anyone gets the wrong impression: this was just a deadline for a milestone , not *The Big Deadline*, so still a while to go... But still it was a pretty big milestone!

[fall_ark]

WOWOWOW things are really really coming together this month. Adult Swim had us on a pretty insane ambitious timeline, and despite literally wanting to die for the past few weeks (i worked 25hr straight yesterday for instance), somehow it all came together for this build. Rain World is now a 100% playable game, with a (gorgeous) menu, saving, progression. First round of polish is done for all 12 regions. Gates are functional and spiffed up with some new visual effects, UI is looking surprisingly good, in-game map is complete and has had some nice polish. ITS HAPPENING GUYS 

Anyway, I know i cant show too much now but wanted to keep you guys in the loop 

Just update the official site with preorder buttons already so I can paste it across every site I know

Have some well-earned rest and looking forward to future good news !

[jamesprimate]

thank you! and yes we seriously need to update the site, jeez 

[Dinomaniak]

If adult swim gave you a deadline, this means you'll release it soon. SOON. Blizzard soon ? :D but seriously, I cannot wait to get my hands on rainworld, when will it happen ?

[oldblood]

Congrats on the huge milestone guys. Getting the game to fully playable status is a monumental milestone. All the hard work will pay off soon. Literally.

Just remember, the last 10% takes 90% of the time so you've got a few more years till release...

[jboxx]

Congrats James!  Keep up the hard work. 

[battlerager]

If adult swim gave you a deadline, this means you'll release it soon. SOON. Blizzard soon ? :D but seriously, I cannot wait to get my hands on rainworld, when will it happen ?

There is still buttloads of playtesting and polish and maybe translation, I assume.

[Profesh]

WOWOWOW things are really really coming together this month. Adult Swim had us on a pretty insane ambitious timeline, and despite literally wanting to die for the past few weeks (i worked 25hr straight yesterday for instance), somehow it all came together for this build. Rain World is now a 100% playable game, with a (gorgeous) menu, saving, progression. First round of polish is done for all 12 regions. Gates are functional and spiffed up with some new visual effects, UI is looking surprisingly good, in-game map is complete and has had some nice polish. ITS HAPPENING GUYS 

Anyway, I know i cant show too much now but wanted to keep you guys in the loop 

EDIT: oh, before anyone gets the wrong impression: this was just a deadline for a milestone , not *The Big Deadline*, so still a while to go... But still it was a pretty big milestone!

Bravo. Any prospect of a Mac build prior to the public release? Also, as the game has now been confirmed for PS4: am I correct in thinking that I'll be able to redeem my existing purchase via the Playstation Store?

[insaneinside]

Any prospect of a Mac build prior to the public release?

I have had success running the alpha build from last March under Wine 1.7.55 on OS X 10.10.  The same setup in Linux seems to have some issues with alpha-masking the player's slugcat with his/her own shadow, unfortunately.

[Profesh]

Any prospect of a Mac build prior to the public release?

I have had success running the alpha build from last March under Wine 1.7.55 on OS X 10.10.  The same setup in Linux seems to have some issues with alpha-masking the player's slugcat with his/her own shadow, unfortunately.

I hadn't even realised that my version of Wine was so far behind the curve; just updated and have since enjoyed three or four sessions without hindrance, every pixellated inch the work-of-art I was expecting even at such an early stage, so major kudos to all (well, both) involved. Cheers!

[JLJac]

Hi everyone! Really sorry, but I definitely spoke too soon about getting back to regular updates. It was deadline inferno there for a while, and once through we took a look at the schedule and... there's like 5 big secret things on there! So, very exciting stuff, but sadly I can't share it. You'll get to see it later!

James on the other hand has a weeeeeeeell earned month completely off from levels, instead doing what he's actually all about - music and sound. He says he has written several tracks already, though I haven't heard them yet. Pretty sure they're amazing though, as he claimed his artistic direction was More Weirder, which we can all endorse.

So, I'm getting back at my mystery tasks. Will check in with you guys from time to time though!

[Mark Mayers]

Congrats on getting out of level development hell, hahahaha. 

Looking forward to playing what you made!

[jamesprimate]

Just popping in! Joar is working on some really cool new setpiece stuff, and im sifting through the old music and audio to see whats salvageable from the past few years of on and off Rain World audio work.

