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[BlackRice]

Hi all!  

I'm independant game creator from Emedion Games studio, and here’s my brand new and personal title for PC currently in development.







 
Overview:
StarPicker is a game about orienteering in a retrofuturist setting.
The loss of heavenly vault drove the world into chaos, it’s up to you to save the world!!! Collecting missing stars with StarPicker Team, our famous American football player Janus “Electric Eel” White and the charming young Nobel winner Minna Vellamo will be traveling with you into the mysterious galaxy.
So keep up with us , the human destiny is in your hands!


Special features:

. Original land navigation gameplay brings Orienteering to a fun and arcade video game.
. Make the good choices and quickly!
. Follow the adventure of the StarPicker team and explore the universe.
. Awesome soundtrack!
. 3 game modes for different challenges: exploration, puzzle, action.
. Include unique Speed Running tools to study and optimize your performances.
. Online ranking and replay analyse.




You can also support and follow the game development here:
https://www.facebook.com/StarPickerTheGame

I develop the game myself.
My mate David help me for some additional game and level design.
Sounds and musics are made by this awesome guy : https://soundcloud.com/klaatucoach

 

[BlackRice]

Here's some gameplay of a whole run in "Blazing Hill"!

[thundercroak]

Looks really nice!
How do you pick your color pallet?

[bdsowers]

Well, it's definitely super pretty.

I feel the gameplay needs a little bit more. I watched the full video, and it started to run together after a short time. Is your goal to find the optimal path to pick up everything the fastest? (I had to look up what orienteering was ^^). Maybe add some other characters in there so it feels like you're up against other orienteers? Or change the topology so it's less flat and straight-forward? Or add some surprises in the level to discover as you're wandering? I dunno, just seems like there's room there to make it a bit more exciting.

[BlackRice]

Thanks a lot guys for your support!

@thundercroak
In the first environment overall palette was somehow driven by game design.
Otherwise I just used to mess around with colors

@bdsowers
Right you get the main goal of the gameplay, but often it seems easier than it truely is gamepad in hands
Yes sure the maps are going to be larger and harder. The one from the previous video is an early one still from tutorial.
I'll show more stuff soon but the game will have 5 differents environments with their own specificities. I also have a map editor so you can expect a large amount of level.
As you said adding more surprises is a very good idea. I'll try my best to bring variety in maps.
Online features gonna be important for competitive too, player will be able to share and compare their route after each run. Nevertheless I'm not sure I'll be able to make a real-time multiplayer mode as I'm working alone on the project and certainly have shortcoming in code ^^' (I used to be a graphist)

[BlackRice]

Here some words about inspirations for StarPicker world.





The game set in the 60-70’s, inspired by sci-fi movies from the era. Works such as Barbarella and First Spaceship on Venus were definitely great inspirations in the project.
Then with its touch of Retrofuturism the game shows an original fantastic and poetic universe.







Moreover, StarPicker’s hero is a fictional american football superstar. So you might frequently meet some influences in the game world.

[Michael Klier]

Here's some gameplay from the first environment!

Really cool choice of music!

[ashtonmorris]

Very interesting music and great colors!

[airman4]

Nice to see you there JR ! okay maybe i will not say your real name Blackrice xd

[fergie77]

Well, I definitely have to agree that the colours are fantastic. It's bright and colourful without being sore on the eyes. It reminds me of something but I'm not sure what, could be that "Inside Out" movie but I'm not sure.

I'd definitely like to see some more of the story, with a game like this a good story can make or break it. So I'm quite interested to see what you come up with! (Something that really connects the player to the character)

It does seem a nice game to just relax and play for a while. Good luck!

- David

[BlackRice]

@Michael Klier, @Ashtonmorris and @fergie77, thanks a lot for your support!

I'll ask my sound designer about maybe some words to explain his work on StarPicker

The gameplay doesn't really allow to have much story in-game but i have implemented a text editor (VN style) to easily add story lines in the game.
I still need to adjust the story according to rythms of the game. I always think story is very important in a game


@airman4
Hey great to see you here my friend! Ahah no problem you can call me by my real name over here.
Are you showing some stuff here?


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Hey today it's time for me to show you some gameplay from "The 99 Gates of Tero", the second environment of the game!!!

[airman4]

Yep here
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=30415.0

But you already know it

[draegdrwg]

I really like the idea of navigation being an important mechanic in a game.

[jctwood]

Loving these graphics

[BlackRice]

thanks draegdrwg and jctwood

Yeah StarPicker is truely a game about land navigation.

