Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts
Wil Alvarez Developer
Wil Alvarez Publisher
1970-01-01 Release
Game News Posts:
10
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
🎮 Full Controller Support
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
🎮 Full Controller Support
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A well-deserved face lift
[ 2025-03-26 17:32:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
It's been a long while, but taking a free course by the great Chris Zukowski of How to Market a Game fame, validated something we have known for a while: We need to level-up our capsule game!
So I'm here to show you something you've probably already seen. Our newest set of capsule is live! And you can see the main one here:
In our new capsule you can see the titular character Agatha Hope and her crew. From left to right: Sabah, Robert, Bluebird and Mariko.
We can't wait to have the demo ready for you to meet them.
Fly free!
[ 2025-03-26 17:32:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
On the Importance of a "Fresh Set of Eyes" - Devlog #6
We have already addressed his insightful feedback in recent builds, and,
You can watch him say it much more eloquently here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWo2IX7Sck8
[/olist]
I'm here to try to lay down how important it is to have someone like him take a critical look at your project.
You may think that playing your game constantlyis a key part of game development, and it is, but there are a [strike]few[/strike] lot of things that you cannot test for yourself, no matter how hard you try. You are simply too close, and what you think might be problems may not even be the issues you should be focusing on.
Getting a fresh set of eyes will improve your development and your game exponentially. They will point out things you had given for granted, aren't at all clear, or don't communicate what you want clearly or even at all. They'll make you realize that the experience you are aiming for is one that you cannot have yourself.
"That's all well and good Azrael, I get it 'find a fresh set of eyes'. " - You say - " but where do I find them?"
And the answer is... in the words of Canadian music icon Avril Lavigne: "complicated".
The first step is to reach out to those close to you, and although getting them to play a buggy mess of an idea you are trying to turn into a game is hard, nothing is harder than sitting by them and watch them struggle in SILENCE. If you can just shut up for however long they are willing to suffer for, you will learn a lot on how to make the experience less sucky for everyone until it's something they can enjoy.
To help with the "shutting up" part, grab a piece of paper and a pencil and scream to the pages about what is happening and most importantlywhenis happening.
Asking those close to you, has its pros and cons. Pro: They like you so they will try to help you in some way. Con: They aren't that many, you will run through them quickly and also they like you so they will try to help you in some way.
Once you have gone through everyone in your close circle at most thrice, that's it. They are too close. It's time for step two.
Asking strangers also comes with pros and cons. Con: They don't care about you or your game, so it's harder to get them to help you.Pro: there are millions of them, someone will play your game. We mostly post on our socials, our Discord and reddit. This last one being the most helpful although not a lot of uptake. The few post that have garnered some comments have been really helpful. Our subreddits of choice are: The important thing is to provide some sort of value to that community. We try to do that with varying levels of success.Regardless, we will continue to try to get a fresh set of eyes on Hope and our posts constantly and learning from what works and especially from what doesn't. Our hope, no pun intended, is that you will share your feedback with us once our demo hits Steam! Thanks for reading. Fly Free.
[ 2025-03-18 15:13:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
It feels like it has been one hundred years when we had build v0.9.48.20230305 analyzed and torn apart bythe great game design essayist from Games Over Coffee and GOC Consulting, DeVaughn Keys and let me tell you that was quite surreal. That was so long ago that the name wasn't even complete, and the characters' designs hadn't been finalized! steammocking Anyway, I'm not here to talk about what DeVaughn said for two reasons: [olist]
Strangers.
Asking strangers also comes with pros and cons. Con: They don't care about you or your game, so it's harder to get them to help you.Pro: there are millions of them, someone will play your game. We mostly post on our socials, our Discord and reddit. This last one being the most helpful although not a lot of uptake. The few post that have garnered some comments have been really helpful. Our subreddits of choice are: The important thing is to provide some sort of value to that community. We try to do that with varying levels of success.Regardless, we will continue to try to get a fresh set of eyes on Hope and our posts constantly and learning from what works and especially from what doesn't. Our hope, no pun intended, is that you will share your feedback with us once our demo hits Steam! Thanks for reading. Fly Free.
