Why is the game only playable online?

During the time since launch some people have expressed concerns over the fact that the game is only playable online, with no downloadable version being offered. We'd like to take the moment to address these concerns and outline some of the reasons why we've chosen this model.

As gamers, we think the pros of this model outweigh the cons:

Play on any OS (Mac, PC, Linux). Play from any computer (home or work) with cloud saved inventory, settings and progress. No install required: play instantly, without the game taking up any of your precious hard drive space. Patching is automatic. We can continuously add things like language support down the line.


We also consider this game to be a continuously supported service, not a static product that we're done with and then just send out into the world never to hear from again. Distributing it online allows us to check statistics for how people play and adjust the game accordingly. If enough people try to solve a puzzle in a way we didn't think of, or can't solve it at all, we can actually see that and act accordingly. This helps us make the game better.

Another factor is Piracy. We're only two people making this game and we don't have the financial backing of a publisher. We looked a lot at what had happened to Machinarium. They released the game as a single downloadable file and unfortunately got heavily pirated because of that. According to their estimation about 85-95% of the played copies where pirated versions, and though we're quite liberal about piracy, those numbers sound frankly depressing. That's was a situation we wanted to avoid. We hope you understand.

We don't limit how many computers you can play the game on or how many times you can install the game, which to us differentiates us from intrusive DRM-models.

The game requires an Internet connection because of the cloud save system and because the assets (things like background music and the rooms) are discreetly streamed in the background to minimize loading times. Without a connection they would simply fail to load. That raises the accessibility bar a bit, but players without Internet access are getting fewer and fewer every day.

These are some of the main reasons we went with online distribution. Is it too intrusive? Do you fear you might lose your game?

Feel free to voice your opinion in the comments.

Cheers,

 - a

Independent Games Festival

We just heard word that The Dream Machine is a 2011 IGF Main Competition Finalists! So it looks like we'll be going to San Francisco in the end of February! If you plan on going to GDC, don't hesitate in stopping by our little demo station!

This was the second time we entered the game into the competition. Last year we didn't get nominated for anything, but the judges provided solid constructive feedback, which really helped us hone in on the games week spots. A year later we submitted a much more polished, much better game and this with much better results.

We've been quietly chipping away at this game for two years now. A crazy undertaking, some might say, but reading the kind words of players, and getting this kind of news, strengthens our belief that it's all been worth it.

Speaking for myself, this has been the hardest, most challenging thing I've ever undertaken – but also the most gratifying. A big sloppy Thank You hug to everyone who's egged us on along the way!

Cheers,

 - a

PayPal

Right now we're looking into offering alternatives to PayPal to those of you who – like us – don't happen to agree with their handling of the WikiLeaks case.

It will be while until we have an alternative payment system up and running, though, so for now I guess PayPal will have to suffice.

If you have already bought the game through PayPal, don't worry, changing or adding another payment method won't affect your purchase.

Cheers,

 - a

We have lift-off!

One...

Two...

Three...

Any day now...

Sorry about the lack of updates, but we've been busy getting the new website done. Right now we're tinkering with the last minute polish, so it's not live yet. Though it may look similar to the old one, the functionality has actually gotten a complete and much needed overhaul.

So what's different, you ask? Well, for one, the Store menu option is now accessible, so you can actually buy the game! If you do, you'll get immediate access to the second Chapter of The Dream Machine, so you can finally find out what's on the other side of that door...

We have also implemented the system that saves your progress, inventory and settings to the cloud, so you can play the game from any computer. The cloud save system has actually been running parallel to the old cookie based system for a while now, in order to minimize any possible transitional friction. Hopefully you won't even realize that something is different at all.

With this bad boy out the door (tomorrow most likely), we can finally turn our full attention to the latter chapters of the game; which are looking really good so far.

We can't wait to hear what you think of Chapter 2!

Cheers,

 - a

Why the game won't be free

It dawned on us that we haven't really made any clear statement as to whether the game will cost money or be free. So in the interest of clearing things up a bit, here's the model we're currently considering:

The first chapter will be released for free, to give everyone a fair chance to try the game and see if they like it. The following four chapters will cost money, however if you pre-order them before the game is released you will get them at a discounted price. The system for pre-ordering will come online sometime next week hopefully. Pre-ordering the game will let you play the second chapter immediately.