There is kind of a lot of music laying around in various stages of completion (around 70 tracks), some gems, but also a good deal of stuff thats either unusable for one reason or another, such as the game moving on stylistically, other later tracks doing a better job of capturing that mood, and of course some i just dont like any more. Pretty glad to do some housecleaning with this, as it will open space for new music! Im also using this time to remix and remaster the older tracks that *do* make the cut, and with that establishing a baseline for consistent volume levels, compression, saturation, etc etc., going forward.  Exciting, I know!

[presidenthobbes]

Just popping in! Joar is working on some really cool new setpiece stuff, and im sifting through the old music and audio to see whats salvageable from the past few years of on and off Rain World audio work.

There is kind of a lot of music laying around in various stages of completion (around 70 tracks), some gems, but also a good deal of stuff thats either unusable for one reason or another, such as the game moving on stylistically, other later tracks doing a better job of capturing that mood, and of course some i just dont like any more. Pretty glad to do some housecleaning with this, as it will open space for new music! Im also using this time to remix and remaster the older tracks that *do* make the cut, and with that establishing a baseline for consistent volume levels, compression, saturation, etc etc., going forward.  Exciting, I know!

Are there plans for special/unique rooms (barring the fact that all rooms are unique) in the world that have a special music theme? Is music going to switch based on region? Are you going to do something like in starbound, where being underwater mutes the music a bit? So many questions! 

[jamesprimate]

yes to all of the above! the planned system has a few different music tiers. there will be a selection of music and atmospheric audio for each region, specific tracks that will be attached to significant rooms for "narrative movements", and also music that can be attached directly to physical objects or structures in the game, so say as you approach a tower in a wide room the music for that tower fades in as you approach and fades out as you pass, etc. Its going to be the interaction of a couple of different systems, so making it all smooth will probably take some fussing with. Pretty excited though! ive been waiting to do this for a looooong time 

And heck yeah joars already got that cool lowpass filter effect for going in and out of the water: https://youtu.be/ernPmYEg0k0?t=3m56s


Edit: hey speaking of starbound, do you guys have any other open world-ish games where the music implementation really speaks to you? obviously fez is a big one, and probably one of my biggest influences (talking implementation here) is dark souls.

Rain World has a lot of unique structural limitations as far as how the music will be used (the periodicity of the rain cycle, the need for sonic "space" to build apprehension, etc), but i could def use to see how other sound designers have solved these problems.

[TheWing]

Edit: hey speaking of starbound, do you guys have any other open world-ish games where the music implementation really speaks to you? obviously fez is a big one, and probably one of my biggest influences (talking implementation here) is dark souls.

Knytt: Underground has had me remembering places because of music and audio unique to certain areas, and it's sound design is awesome too, so check that out!

[Dinomaniak]

Abe's Exoddus has had a serious music influence on me. It actually received a lot of awards because of it as well.

[oahda]

While the style of music itself probably doesn't fit Rainworld, I like the approach to dynamic music in Journey a lot. You never notice any seams throughout the entire game, no matter how often you switch areas, no matter if the music suddenly gets intense because there is a scary serpent around... It's all just so fluid and everything fits together, yet areas still have distinct sounds, like TheWing mentioned, which is probably important in a game like this too.

[Noogai03]

whatever you do make it better than Proteus

[BartsBlue]

Abe's Exoddus has had a serious music influence on me. It actually received a lot of awards because of it as well.

Abe's Oddysee as well, or even more so (in my opinion, of course, your mileage may vary). Particularly the music in temples versus factory environments vs desert / outside world.

Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, too: Firelink Shrine and Nexus are still vivid in my mind whenever their respective tune comes up. And let's not forget the boss themes, too! They could actually work pretty well with some fragments of Rain World (especially when slugcat needs to go through region stalked by one of the larger enemies).

The original Diablo had excellent music related to main areas: dark, moody, unsettling.

Not exactly open world, but Final Fantasy VI had some very memorable tunes associated with certain regions (Devil's Lab, Wild West, etc) or characters.

While the style of music itself probably doesn't fit Rainworld, I like the approach to dynamic music in Journey a lot. You never notice any seams throughout the entire game, no matter how often you switch areas, no matter if the music suddenly gets intense because there is a scary serpent around... It's all just so fluid and everything fits together, yet areas still have distinct sounds, like TheWing mentioned, which is probably important in a game like this too.

And one more idea in line with what Princsess wrote above: Mirror's Edge. Each level had its own distinct background music that would seamlessly change into more dynamic version of itself when enemies appeared. In Rain World we could have three levels of music intensity, depending on the cirumstances: "it's safe, relax", "there's something out and about, be careful", "ohshitohshit it is chasing me!"