Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The Early Days

The idea of building a game out of clay and cardboard came from Erik. I was very skeptical at first, knowing the highly iterative nature of game development. Having to build static sets would force me to pre-plan far more than I was used to, which I didn't feel comfortable doing.

But Erik persisted and, in order to convince me, whipped up these four test environments more or less overnight – painted and all.
As you can see, a lot has happened since then. We don't use primary colors in the way Erik did in some of these tests, instead opting for a more muted desaturated color scheme. And our shape language ended up being much more straight and angular. 
But for a brief proof-of-concept I thought they where damn charming, and after seeing what could be done, I jumped on board. So this is actually the embryo to The Dream Machine.

At this stage, Erik was working as the Producer for various commercials in Gothenburg and I was hired as an Art Director for a games studio in Malmö. Neither of us was very happy about our work situations and saw this project as a chance to get back to the early days, when we worked out of sheer mad determination and passion.

Based on these rough tests and a story treatment, we managed to acquire some money in order to produce a proof-of-concept demo. And the rest, as they naggingly like to say, is history.

And since I'm in a nagging mood: don't forget, the open BETA testing for chapter 1 is still running. If you'd like to participate, just go to http://www.thedreammachine.se/game.html and click the pink "Beta Sign-up" button. That'll give you full, instant access to the first chapter.

We hope you enjoy playing the game!

Cheers,

 - a

8 comments:

  1. These are nice, Anders, give my compliments to Erik. They don't have quite the welcoming appeal of Victor and Alicia's apartment, though: I wouldn't want to stay too long incase something crawled up my trouser leg=S

    You've had a nice mini-review today on one of the blogs I regularly read:

    The (beautiful) Dream Machine on Gnome's Lair

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  2. Thanks Daniel!

    That's a great find! Hope you're doing well in the heat wave.

    Cheers,

    - a

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  3. A friend of mine posted a link to this article which led me to sign up for the Beta:

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/07/21/handmade-adventure-the-dream-machine/

    I'm still in the apartment, but I'm already fascinated. I have a couple of game comments and a minor typo bug so far. Where is the best place to submit those?

    Such a wonderful idea in how you've created the game world. Keep up the great work!

    Nikki

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  4. I'm so impressed by Chapter 1.. I simply can't wait for Chapter 2... Please can we have some news and/or a release date soon? x

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  5. Sure thing!

    We'll keep you updated once we have a set release date.

    Also, we're thrilled that you like the game!

    Cheers,

    - a

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  6. I've played the beta and I'm really looking forward to the actual release.

    You mentioned more than once that you aquired money for this project. Could you tell us where exactly that came from? Was it an investment from those business type people? A loan from a bank? A friend?

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  7. Ritchie Thai, the money has come from a couple of different cultural grant funds.

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  8. I just played through Chapter 1 yesterday and recognized the engine immediately as being the same or similar to the Gateway series', though at the time I didn't think much of it, because the style is so different. I was kinda waiting for Gateway 3, but this is definitely something else. I can't wait to see where the story goes, and this was a great introduction. I love those sets Erik built, they're awesome. Hopefully you'll get to use them.

    Alicia's dream wasn't THAT disturbing. You had me thinking all kinds of grotesque things when she wouldn't tell Victor.

    Cheers from the US.

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