Though we'd like to release the game for free, we simply can't afford it. We're only two guys working from our homes. We don't have any investors or publishers backing us up. We've been working on The Dream Machine for almost two years now, and we've put a lot of time and soul into making it.

We'd also put the money we hopefully make into working on another game like this. So if you like this type of game, why not vote with your money and support the makers? If you don't support this type of niche games, they will vanish and be replaced by bland same-y shooter clones, like Call of Honor™, Medal of Duty™ and Modern Halo™.

In an effort to make everybody happy, we will release the game as cheaply as we possibly can. That is the best we can do without going bankrupt. If you'd like to chime in on what you think is a fair price, feel free to do so in the comments. We will keep your opinion in mind as we decide on the final price point.

More about that next week.

Cheers,

 – a

Would you buy a used car from these guys?

Just a quick heads-up to say that development on Chapter 2 is almost complete, and we're gearing up to launch the first two chapters in the coming weeks. It's a frightening – but very exciting – prospect. We've been working on this beast for two years now, and being at a stage where it's time to release it into the world, makes us feel like nervous parents seeing their kid off to their first day of school.

The beta testing of Chapter 2 is now over and we thank everybody who helped us break the game! There's still some minor tweaks to fix, but the bulk of the chapter is robust.

We also had the chance to talk a bit about the game when we where in Texas. If you feel like hearing what we have to say, you can find a stellar write-up/video interview here:

IndiePub interviews The Dream Machine team

Cheers,

 – a

Don't mess with Texas!

The Dream Machine won in the Best Art category at IndiePubs 3rd Independent Game Developers' Competition! Thanks to everyone involved!

Jury's motivation: "The Dream Machine was chosen for Best Art due to the meticulous detail that went in to every object and landscape in the game. Even the smallest element, from the wet grains of sand, to the uneven floorboards, or even the cracks in the ancient stone pieces, adds volumes to the narrative and immersion presented to the player. By using an art form rarely seen in games and presenting it in a masterful manner, it is no wonder that The Dream Machine has earned the award for Best Art."

Seen above is the stellar Hitbox Team, who walked away with the Grand Prize for their superb game Dustforce! Congrats to Woodley and his team on a well-deserved win! Just seeing that photo makes us all warm and fuzzy inside!

You can read about – and play – all the finalists here.

Cheers,

  – a

Match made in heaven

Some of the Photoshop wizards over at Eurogamer made this sweet little mash-up image with Morton and Meatboy for a recent article. And boy, don't they look good together?

They look so happy, so tranquil! Can you hear the slow jam playing in the background? Or the sound of Morton tapping his little feet to the rhythm? I swear, any second now they'll burst into song. Their voices will be as clear as a crystal gently washed by spring dew.

If you want to read said article – which we recommend since it's really good – you can find it here:

Eurogamer's The Dream Machine interview

Hug the universe!

Through an awesome stroke of good fortune, we've been nominated for an award in the 3rd indiePub developers' contest! We feel deeply honored and look forward to going to the ceremony at GDC Online in Austin, TX in the beginning of October.

If you plan on attending, swing by the IndiePub booth and hang out with us a bit. Erik is the tall blond fellow with the shifty gaze. Anders is the short, brown haired biker/outlaw type standing next to him.

Aside from answering questions about The Dream Machine, we both enjoy dancing slowly and amorously for money.

We also enjoy it when people buy us drinks.

Hell Week Survived 2

We just pulled through another crunch period to get Chapter 2 finished. It wasn't as grueling as the last one, but working around the clock for extended periods of time does leave you drained and whimpering. The good news is however that sitting on our hard drives right now is a feature complete, fully playable version of Chapter 2.

Sure, it's still a bit rough and buggy in places, but for an early playable it's also surprisingly solid.

In the coming week we'll play test the crap out of it, before turning our full attention to Chapters 3 & 4. We will need some help with the testing, so if you feel like helping us out, don't be shy to give us a shout in the comments section or on our Facebook page. It won't be an open beta like Chapter 1 was (there's only a limited amount of beta keys), but if you're willing to play the game a couple of times and try to break it in whatever way you can, you're A-OK in our books.