[ 2025-03-18 15:13:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
7 Tips for Time & Project Management - Devlog #5
Lets start with what I consider the most fundamental part of it all: consistency. Without consistency you wont get far. I use a technique I call "one commit a day" and the goal is to make at least one code change every day, no matter how big or small it is, as long as it is something I can push to the remote repository. But this technique is not limited to code, I also apply it to drawing, planning, designing, writing, and pretty much everything else. The idea is to move forward with whatever goal you have in mind, even if its just the tiniest bit. I've read about variations of this technique, specifically, one called the 2-minutes rule, but it doesn't matter what you call it, it's all about keeping your project relevant in your head, fighting procrastination and making it a habit. As the old adage says, one commit a day keeps regrets away. But it goes even beyond that. Me and my friends meet remotely every Wednesday night and Sunday morning for about 2 hours to work on the game. Some days are super productive, some others not so much but we are there, consistently.
Sometimes, even with the "one commit a day" rule, it's really hard to get things done. Motivation is great and it will push you through the initial phase of any project. The problem with motivation is that it is ephemeral. Once you start facing challenges and things start getting real, your brain goes: "Oh, hey! This shit is harder than I thought, so how about we just forget about it and find something easier and more rewarding?". That's because the brain loves dopamine and it will do everything in its power to keep us hooked to any source of instant gratification. That's when I put my discipline hat and say: "Fuck off, brain! I have to do at least one commit" and more often than not, that commit turns into multiple commits and sometimes even into a full feature. It goes along with the 2-minutes rule, you just need the discipline to sit down and overcome that initial resistance, then things will start to flow. Discipline is what keeps you going when motivation evaporates.
Perhaps it is because of my background but I use standard practices from Software Engineering in my personal projects and it has yielded very good results. In a nutshell, this is what I do: [olist]Figure out what is the objective I want to achieve. Define a series of S.M.A.R.T. goals (no more than 10) that will help me achieve the objective and sort them by priority/importance. Take the first goal and create a sprint/iteration for it. Define (grossly) the tasks required to accomplish the S.M.A.R.T. goal (also known as planning in Agile methodologies). Work throughout the iteration and complete as many tasks as possible (aiming to 70%). Generate a build and share it (friends, reddit, etc) to get feedback. This feedback is SUPER valuable to improve. Based on the feedback, create new tasks and assign them to sprints according to how they match each goal (unless they are bug fixes, I assign those to the immediately following sprint) Take the next goal and jump back to step 4. Rinse and repeat until finished. [/olist]
As you can see, the overall idea is to have a roadmap and understand where to put the efforts to maximize them. Remember, nothing is set in stone and you need to embrace and be prepared for change. I usually iterate over this planning often to adjust, reprioritize or simply discard stuff that doesnt make sense anymore.
When I was a kid, I learned to take advantage of the idle time to organize my thoughts and prepare for exams. For example, while my mom was cooking I'd sit with her in the kitchen to review my cheat-sheets or had her quiz me about the subject I was studying (yeah, and I'd prepare the quiz too :P). Nowadays I still follow the same principle. While I'm waiting in line at the grocery store, while the kiddo is playing by himself after he took his bottle or while Im in the bathroom doing #2, I see opportunities to organize ideas, make notes, catch up with that article or video I have in my to-do list or simply review and reshuffle the priorities of my current iteration. In my head, every minute counts. The only thing I cannot do in these windows of time (20 minutes or less) is to code. It simply doesn't work for me. My brain cannot switch contexts fast enough and, by the time I understand what to do, the time is over. However, that doesn't mean I cannot use the idle times to improve my time programming. Here's what I do. I take a task from the current iteration and start thinking about the problem, how to solve it and then I take notes (as detailed as possible). The magic happens later, when I sit down to code, check my notes and find a solution documented and ready to be implemented. I don't have to waste time thinking "what's the best way to solve this?" or make any decision. Just write the code. It's like hitting Cmd+P (or Ctrl+P if you use a PC) and watching the code getting printed.