Actualy the gameplay is greatly inspired from an awesome sport called Orienteering.
If you don’t know the sport the rules are pretty simple, in a generally wide natural area you need to reach control points as fast as you can with help from a detailed map and a compass.




But if the rules are very simple the goals are in fact quite hard to reach. It requires focus, good observation, anticipation and interpretation skill to always match the environment with your map while you keep on running.



StarPicker adapts this concept to video games and proposes a fun and arcade navigation game experience.
From this core gameplay, the player will sometimes need good moving skill through Parkour elements, sometimes puzzle solving skill with critical map reading. All together it will bring the player into quick route planning choices and self localization.




I practice this sport myself since i'm a little child!

[BlackRice]

Everything's begun when the heavenly vault disappeared and drove the world into chaos.
A team of hero has been put together with one goal; to found all the stars to fix that mess. So the american football superstar Janus “Electric Eel” White will sharpen his navigation skill and become fast as a shooting star at the four corners of the universe.



From a narrative point of view StarPicker tells a story about loss of bearings.
Then get involved in a space adventure and gather all the fallen stars as many fragment of human. Joining the StarPicker, learn about your teammates and through dialogue choices make your own way to rebuild the night sky.



I knew I wanted a background story supported by dialogues in the game. I then created a Visual Novel engine in Unity to easily add and remove dialogues lines, pictures and characters sprites when needed. With the idea to re-use this engine afterward for other projects.
That way a simple text file containts all the informations of a sequence to play in the game. Even if it’s not an important part of StarPicker gameplay, the engine also support mutli-path story with dialogue choices.
The player can still skip these dialogues phases if he doesn’t want to read it, but it might have some kind of consequences. Choices in StarPicker won’t only be in the field...

[BlackRice]

As a true hero, Janus owns special abilities from his long American football career.





This experienced athlete has a good jump skill but also can perform slides to slip under the many obstacles he can encounter.
Moreover Janus can use his spacesuit to perform a dash that speed up for a short time. If he performs it on specific magnetic grounds, he can do a Superdash which is more powerfull and last longer.

Use your movement skill carefully cause they will cost you some stamina bars!

[BlackRice]

Hi friends!

I had the chance to be interviewed by Skywilly from Game Side Story!
Here is a translation in english for you guys.

Interview : StarPicker, a different Speedrun

07/24/2016 Skywilly


We met him at the Stunfest in 2015 , Jean-Rémi Tessier seemed to be very confident in making a smart scavenger hunt game which is far different from a guided Mirror’s Edge. The game follows his road, the development advances, in this occasion, the creator agreed to response to our questions...


Hello Jean-Rémi. Is it me or you will offer us a scavenger game?

Hi William! Yes we could say that StarPicker is a kind of scavenger hunt where the clues are the environment itself. The player needs some good observation and thinking skills to find his way and sometimes even to survive. To those who had experienced at school or in the army, the game is inspired from Orienteering.


What is your career path exactly?

I work as a freelancer for almost 10 years, as a graphic designer and illustrator I experienced in a variety of areas. When I met Emedion, with whom I published Maestria’s Flower, an interactive digital comic for iOS, I had the opportunity to go back to my passion for video game creation. Under the name of Emedion Games we then developed Gun Aces (not released), Beyond Perception and Bardadum: The Kingdom Roads. I have graduated from graphic design but I am also a musician and created soundtracks for all our projects excepted Beyond Perception. Then in the past years I started to learn programming, so I am able to create many prototypes. I felt like I finally had all the cards in hands to realize my projects and so I started to develop StarPicker.

StarPicker sets in how many different environments?

The game sets in 5 different environments. I also took some time at the beginning to develop a quite modular level generator in order to make the environment creation easier. So the main story of StarPicker has 5 environments but I think I’ll propose DLC (charge or not, according to the audience feedback) after the release of the game. It’s possible that some presents new environments.


The different environments will be linked by storyline?

StarPicker tells a story about a complicated mission to accomplish during an unfamiliar journey where the player shall stay close to his teammates. That’s the storyline which leads the player to different land fragments in the space. Nevertheless each of these environments owns its own story. It goes from the logged forest to the desert witnessing the passing time, also to the mysterious abandoned city, to mention just a few.

We have been presented StarPicker at the 2015 Stunfest. What did this public show bring to you?

The Stunfest was a very enriching experience! It is not only my first convention experience as a developer, but also the first opportunity for me to put my game into the hands of a wider audience. I learnt a lot about my game from the audience. For example, the family dimension has been kept intactly compare to the orienteering in real. The feedback of my audience really helped me to make crucial choices and to correct some mistakes as well. It was really important to pass this step while the game was still in the early stages of development, this can make sure the production goes in a good direction.


