Hope your holiday period was joyous and relatively stress free! We also briefly holidayed and have been back in action since early January - we havent disappeared off the face of the Earth, we promise! After doing an internal playtest, weve been prototyping some new game systems that have changed a few things about gameplay for the better. Were hoping to get a play tester demo into your hands ASAP - we havent forgotten! A lot of cool stuff has been happening in the past two months, some of which we cant talk about just yet, but what has been happening on the game that we can talk about? WELL: In programming/design, we all came up with some new gameplay systems as we felt there were some things lacking in our previous build. We now have a cool new feature called an affinity system, which are choices between objects that you choose in the room which spawn more objects based off of that. These affinity choices also affect the path you traverse in the game - so choose wisely.
Heres a concept gif of the affinity choice that Jasmine has mocked up. Also in programming and design, Julian has been improving the placement system to allow for greater precision in placement (using some linear algebra and vector mathematics) and already things are placing way nicer than they used to be! Zac is repurposing our story-mode editor to handle our new systems and allow me to create our story rooms by playing the game!
Julians crazy gizmos for calculating placements (don't worry they are only for dev debugging and won't be in the final game). On the art side Jasmine is concepting up the new affinity item selections (as they will contain both the key choice and minor items that will swap out based on your choice). Our affinities are Academic/Science, Creative/Art, and Sport/Adventure (all with their own little quirks and additions) so we are trying to make items that match these! Shes also started conceptualizing the final versions of all our rooms based on our whiteboxed layouts - so yes, the childhood bedroom youve seen so much of is likely to have some changes!
Version A, B, C of one of our new childhood bedrooms Which brings us to the story side of things! We did a massive rescope of the story tree at the end of January, trimming a lot of things that werent necessary and picking the strongest story paths to move forward with (thankfully, wed written a lot of different ones previously so we really like where we ended up!). These story trees are a little boring to look at (plus, dont want to spoil anything!), so Ill just share some of the vibes of some of the rooms instead.
References weve pulled off google to inform how to further conceptualise our chosen rooms. Thank you so much for your continued patience and support! Game development is an absolute web of several things going on at once. We have a lot of major beats coming up and we hope to keep you up-to-date with everything thats going on! Everything is cranking up a notch this year and were very excited to share a slice of Momento with you soon. Hope you have a great week ahead of you! Jess and the Momento Team

Happy Holidays!! Hope you are doing well! Thank you everyone who signed up to our playtesting form we had a lot of interest so we will be going through them to start picking people for our first round of playtesting in January Be sure to sign up to our newsletter to be notified about future playtesting rounds! Weve been doing a lot this past month and a bit! We had a push to get a playable version of the story mode for a local showcase night earlier in the month and weve been rebuilding rooms to allow for different sized rooms (getting tiling wall/floor assets etc.) Zac has also made us a hue-shift tool somewhat working so we and you will be able to change the colours of some of our items! Some of these include shelves, ottomans, beds, and paint tubes! Jasmine has been making the appropriate colour palettes for them
(I did not intend for this to loop so beautifully but it did)
Jasmine has also been testing out furniture that you could pop together and change around: kind of like modular IKEA prefabs.
Jasmine has also been doing some basic concepts of our level select, we expect this will change and evolve next year. Julian has worked out some interval puzzle stuff as well as changing room sizes so we can have BIGGER and smaller and narrower and wider rooms. Hes currently working on system for some letters you can collect throughout the game.
Ive been building the story branches in the engine, heres a little sneak peak!
(Some of the art is still grey as they are temporary objects ) [table noborder=1 equalcells=1] [tr] [td]
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[/td] [/tr] [/table] There's still a lot were going to add to this prototype before we show the early playtesters! Well be going through a lot of the rooms we already have and looking for what we are missing. I wish I could also show you what our sound design team have been doing because it sounds BEAUTIFUL but alas, youll have to wait! Its amazing to look back and see how much we have achieved in this year! We built creative mode to build story mode, as well as the story mode builder. We did a lot of development on the narrative design for Momento, as well as all the art tests and standardization. We have a huge database for furniture and items, as well as our hue-shift tool to change their colours! We also went to a few showcases both local and international! I know its been a quieter year for us on socials but weve been making a lot of good work! There are a couple more tests we need to do by the end of the year but soon well just be building the story, making tons of art, and getting it out to our playtesters! Thank you so much for following our journey so far! We wish you a very happy holiday season and new year! Youll be hearing from us in January Lots of love Jess and the Momento Team