Social media can take up a lot of your time without you realizing it and, as an adult, time is very very limited. The way I see it is, any time I spend on social media is time I'm not spending on my game or with my family. So, I stopped using Instagram, reduced my time on Twitter and Reddit to no more than 15 minutes a day, and repurposed that time to work on the game, either codingor as optimized idle time. This has definitely improved my productivity. It's still a huge dichotomy because I just want to disappear from social networks and use that time to work on my game, but who's gonna know my game even exists if I don't talk about it and promote it on social networks? Finding the right balance here is tricky but necessary.
And I'm not only talking about work-work, side projects sometimes can become almost like second jobs and we shouldn't let ourselves get lost in them. Whether it's "me time", hanging out with friends or spending quality time with my family; disconnecting from my projects and enjoying these moments is extremely important to make this whole thing sustainable, nurture the relationships with my loved ones (yes, those supporting me unconditionally through thick and thin) and even gain new perspectives by experiencing what others have created. So I workout, play a game, watch shows with Andrea or just catch up with friends. I do something that is not my project but also makes me happy. I appreciate those little moments and the people around me.
Last but not least, learn to prioritize. If you ask Andrea, she will tell you Im the type of person that wants to workout, share quality time with her and the kiddo, make a game, go on a date, watch shows, practice drumming, learn to play the guitar, learn to sing death metaland ALL AT THE SAME TIME. She always says to me: You cant do everything, choose your battles wisely and thats what Ive been doing for the last few years.As Ive already mentioned, time and energy are limited, so I prioritize my tasks very carefully. Based on the S.M.A.R.T. goals, I find out what is the most important thing at the moment (basically the one that contributes the most to the goal) and then focus my efforts on it. There you have it, my 7 tips to management your time and project without dying in the attempt. What do you think about these tips?Do you haveother tips that have improved your productivity?Let me know in the comments.
[ 2025-03-11 17:55:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
One of the questions I get asked frequently is "Wil, how do you manage to have full-time job, to spend time with your wife and baby, to workout, to play games, to watching shows, and to make video games? Where the hell do you get the time?"
The answer is easy, my friend:
Jokes aside, juggling so many things is a real challenge but after doing it for so many years (without dying in the attempt), I thought that sharing what I do might be of help to someone else out there.
The first thing I want to say (in a disclaimer fashion) is that what I'm about to share is not a recipe for success. It is just a collection of tips and tricks I have been developing and tuning over the years that work for me, use them as a reference to find what works for you and make sure you adapt them over time as your life changes.
Are you still with me? Good! Now to thefun part.
Tip #1: It's all about consistency
Lets start with what I consider the most fundamental part of it all: consistency. Without consistency you wont get far. I use a technique I call "one commit a day" and the goal is to make at least one code change every day, no matter how big or small it is, as long as it is something I can push to the remote repository. But this technique is not limited to code, I also apply it to drawing, planning, designing, writing, and pretty much everything else. The idea is to move forward with whatever goal you have in mind, even if its just the tiniest bit. I've read about variations of this technique, specifically, one called the 2-minutes rule, but it doesn't matter what you call it, it's all about keeping your project relevant in your head, fighting procrastination and making it a habit. As the old adage says, one commit a day keeps regrets away. But it goes even beyond that. Me and my friends meet remotely every Wednesday night and Sunday morning for about 2 hours to work on the game. Some days are super productive, some others not so much but we are there, consistently.
Tip #2: Discipline is key
Sometimes, even with the "one commit a day" rule, it's really hard to get things done. Motivation is great and it will push you through the initial phase of any project. The problem with motivation is that it is ephemeral. Once you start facing challenges and things start getting real, your brain goes: "Oh, hey! This shit is harder than I thought, so how about we just forget about it and find something easier and more rewarding?". That's because the brain loves dopamine and it will do everything in its power to keep us hooked to any source of instant gratification. That's when I put my discipline hat and say: "Fuck off, brain! I have to do at least one commit" and more often than not, that commit turns into multiple commits and sometimes even into a full feature. It goes along with the 2-minutes rule, you just need the discipline to sit down and overcome that initial resistance, then things will start to flow. Discipline is what keeps you going when motivation evaporates.