The Speedrun will obviously be the core of the game. How will it be set up?

Indeed the gameplay itself own a deep routing mechanic. This Speedrun dimension will be set in two parts.

The first part is the traditional Speedrun. They are the players who planned all their actions before the game starts, the plan can be based on a deep research of optimization over plenty of practices. All the wonderful performances are the perfect execution of the plan.
And the player can use the replay tool in the game to achieve his goals. After the run, he can watch his whole trajectory on the map with all the split times. And moreover the players can save their running data to watch and to compare simultaneously several ones. It’s the perfect tool to find the ideal route.

Second, there’s what I’d call the “Real Time Discovery Speedrun”. That means the player can only plan and react in real time according to the information on the map.
The game keeps a record of how many times that a player tried in a specific level. So he will need to make the best run on his first attempt! This kind of Speedrun corresponds, to me the best, to the Orienteering in reality. And I really would like to see people to try it. The “Real Time Discovery Speedrun” requires a lot of focus and can also deliver a good dose of adrenaline.

About the multiplayer, what will be proposed?

Initially, the multiplayer will be asynchronous. It means the players will be able to exchange their running data and compare them in the replay tool. A leaderboard will also be available.
I’d also like to create event maps to invite people to make a ”one shot” in the shortest time on a brand new map.
I really think the game will be successful in the e-sport when the community follows the concept. However, I’m not at this stage of production for the moment, so I will focus on the asynchronous multiplayer at first.


The music of the trailer is particularly catchy. We can expect this kind of rythm and style for the final game?

Yes exactly! It’s actualy the reason why I choose François Crocheteux for the soundtrack and I was happy that he accepted to work with me. The universe of StarPicker is 60’s-70’s inspired. The music and sounds from the science fiction movies of those years are then the common theme of the soundtrack. And François is particularly very talented in this genre.
Then each environment and each game mode owns a specific music so you can also find a variety from the calm, peaceful music to the faster, dynamic ones.

Based on navigation, the game tries to remind us of how to live without a GPS?

Yes I grew up practicing Orienteering. I’m almost born with a map and a compass in hands. I also know these two tools can scare a lot of people and they don’t seem to be very easy to use to the public. I’d like to prove them that anyone can be able to use a map to navigate. After all the human kind does it since millenniums!
I also use GPS sometimes but I think the experience of the journey is much more interesting when you live the path than just simply following arrows.
So thanks to my simplification (compares to the Orienteering in reality), the players can learn progressively how to use a map without even noticing it. Then after playing StarPicker, I’m convinced the players will be able to use a map and a compass properly in real life. And if I succeed to give them the desire to go into the forest to even practice my favorite sport then I’ll be very happy indeed.


What’s the difference between your game and a Mirror’s Edge?

Actually the example is very pertinent. Mirror’s Edge is without a doubt the closest game to StarPicker. And I watched carefully the evolution of the second Opus.
Mirror’s Edge is mainly an obstacle race driving the player by the visual marks. The path is linear and the stress of the menace from the followers is very effective.
The second Opus takes indeed the risk to propose more open environments in which we could expect to navigate. But in my opinion, it made mistakes by giving the player a map without any useful indices when the player would like to skip the GPS.
In StarPicker it’s exactly the opposite, there’s no GPS and the map is very precise, detailed, and quickly accessible, it won’t stop the player from progressing. The map is then the core of the gameplay. And moreover StarPicker doesn’t have any fighting sequences.


The game will be released on PC… We can expect an Early Access?

The Early Access is not an option that I planned at the beginning of the development, but I’m not against it. Actually I don’t want to give to the player a version of game which is different from the final product. So only an Early Access during which I can fix the last details can be considered.

Translated from french by Shiran Zhang from the original interview by Skywilly at http://www.gamesidestory.com/2016/07/24/interview-starpicker-le-speedrun-autrement/

[BlackRice]

The next version of StarPicker is coming soon!



Meanwhile and before stretching your legs into mysterious lands, my first game Maestria's Flower just became free on iPhone and iPad, so enjoy it!!!

Do not hesitate to follow the development of StarPicker also on the various social network. Thanks to you the game experience can always be better.

The official page of StarPicker is coming very soon too!
http://www.starpickergame.com/


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[BlackRice]

What about Orienteering in some space desert landscape?
Here comes a new environment for StarPicker!