How are you? It feels like it has been (checks calendar) forever! Julian and I have been away doing showcases and talks and pitches and conferences but were back now and everyone is (mostly) healthy. Weve reached 100,000 wishlists on Momento! We cant believe wed ever get to such a number when we first started this game! Thank you to everyone who has wishlisted and everyone who has joined us on our mailing list since then we couldnt be doing this without you!
Now back to the fun stuff: whilst Julian and I flew around the country with our 18 month old (conferencing with a toddler: not recommended), Jasmine and our programmer have been doing some super cool stuff in the engine likedrum roll
OBJECT STATES: you can now rotate books to be different perspectives and open them (these are temp objects which is why they are currently greyscale). I am FROTHING. Were planning to add this ability to some of our furniture as well - you can already open cupboards and drawers but youll also be able to turn chairs around to place them under desks and so on. Were doing a HUGE content push for story mode at the moment. Which means Jasmine and I are doing a lot of temp art to import into the game whilst Julian and Zac work on the systems required such as the choice system, character relationship manager, clutter system, task system, and journal system to name a few. Now that we have our creative mode and a lot of awesome tools that our programming team has made, it is so much easier for us to add new objects and make more rooms super fast!
We've been testing out different room sizes - here's some sketches Jasmine has done on our massive Miro board for story mode. In our latest newsletter, we asked you to tell us what kind of pets you would like to see in Momento (pictures were highly recommended!). We read through all of your replies and now have an overload of cute pet inspiration. Thank you all for sharing part of your lives with us If you haven't already, be sure to sign up to our newsletter if you'd like to have a say and help us with Momento's development! Thats all for now - we have a few deadlines to meet before the end of the year so its back to the grindstone for us! Hope you have a wonderful week ahead of you Jess and the Momento Team

First up is a recap from Gamescom! Over the 5 days, Jasmine met and chatted with so many wonderful people who had an incredible time playing Momentos Creative Mode! She received valuable feedback which well be working hard to implement into our next build. We hope you enjoy the stickers and postcards Jasmine gave away, as well as the TimTams (which was a crowd favorite!) Thank you again for stopping by and playing!
Jasmine at Gamescom - the cat is a big hit. We are currently working on Story Mode!!
Now that shes recovered from Gamescom, Jasmine is doing a review of our art system along with our programmer Zac who is creating an item importer tool so we can get to putting together those story rooms in the engine ASAP. Soon shell be doing art for more rooms and more objects. Were also going to do a redesign of the journal and how thatll function.
Testing out our clutter scatter system. Julian is setting up all our systems for our story mode which is so exciting to see. Weve got a clutter system started and are working on a moment in time system which will spawn new story items and clutter items. Hes also working on a relationship system at the moment, whichll affect the characters in the playable characters life.
Journal Layout Concept Im writing some story stuff (all those story paths and aforementioned characters) and making some cool shaders at the moment - including a hue-shift one so we can change the colour of some of the furniture and walls and floors without making 10000 different assets of the same thing. Were also starting to sketch up all the different story paths, so we cant wait to show you more room assets soon! Thats all from us for now~ We hope you are all doing well! Cant wait to hear back from you all Jess and the Momento Team