Tip #3: Be S.M.A.R.T.
Perhaps it is because of my background but I use standard practices from Software Engineering in my personal projects and it has yielded very good results. In a nutshell, this is what I do: [olist]
Tip #4: Optimize the idle time
When I was a kid, I learned to take advantage of the idle time to organize my thoughts and prepare for exams. For example, while my mom was cooking I'd sit with her in the kitchen to review my cheat-sheets or had her quiz me about the subject I was studying (yeah, and I'd prepare the quiz too :P). Nowadays I still follow the same principle. While I'm waiting in line at the grocery store, while the kiddo is playing by himself after he took his bottle or while Im in the bathroom doing #2, I see opportunities to organize ideas, make notes, catch up with that article or video I have in my to-do list or simply review and reshuffle the priorities of my current iteration. In my head, every minute counts. The only thing I cannot do in these windows of time (20 minutes or less) is to code. It simply doesn't work for me. My brain cannot switch contexts fast enough and, by the time I understand what to do, the time is over. However, that doesn't mean I cannot use the idle times to improve my time programming. Here's what I do. I take a task from the current iteration and start thinking about the problem, how to solve it and then I take notes (as detailed as possible). The magic happens later, when I sit down to code, check my notes and find a solution documented and ready to be implemented. I don't have to waste time thinking "what's the best way to solve this?" or make any decision. Just write the code. It's like hitting Cmd+P (or Ctrl+P if you use a PC) and watching the code getting printed.
Tip #5: Cut down on social media
Social media can take up a lot of your time without you realizing it and, as an adult, time is very very limited. The way I see it is, any time I spend on social media is time I'm not spending on my game or with my family. So, I stopped using Instagram, reduced my time on Twitter and Reddit to no more than 15 minutes a day, and repurposed that time to work on the game, either codingor as optimized idle time. This has definitely improved my productivity. It's still a huge dichotomy because I just want to disappear from social networks and use that time to work on my game, but who's gonna know my game even exists if I don't talk about it and promote it on social networks? Finding the right balance here is tricky but necessary.
Tip #6: Maintain a healthy work-life balance.
And I'm not only talking about work-work, side projects sometimes can become almost like second jobs and we shouldn't let ourselves get lost in them. Whether it's "me time", hanging out with friends or spending quality time with my family; disconnecting from my projects and enjoying these moments is extremely important to make this whole thing sustainable, nurture the relationships with my loved ones (yes, those supporting me unconditionally through thick and thin) and even gain new perspectives by experiencing what others have created. So I workout, play a game, watch shows with Andrea or just catch up with friends. I do something that is not my project but also makes me happy. I appreciate those little moments and the people around me.
Tip #7: Choose your battles wisely.
Last but not least, learn to prioritize. If you ask Andrea, she will tell you Im the type of person that wants to workout, share quality time with her and the kiddo, make a game, go on a date, watch shows, practice drumming, learn to play the guitar, learn to sing death metaland ALL AT THE SAME TIME. She always says to me: You cant do everything, choose your battles wisely and thats what Ive been doing for the last few years.As Ive already mentioned, time and energy are limited, so I prioritize my tasks very carefully. Based on the S.M.A.R.T. goals, I find out what is the most important thing at the moment (basically the one that contributes the most to the goal) and then focus my efforts on it. There you have it, my 7 tips to management your time and project without dying in the attempt. What do you think about these tips?Do you haveother tips that have improved your productivity?Let me know in the comments.
[ 2025-03-11 17:55:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Spreadsheets for Story: Here's how we Do It - Devlog #3
[ 2025-03-03 16:34:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Aloha! Azrael here again with a brief follow-up on last's Devlog.
Since we shared it on Redditwe gota few great comments and questions. One of them was very interesting to me:
Since I thought it might be useful to more people, below you will find the question and answer with a couple of screenshots from our spreadsheet.
How do you set up a spreadsheet to work on a story?
That's a good question, and the answer is,you don't. (::shy smiley::).