In other – slightly related – news, the voting for the IndiePub competition is now over. We hope we win, because it would help us a lot. But, more than that, we hope you had a chance to play some of the entered games!

And if you're wondering why Erik hasn't written in a while, it's due to the fact that he just became a father.

Cheers,

 – a

IndiePub Competition

Just a quick heads-up about our latest progress. Some of the assets are starting to come online as you can see from the screenshot above, and they look stunning to say the least!

We're sure most of you agree.

But we also got the impression that some of you aren't quite as thrilled about our decision to turn the game into a standard, run-of-the-mill shooter – and now we'd like to give you guys a chance to change our minds!

If you go the IndiePub Competition page and vote for your favorite game, along with a runner-up, we promise not to redesign the game, but instead keep it a pure point'n'click love fest, like god intended.

The New Deal

If you're wondering why the game is taking so long, it's basically down to the fact that we just recently decided to completely overhaul the design and make a straight first person shooter out of it instead. 

After studying the numbers, it turns out that that is the most lucrative genre nowadays, and who are we to argue with good business interests? Let's milk this teet dry, before hopping on the next money printing train! Who cares if we beat the market to a pulp with bland same-y action clones?

So here it is: the new story revealed!

The plot now revolves around a futuristic space marine, named Cutter Blade, sent on a mission to shot everything that moves. You have undergone years of psycho-chemical conditioning and rigorous training in order to be able to masturbate pure fury out of the nozzle of any weapon on earth! These are desperate times, you see, the Orks are attacking, and the only thing standing between the planet and its imminent destruction – is you.

Also, our online multiplayer component features a soon-to-be-industry-standard "Pay Per Bullet"-micro transaction system™! If you're really accurate with your head shots, you don't have to pay as much as your noob friends. Hell yeah!


Homophobic, racist and gender based slurs all give you discounts to the price. The more you spew – the less you pay! With a sweet "Sailor Talk"-achievement™ awarded to the most vitriolic tongue on the server!

We will also have an unlockable mode that turns the Orks into zombies or nazis! Or perhaps a spicy combination of the two – the Nazi Zombie! "Coming back from the dead to ethnically cleanse the living!" Man, this game just writes itself! Give us another day or two and we'll be able to cram ninjas and pirates into this bad boy as well!

So what plastic peripheral will be required to play, you ask? The answer is as simple as it is brilliant: every last one! 3D-glasses are a given! The full Rockband™ instrument lineup! A Wiimote™ plus the WiiFit board, used during the aerobics mini-game! A Singstar™ mic (or equivalent headset) used for shouting expletives at opponents! The PlayStation™ Move! And lastly a Kinect™ camera, so you can force your child to pretend getting face-licked by the Nazi Zombies! Cringeworthy moments of fun for the whole family!

Rest assured that the game will end on a hugely unsatisfying cliffhanger, so we can hook you into buying DLC extensions for the rest of your life. It's all part of the experience! Who needs closure when you can be spoon fed irrelevant exposition that "deepens" the "story"?

Are you as excited as we are?! Let's give it up for Cutter Blade!

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

Second Beta Crunch

Erik just put the final touches on our most ambitious build to date, and it's glorious. We wish we could show you more, but we don't want to spoil it.

We're still working hard on the gameplay for Chapter 2 and assets for coming attractions. I guess you could say we've entered crunch to get the second chapter feature complete.

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.

In the interest of full disclosure, we have a system running discreetly in the background, that registers statistics for how many players actually solve any given puzzle in the game. If we note that we have a significant drop anywhere, we can add clues or re-think the problem entirely. We want the game to be challenging, but if we lose 30% of our players on one puzzle, we have to do something about it.

We also note different interactions the player attempts, that we didn't think of. If enough people try to use, say, the baby oil with the apartment key, we go in and write a response for that. Our hope is that, in the end, every possible interaction will have a proper response, instead of the boring default "That doesn't seem to work".

So even if you don't take the time to send us detailed bug rapports, you are in fact helping us make the game better just by playing.

And we thank you for that.

Cheers,

 - a

BETA testers wanted!

We've been accepting BETA testers for a while now, but it just dawned on me that we'd never made any sort of official announcement about it. I apologize for that, and a bunch of other, non-related stuff.