Hope you are well! We are doing great Jasmine is heading off to Cologne in a week or so! We are also still working on the game hehe For those going to Gamescom this is where we will be: Hall 10.1 Booth A.080! We will be showcasing Creative Mode at this festival! We cant wait to see the different rooms youll make~
So what have we been doing? I love looking back on our previous updates when I write these because it is insane to me how much gets done within a month. [table noborder=1 equalcells=1] [tr] [td]
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[/td] [/tr] [/table] Jasmine and I testing out Julians systems of stacking, snapping, and containers~ Julian:

• Snapping and Zone Tests for objects for easier placement
• Putting objects inside of other objects (stacking objects) (yes, you can now repot plants into other pots technically) - its not perfect yet but were definitely going to be working on it further after the Gamescom build!
• Refactoring container and creative mode managers

• Finalized art assets for the additional rooms and interval puzzles
• Masks for colliders
• Reviewing art of old rooms to include open and closed states
• Getting stuff ready for Cologne (Tim Tams, more stickers, business cards and the like!)
• Story teaser art
• Making TikToks
• Item States for some objects (I finally know how useful convert to smart object is )

• Story treatment review
• Additional object art for rooms (remember CD players?? Remember burning CDs to play in your car? Wild)
• Additional Light rays for additional windows
• Making custom shaders for all our lighting setups (including a lava lamp shader)
• Story item descriptions review
• Background art cleanup
• Gobos for lighting (I have rustling leaf shadows working on it yay)

Hope you are doing well! In the last month we have: shown off our creative mode at the Queensland Games Festival, applied for some showcases, and Jasmine got a grant to jet off to Gamescom in Cologne next month! Let me show you what's been going on!
Our latest creative mode build! Night Time Version Our creative mode build is what Jasmine and I will be using to build all the different rooms and connect them with the story-lines that have been laid out! Itll also be available as a mode you can play in Momento where more items and furniture will unlock as you play through the story (plus maybe therell be some hidden ways to get more stuff? ) This is some of the features it has so far:

• Place furniture: Comfort (seating, beds); Surfaces (desks, shelves, bookcases etc.); Wall Items (corkboards, mirrors); Floor Items (rugs etc.), Appliances, Storage.
• Place windows! We have backgrounds (currently one (1) but therell be more) drawn so when you move the windows around you can find the view you want! Therell be season changes we love making more work for ourselves.
• Place objects from a wide ranging list from cushions to plants to laboratory equipment!
• This build has five wallpapers and floors to choose from but theres going to be way, way more.
• Can also choose the colour of the wall trim!
• Change the time of day from Morning, Midday, and Night time. (Night-time is my favourite. Especially when you add all the glow in the dark stars everywhere More.)
• Take a photo and save your beautiful (or cursed) creations~

• Adjusting the placement system! No more things just hovering in midair :) though youll be able to toggle that on and off in the options if you REALLY want to have things hover in midair.
• Object layering system adjustments.
• Julian is also working on a light layering system because at the moment lights that are behind other objects are still rendering in front of those objects.
• Branching system rework.
• Journal system.
• Bin system
• Clutter object system.

• Art for the rooms and interval puzzles for our vertical slice build to show at upcoming festivals!
• Art for the journal UI (including a character creator of a sort? )
• Asset layering adjustments.
• Reviewing existing assets to ensure furniture with cupboards have an open state.
• Mask textures for lighting setups on objects.
• Getting ready for gamescom!

• Vertical slice twine update - making sure it makes sense to play through.
• Spreadsheets, so many spreadsheets. Spreadsheets for object descriptions, spreadsheets for task list tasks, spreadsheets for journal entries, spreadsheets of consequences.
• Reworking story treatment document.
• Shaders and headaches for lighting set-ups (currently working on those window gobos I mentioned.)
• Shaders for key objects and locations.
• Mask textures for lighting set-ups.
• Story object art.
• This news post

How are you? Happy Pride Month! I cant believe its already midway through the year, time is just FLYING We have a lot of things happening for us - all good things - but it really makes the days and weeks just blur together! Heres what weve been up to this month! Julian:

• Continued development on Creative Mode
• Designing and testing the best way to present the UI for object selection
• Drawers and cupboards close and open now!
• Improved automatic placement system for objects and furniture

• Conceptualizing UI for Creative Mode
• Finished up a few more rooms
• QA on existing art assets for consistency
• Designed some stickers to give away during in-person festivals!