We first identified a skeleton of the outline in free-form writing, but when it came to its implementation, we needed a structured way to follow it from start to finish.That's where a spreadsheet has worked wonders for us.
We have used spreadsheets for characters, relationships, motivations and more, but the biggest impact it's had is breaking down the story into its smallest pieces.
Once we knew what we wanted the story to be, we identified the components common to all scenes and give each a column in the spreadsheet. For us they are:
- Objective/Quest: This column will have a brief title for what the scene is about or which quest it belongs to
- i.e.: Access the Lunar Base
- What: the what is happening in this scene and only during this tiny part of the scene.
- i.e.: Get to the Control Access Point
- How: the how is the scene presented or the objective accomplished, is this a mini game? which one. Is it a cinematic or a scripted scene. That goes here
- i.e.: Navigation: this means the player walks there
- Beginning: Well... how the scene starts, the current status or place the game is in
- i.e.: The player/Agatha is at the entrance of the lunar base
- Ending: the state the game is in after events have happened
- i.e.: Arrived at the Control Access Point
- Comments: this is to guide the scene, mood of the conversation, who is pissed at who and why.
- i.e.: Agatha is dizzy from the trip to the moon.
- Objective: Start the *SPOILERY SPOILER* process
- What: Agatha tries to get Mariko's help
- How: Conversation + Decisions
- Beginning: Mariko is pissed at the crew because *SPOILERY SPOILERS*
- Ending: Agatha manages to ease Mariko's concerns but not enough to get her to help at this time.
- Comments: at key parts of the conversation, the player will be prompted with 3 options at a time to decide the next line Agatha says to navigate this situation.
[ 2025-03-03 16:34:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Seattle Indies Expo 2024 Post Mortem
The event ran from 12pm to 9pm. During that time we had 39 people playing the game with an average play session of 20 minutes, accrued 23 wishlists, 68 visits to the Steam page and 50+ people stopping by to know more about the game.
We brought two machines for people to play the demo and it paid off. There wasnt a second where any of the machines were idle. As I mentioned above, the amount of people that played the game and the length of the sessions were astonishing (considering our game is a point & click with lots of narrative and a big expo like this is not particularly the best setting to enjoy it). We also brought a retractable banner (78" x 33") with the name/art of our game and a huge QR code. This gave us enough visibility around the other booths (pretty much everyone had one) and people were able to scan the code easily to get to our Steam page. Lastly, networking! We were able to reconnect with other gamedev friends and meet a lot of cool people. From streamers looking for short & sweet indie games to play to journalists interested in reviewing games from the Pacific Northwest.
Since both of the machines were busy with people playing the demo, we didnt have anything else to play the trailer. An extra monitor with another device to put the trailer on loop would have been a great addition. A handful of people completed the demo (~1 hour of gameplay) and we didnt have anything special to reward them. It was really humbling and flattering that, even with a one-day badge for PAX, these people decided to spend so much time with our game and our story. Ultimately, we had some prints about a proof of concept for an in-game propaganda and we gave them away to the last 3 but it would have been awesome if we had this planned from the beginning with something more cool or meaningful. Despite the fact that the banner gave us great visibility and helped us point people towards our Steam page, we didnt do a very good job at promoting our Discord server. We didn't even have the link handy and had to improvise to share it with some folks interested in following the development of the game. We like to keep the player logs when we do play testing for debugging purposes. However, we couldnt automate this process for SIX and we found ourselves spending precious minutes between sessions preserving these files (closing the game, rename log file with the player number, restarting the game). What we learned We confirmed that nothing beats playtesting to understand how people approach your game (even more if they have never heard about it) and expos are king in this regard. During the GeekFest West 2024 we learned that in-person events are terrible for wishlists and SIX 2024 was just the confirmation of that. Even though we had zero expectations for the number of wishlists, Id say that 23 is not too shabby. Another thing we learned is that is very risky to arrive at a big expo like this one with a build that significantly changes the way players interact with the elements within the game (the interaction system, basically) without enough testing. I generated the build the day before at 3PM and was a bit scared the first couple of hours. Luckily, everything worked like a charm and people reacted really well to the new changes. But, what if that wasnt the case? What if the game wouldve exploded and people couldnt pass the tutorial scene? We had a fallback build from a month ago but, still, we were playing with fire. We definitely need to automate the log rotation between player sessions. We could go even further by adding timestamps to the logs (Unity doesnt do it by default) and keep metrics of the time spent on each scene. Thats really useful to understand player behavior and see if our assumptions about the game design are working as expected. Last but not least, keeping your enthusiasm throughout the day is really important. Towards the end of the day, we were exhausted, thirsty and hungry but we kept talking about our game with the same love and passion we did in the morning. This was apparent for the people and made them want to explore the game further.