I guess I'm in an apologetic mood.

First and foremost, I want to apologize to my father for having laughed derisively at the issue of The Phantom he bought me when I was about ten years old. I was heavily into Lucky Luke and Asterix at the time, and The Phantom -- although I knew fully well was his favorite childhood comics hero -- just seemed a bit "meh" to me. I'm sorry about that. Laughing at someones heartfelt gift is never OK. And I've learned to accept gifts more gracefully since then.

There are more things I'd like to get off my chest, but time is running out and I need to get going.

If you'd like to participate in the BETA testing of Chapter 1, just go to http://www.thedreammachine.se/game.html and click the pink "Beta Sign-up" button. When you login in, you'll get full, instant access to the first chapter of the game.

I hope you'll enjoy it. And don't be shy to tell us if you don't.

Cheers,

 - a

New trailer!

We just released another trailer for your viewing pleasure! We mainly produced it to give you something to do while you're waiting for Victor to return from that strange, unearthly dimension.

It contains some material lifted straight out of Chapter 2, so if you want your playing experience to be 100% unspoiled, you might want to watch with one or both eyes closed.

As with our last trailer, music was again provided by one of the most chill dudes we've ever met: the stupendously great Anthony Lledo.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Cheers,

 - a

All kinds of great!

We've been sending out some of our leftover masks to friends around the world, and this photo is the first to return to us. We are hoping more will show up in the coming weeks.

We also got some attention from IndieGames.com recently (here). It's not much new if you've already seen the Game Reactor interview, but its still appreciated.

An as always, join our Facebook group. It's all kinds of great!

Cheers,

 - a

Have you seen this man?

Victor just sent us an alarming SMS: From what we can gather, he's managed to get himself stuck in some kind of freaky twilight realm, halfway between Super Mario Galaxy, Tetris and German Expressionism. Apparently, the laws of physics in this place are fickle at best, and he doubts that the commute system – if he could manage to find a bus stop – would be on schedule.

The indigenous population doesn't seem to offer much help either. If you have any words of advice on how he could get out of there or how he might befriend the locals, please submit them in the comments section bellow. He also mentions that he only had an egg salad sandwich for lunch, so any recommendations for a clean, reasonably priced vegetarian restaurant would be greatly appreciated.

This alerts us to the fact that the game's tentative May release date might be in jeopardy. So until our leading man returns, the game will have to be indeterminately on hold.

We'll try to keep you posted as this situation unfolds. Our thoughts right now go out to his family.

Cheers,

- a

PS: Proper authorities have been notified.

Thank you Nordic Game!

 

We just got back from the Nordic Game conference, which was an utter blast! Lots of great people and interesting seminars (which we unfortunately didn't have much time to attend). Huge thanks to the brilliant Nordic Game crew, who made it all happen!

People seemed to enjoy our little booth, which we took great care in making as cozy and inviting as we could.

The entire first chapter was proudly on display, for those who wanted to try the game out for themselves. We also edited a new trailer for the conference, which we'll post here shortly. Aside from being better than the first one, it shows some teasing morsels from Chapter 2...

We also brought a set from the game, so people could see what these bad boys actually look like.

We get a lot of blank stares when we try to explain that we actually build the game by hand out of clay and cardboard, so having this diorama to show people really helped!

If you look carefully, you'll notice that some of the props are slightly out of scale with the others. That's because achieving the level of detail we want on such a small scale requires the fingers of an elf. In this case the Victrola and the desk lamp are built to twice the scale and have to be reduced in Photoshop afterwards.

Erik also made this beautiful display of (nearly) all the characters in the game. They're all made out of clay, which is then painted by hand before the computer wizardry takes over.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, this gives them the distinct hand made look we were going for: retaining all the little beautiful imperfections that comes for free when you do something by hand.

We also managed to get some generous press coverage for the game, from various sources. Having worked on this game for over a year – mainly from our homes – seeing it on display in magazines like Game Reactor feels beyond surreal.

Hopefully some more will crop up as the week progresses. We'll add those as we find them. Drop us a line if you've seen one we haven't.