• Creating Twine demos to plan out our story paths
• Experimenting with potential relationship branches depending on what objects are kept or thrown away
• Developing supporting characters further
• Conceptualizing lighting direction for different time of days

How are you doing? Weve been neck deep in work and swimming! Were in the midst of a sprint to get a build to play at some of our local showcases and working towards our Beta! We havent locked in a date yet but we are hoping to share it with you later this year. Heres what weve been doing! Julian has been putting together a first build of our Creative Mode! Its super early on but essentially this will be part of Momento where youll be able to create and decorate your own rooms. So far you can bring in different furniture, objects, and change the walls and flooring! Youll see we still have quite a few things to implement but it is so cool to see this!

Jasmine has been working on some new rooms and interval puzzles based off of some story-lines. Heres some really rough concept sketches of just two of them (dont want to spoil the rendered versions for you just yet!) Can you guess what kind of rooms these are??

Ive been working on so much story stuff that I have spreadsheet eyes. Ive also been making Momento inspired friendship bracelets (we might have them available at events at some point!) and writing up some documentation for the overarching story which I am pleased to say I can share the cover art with you!

Annnnnd thats our update! Hope you have a lovely week ahead of you! All the love, Jess and the Momento Team

Current Goal: Experiment and playtest choice mechanic and narrative mechanics. Im back from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco! It was a wild time. I met so many super cool people, listened to a lot of informative talks, showcased the Momento demo at the Australian GDC Reception, and lost my passport (dont worry I found it again!).
Heres Momento and I at the bar, just grabbing a drink together at the Australian GDC Reception yknow. We also got Screen Australia funding recently as announced here! So now that Im back, were doing a huge overhaul to our build, implementing new systems and experimenting with some new mechanics. We have a few design choices to figure out and a whole overarching narrative to implement, and a lot of assets to make. You know when you want to share your ideas but you dont want to give anything away?? Thats my current conundrum right now, writing to you. Thus, unfortunately we dont have a lot of new things to show you right now but I can share some art from the past couple of months!
An example of one of the smaller levels. What do you think is happening here?
The lab at night with the concept of notifications! Whats been going on? It has been a bit slower this month due to the team being away from the office for GDC and parenting commitments. Jasmine

• Concepting UI for game play systems.
• Concepting new gameplay mechanics.

• Refactoring prototype systems into proper game code.
• Prototyping new gameplay mechanics.

• Mapping out narrative story branches.
• Concepting narrative endings.
• Designing overarching narrative.

Current Goal: Showcase Momento at GDC and keep polishing our current build Hey everyone! How are you all doing? March is going to be very busy for us, but first things first: Happy Birthday, Momento! Its been almost a year since we first came up with the idea of Momento and weve come so far in a year. Thank you for your continued support and interest in our cozy little game! (Also its Issys birthday in less than a week too! Happy birthday, Issy - I dont know how youre already one year old but it feels like its been an entire lifetime!) Momento will also be part of the Women Led Games Showcase on March 8-10! Celebrate International Womens Day with us by watching the live show on Twitch or Youtube on March 8th 5PM EST! I (Jess) was selected to be part of the Future Leaders Delegation organised by the games section of the Australian Government - so I will be headed over to San Francisco to showcase Momento at some events during the Game Developers Conference. Jasmine and Julian will be manning the fort! Back to the games progress! Whats been going on?