This was just our second event and the experience was incredible. If youre a gamedev and have the opportunity to join an in-person event near you, do it! It will be, without a doubt, an amazing learning experience. I cant thank all the organizers, judges and volunteers from the Seattle Indies community enough for putting together such an incredible event and for giving us the opportunity to participate with Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts. I'm super proud and grateful to be part of this community! If youre still reading, thank you! Im more than happy to answer any questions or provide more details about our experience in this event. Take care, and fly free!
[ 2024-10-14 17:01:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Its been a little more than a month since we participated in the Seattle Indies Expo (SIX for short) as exhibitors with Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts and, now that the dust has settled, I would like to share with you all our learnings, what went well and what didnt go so well. SIX is a one-day in-person celebration of independent games made in the Pacific Northwest. At SIX, indie game developers can showcase their games (no matter if theyre released or a work in progress) to thousands of attendees that also have the opportunity to ask devs questions, play demos and give feedback.
Some stats
The event ran from 12pm to 9pm. During that time we had 39 people playing the game with an average play session of 20 minutes, accrued 23 wishlists, 68 visits to the Steam page and 50+ people stopping by to know more about the game.
What went well
We brought two machines for people to play the demo and it paid off. There wasnt a second where any of the machines were idle. As I mentioned above, the amount of people that played the game and the length of the sessions were astonishing (considering our game is a point & click with lots of narrative and a big expo like this is not particularly the best setting to enjoy it). We also brought a retractable banner (78" x 33") with the name/art of our game and a huge QR code. This gave us enough visibility around the other booths (pretty much everyone had one) and people were able to scan the code easily to get to our Steam page. Lastly, networking! We were able to reconnect with other gamedev friends and meet a lot of cool people. From streamers looking for short & sweet indie games to play to journalists interested in reviewing games from the Pacific Northwest.
What didnt go so well
Since both of the machines were busy with people playing the demo, we didnt have anything else to play the trailer. An extra monitor with another device to put the trailer on loop would have been a great addition. A handful of people completed the demo (~1 hour of gameplay) and we didnt have anything special to reward them. It was really humbling and flattering that, even with a one-day badge for PAX, these people decided to spend so much time with our game and our story. Ultimately, we had some prints about a proof of concept for an in-game propaganda and we gave them away to the last 3 but it would have been awesome if we had this planned from the beginning with something more cool or meaningful. Despite the fact that the banner gave us great visibility and helped us point people towards our Steam page, we didnt do a very good job at promoting our Discord server. We didn't even have the link handy and had to improvise to share it with some folks interested in following the development of the game. We like to keep the player logs when we do play testing for debugging purposes. However, we couldnt automate this process for SIX and we found ourselves spending precious minutes between sessions preserving these files (closing the game, rename log file with the player number, restarting the game). What we learned We confirmed that nothing beats playtesting to understand how people approach your game (even more if they have never heard about it) and expos are king in this regard. During the GeekFest West 2024 we learned that in-person events are terrible for wishlists and SIX 2024 was just the confirmation of that. Even though we had zero expectations for the number of wishlists, Id say that 23 is not too shabby. Another thing we learned is that is very risky to arrive at a big expo like this one with a build that significantly changes the way players interact with the elements within the game (the interaction system, basically) without enough testing. I generated the build the day before at 3PM and was a bit scared the first couple of hours. Luckily, everything worked like a charm and people reacted really well to the new changes. But, what if that wasnt the case? What if the game wouldve exploded and people couldnt pass the tutorial scene? We had a fallback build from a month ago but, still, we were playing with fire. We definitely need to automate the log rotation between player sessions. We could go even further by adding timestamps to the logs (Unity doesnt do it by default) and keep metrics of the time spent on each scene. Thats really useful to understand player behavior and see if our assumptions about the game design are working as expected. Last but not least, keeping your enthusiasm throughout the day is really important. Towards the end of the day, we were exhausted, thirsty and hungry but we kept talking about our game with the same love and passion we did in the morning. This was apparent for the people and made them want to explore the game further.