• Eurogamer preview (Swedish)

• Gamereactor summary (English)

• Stray Dog Strut preview (English)

• Gamasutra (English)

• To round things off, this ilomilo post sums it up pretty well

This just in:

• A video interview with Game Reactor

All in all, we had stupendously fun at the Nordic Game conference, and hope we can return for future iterations. We are humbled by the effort it takes to make something like this happen, and would like to thank everybody involved once again (especially Emma, whom we secretly love).

All photos courtesy of the brilliant Oscar Wemmert!

Cheers,

  – a

Production & Co

I just found a slew of photos we took during the early months of production. If memory serves, most of these images are from early 2009. Erik had just secured some funds for a proof-of-concept game/movie mix project and I had just resigned from my job. That's basically how it all started.

Since we already had an adventure game engine up and running, we figured why settle for a proof-of-concept demo? Why not just take the money and launch full scale production straight away?

Since we knew we wanted to build the game by hand to a large extent, we set up shop at Erik's former business partner, Mikael Lindblom, in his stop motion studio at Dockhus Animation.




This is Mikael working hard on one of the games basement locations. This precise location has changed quite a lot since then, so don't worry, we're not spoiling anything for you.

This is basically how we set up most of our locations: three walls and a floor. No point in putting in a ceiling since it would not be seen by the player – and would also make lighting the set very difficult.

Setting up shop at an existing stop motion studio had the advantage of most of the equipment already being in place. Having to buy lights/rigs/dimmers/cameras/etc. would quickly have eaten up the entire budget. (Film grade lights are worth their weight in gold.)

I spent most of the early days writing the design document for Chapters 1 & 2. This was made extra nerve-wracking since Erik and Mikael where already hard at work building sets – usually faster than I could write the scenes. Any drastic changes and the whole set would have to be re-worked after the fact.

To a large extent we circumvented a lot of potential problems by setting the game in an apartment building. This way, Erik and Mikael could start building rooms by the functions they where supposed to have (a kitchen, a toilet etc.) and start working in the details once I knew specifically what the room needed to contain for gameplay purposes.

This turned out surprisingly well, even though we had to retrace our steps on some of the sets.

The characters also started out in a similarly vague fashion. In our early discussions they where basically ciphers, reduced to one or two characteristics: "shady old man", "disabled black guy" etc. Then we started fleshing them out once the process demanded it.

The handsome young fella behind the clay figurine is Erik by the way.

This is one of my favorite sets in the entire game: The dead tree.

This photo was taken over a year ago. Yeah, we have been working on this project for more than a year now. What started out as a proof-of-concept demo evolved into... something else.

In less than a month we'll be releasing the first Chapter for you to try out. We're getting ready to send our baby out into the real world.

And we're dying to hear what you think...

Cheers,

 - a

New Preview!

Our friend Bryson just posted a nice little preview about the game over at his blog. Check out what he thinks of the game here: The Dream Machine Preview

(The image above is from his brilliantly charming game LUV Tank.)

Nordic Game Conference

We'll be displaying the game at the Nordic Game Conference. If you plan to attend, don't hesitate stopping by for a demo of the game. Ample piles of clay will be available, so you can get down and dirty - and perhaps find your inner child again.

Erik's the tall blond guy with glasses. Tickle him and he'll tell you all his secrets. Anders is the short, shifty looking fellow who'll make a grab for your purse (or murse) once you turn your back.

Both enjoy it when people buy them drinks.

http://nordicgame.com/

Autistic Revelations

I put some extra effort into some of the The Dream Machine: Chapter 2 props. I build them 50% larger so they look nice for the required close-ups. We have a general rule of thumb when creating a TDM set: 70% of the stuff should look great by itself, but give the remaining 30% that extra polish and attention to detail.

I can't talk too much about the purpose of this strange contraption, but it will crop up in Chapter 2, and will be even more important in Chapters 3 and 4. The base for the dial is made out of a Swedish 1 krona coin. I'm not entirely satisfied with the above paint and design. I'll await Anders' final decision.

On a related note: I curse the day we decided to go all the way creating a game made entirely out of clay and dirt. I have... unhealthy dreams of simple vector graphics and lovely 3D objects dancing in front of me.

But remember, whatever they tell you in school: having autistic tendencies can be a resourceful trait later in life...

And, please join us on Facebook

Stay tuned folks,

 - Erik