• Testing how best to structure our naming conventions so we dont have to redo it a million times
• Freshening up our pitch deck for GDC
• Lining up meetings, and meetings, and more meetings
• Polishing the latest prototype build
• Fleshing out the narrative branches and story item descriptions
• Exploring gameplay mechanics for choosing key objects

• More Interval Puzzle art
• Polishing main rooms
• Conceptualizing GUI elements
• Streamlining the asset export process
• Building Momentos visual art guide for future-proofing

• Importing all the new assets into the current build
• Building a dynamic tutorial sequence
• Implementing a basic level transition system
• Building tools from scratch to streamline importing assets into Unity
• Polishing and bug fixing on the GDC build

• Pre-GDC preparations
• Mentorship and networking as part of the Future Leaders Delegation
• Creating more story items and objects
• Writing item descriptions
• Conceptualizing gameplay mechanics that better supports the story

Current Goal: Prepare a build for GDC. We are back, everyone! Weve been back for a little while now, but January was so flat out with deadlines and back-to-back illnesses that newsletters and blogs kind of got left by the sidewalk for a second. Amazing news: Momento has over 80,000 wishlists on steam which is INSANE! We couldnt have done it without the amazing community around us. Whats been happening?

• Preparing to head to GDC in San Francisco in March
• Trying to dodge daycare sickness bullet-hell
• Ticking off grant milestones and funding applications
• Prototyping UI items and task-lists
• Mind Mapping progression and story paths
• Reimagining clutter systems and decoration

• Interval Puzzle art
• Polishing GDC Build art
• UI art clean up
• Tutorial book concept

• Creating SFX lists
• Implementing SFX and VFX for UI
• Tutorial implementation
• Task-list and item description design fixes

• Narrative item art creation
• Rewrite item and task-list descriptions
• Lighting improvements and implementation for interval puzzles
• Plotting out story trees and story paths

Note: Julian, Jess and Jasmine are all parents so we are each splitting our time between caring commitments and working on the game. This means we only have 2-3 days each week to work on Momento, we are dedicated to making the best game possible but this limitation will mean production may take longer than usual.

Current Goal: Take a nap

• February: The Momento team was formed and we started brainstorming some game ideas. I think there was a second-hand shop repurposing idea in there somewhere, and some sort of zoo tycoon inspired game. But Momento was the one that really struck a chord.
• March: Issy made her entrance into the world. Jess went on maternity leave whilst recovering from major surgery. Momento was chosen as the idea to take forward.
• April: Jasmine and Julian began experimentation whilst continuing to work contract work for four days a week. (Jess in the trenches)
• May: We pitched Momento on TikTok and it went viral! (If anyone tells you maternity leave is a holiday deck them)
• June: Julian and Jasmine finished their contract work and the Momento website was built. (From my vague and distorted memories taking care of Issy got slightly easier at this point)
• July: Jess returned to work! Julian and Jess now worked two days a week each whilst splitting care for Isabelle. Momento website went live.
• August: We put together a submission for Screen Queensland grant funding. We created more rooms for the game, and we got covered by Gamesradar!
• September: Started on prototype production and started mapping out individual story-paths. whilst preparing to head off to GCAP in early October.
• October: Julian and Jasmine headed to GCAP where they pitched to some publishers. We applied for more grants, continued prototyping, put together our Steam Page, and made a game trailer for the Wholesome Snack.
• November: Julian worked every available Momento to get a prototype ready in time for our end of year showcase with Screen Queensland. Meanwhile Jess and Jasmine worked on finalising the Steam Page, even more grant funding applications (the applications never end), and getting everything ready for the Wholesome Snack.
• December: Ramped up for the Wholesome Snack and Steam Page reveal! Then we did some end of year stuff, celebrated receiving the Screen Queensland grant, and participated in the showcase at the Screen Queensland residency. Currently we are enjoying a little breather before we knuckle down to work in the new year.

Momento's offical Annoucement Trailer is live! We just premiered our annoucement trailer in the Wholesome Snack: The Game Awards Edition. There were so many amazing games shown and we feel very lucky to be included among them [previewyoutube=9IE17VepmB0;full][/previewyoutube]