Island Update

Here's how things are looking now:

In a strange twist of fate, the corner of the island that I chose long ago to be closest to the camera is the place that has taken longest to develop. As you can see, we are continually modifying this area but it's still in a very rough state. Most other areas of the island are further along.

Lately I have been doing a little bit of playtesting and high-concept discussion (more on this later in the week). I've also been doing more work on the endgame. The modelers have been cranking away at making areas look better. I think we have another engine technology posting coming down the pipe.

16 Comments:

  1. It’s looking very nice indeed. I like how you’ve brought the terrain up a bit on the right to show that the building’s really built into the mountain.

  2. Matthew Marsala

    The island really reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer is drugged and sent to an island where he is given a number and he has no idea how or why he is there. I don’t think this is your intent, but this is just what the island reminds me of.

  3. Has anyone been thinking about how the game feels to play and not just what is supposed to look like? And by feel I don’t mean like minute to minute visual interest or pacing or what your going to be doing, but… How do you walk, at what speed. How do you look around? How far up can you see and how far dawn can the camara go, how will you turn around. You can’t jump, you can’t sprint, the island is small but dense so I;m not concerned about walking speed or jumping…

    But recently I played Datura on PSN from Plastic (creators of Linger in the Shadows) and O MY GOD… that game has to have the worst controls of all time for a first person game! You move as if you were playing an old Resident Evil game, first you turn and the you must go forward, this still uses one analog stick but it feels soo wrong! Then when you turn arounf is not like you would turn arounf on a FPS because there is thius little animation your body actually turning BUT ONLY 90 DEGREES AT A TIME its so bad! and then the camara can only look up and down and to eather side by a small tiny degree if you want to look to your sides you have to turn BY 90 FUCKING DEGREES and to look up or down completely is just impossible, you can’t look up or down.

    So I’m just curios of the second to second to millisecond feeling of the game regarding seeing, and moving. Have you played Datutra? One of the worst games I have played in my entire life, not because of the content in the game but because i can’t do jack shit to get to the game and what it has for me because of all this artistic bullshit they try to pull! god why!

    • If it is really releasing on iOS then it should have a simplified version of the Myst controls. I think that this would add a lot of accessibility to players that normally struggle with 3D first person games. Whatever the controls are, I bet they won’t be anything close to FPS controls.

  4. Is that string of blue rectangles the future site of a river?

  5. It looks to me like a pathway with no texture yet. Maybe players were having trouble finding the entrance it leads to.

  6. Hey might anyone know how I met in contact with Jonathan or anyone else on the project? I’m a student 3d modeler/texture artist looking for internship opportunities.

  7. Is there any method of communicating conceptual tidbits to you (Jonathan) in confidence. I want to make a comment but given the nature of its content I would not want to give the impression that I intend to make a scene.

  8. it remind me Neverhood game
    i mean just feel about exploration a strange united new world to me..

    I have not read the text so far
    sorry – its just message about passing feel : ]
    ps. good luck with develop game

  9. When’s this damn game coming out already, I’m ready for some enlightenment : ).

    Seriously though, what kind of upper bound are we looking at? 2012? 2013? 2014?

    • People always ask that! And Jon always says “When it’s done” I want to try and be more helpfull!
      From what I can gather from following this game for 2 yeasr now is…
      Late 2012 or early 2013 for sure! not 2014!
      Platforms: PC Windows launch and Ipad lauch or soon after, then mayb e a console or a next gen console (eaither Sony’s or Microsoft’s, Nintendo’s not likely)
      But this could change at any time… Jonathan and his games have this kind of crazyness.
      Just wait, its going to be great : D

      capcha: schit increase (lol)

  10. I can’t come up with a better way to say this.

    This is the only game that I’m truly looking forward to. After seeing very little footage of it in 2010, I was stunned by its potential. Exploratory puzzle games like this are few and far between, and this one is lengthy and being created by a proven puzzle expert. Can’t get much better than that.

    Two years later and I’m still excited. Seeing new updates of the island on here makes me happy as can be (so please update more, haha)!

    Thanks for keeping us posted for so long – The work all of you have put into this is insane.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.