Final Thoughts
This was just our second event and the experience was incredible. If youre a gamedev and have the opportunity to join an in-person event near you, do it! It will be, without a doubt, an amazing learning experience. I cant thank all the organizers, judges and volunteers from the Seattle Indies community enough for putting together such an incredible event and for giving us the opportunity to participate with Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts. I'm super proud and grateful to be part of this community! If youre still reading, thank you! Im more than happy to answer any questions or provide more details about our experience in this event. Take care, and fly free!
[ 2024-10-14 17:01:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Seattle Indies eXpo Online is this Sunday!
[ 2024-09-28 02:52:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Aloha Crew! We were fortunate to be invited to Seattle Indies eXpo 2024. We are working on bringing the postmortem to Steam but there is one more detail we need to be a part of before we do that. This Sunday, Sept, 29, 2024 from 8:30 am to 6 pm the team at SIX Online will be featuring great games from our area and we will be there! Watch it all, and developer chats on their Twitch Channel or YouTube Channel Come and ask a question and be part of our interview around 1 pm, but while you wait, we have a brand new piece for you to watch here: [previewyoutube=Q2xpNOc6yJ8;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2024-09-28 02:52:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
No Longer Episodic; Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts will Release as a Full Experience
We came to the realization that we hated having to wait for a week to watch a new episode of The Mandalorian. And we don't have Star Wars' or Disney's clout to make the conversation of our game be a topical subject "for the masses", nor we have that level of an interested audience to lever. So, at best, the most engaged player wouldn't be happy, and at worst everyone would forget about us while we developed the next bit of story.
We thought we had this down. We understood the challenges of episodic content. Wrong! Turns out that developing the framework to bridge one episode onto the next and have Steam handle it and our engine manage saves and creating recaps at the start of each episode is... a lot... a lot of work. We could put the effort in and do the work it takes to make it episodic OR we could just make the game and skip all those extra features that no one really likes. And that won't even be needed once the full game is out. The last nail in the episodic coffin was asking ourselves: Will the story be better served by an episodic approach? The answer was a definite "NO". So, yesterday, on our Sprint Planning meeting we laid 'episodic' to rest, kissed its forehead and let it float away to its very own Viking funeral with the very clear understanding of why no one does this type of content (except a few very famous developers). It's just not worth it. I guess this is just a really long way of coming to the conclusion that 99% of the industry has already come to and we are going to develop the game as a standalone full experience. Fly Free.
[ 2024-09-13 16:27:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
Aloha Crew, Azrael here with an announcement! Our plan has been to release Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts episodically. That would give us the opportunity to provide each episode when it's ready while continuing to work on the next part of the story. It sounded logical and a great compromise for an indie team of two people looking to create a game while also having full-time jobs and families. As we closed "Episode 0" this year, we started to encounter questions about how to implement the episodic nature of our vision, but we had more urgent matters to attend to. We needed to get ready for GeekFest West and Seattle Indies eXpo. That meant that Azrael and Wil from earlier in the year decided those questions should be answered by Azrael and Wil from the future in their wiser and more experienced selves. Well, girls, weren't past Azrael and Wil nave? We are not that wise now, and we haven't spent those experience points much better yet, but the time has come, and after the feedback we received at GFW and SIX, we need to face the music. Providing episodic content has two main facets that we needed to address: the player experience and the developing experience.
Player Experience perspective.
We came to the realization that we hated having to wait for a week to watch a new episode of The Mandalorian. And we don't have Star Wars' or Disney's clout to make the conversation of our game be a topical subject "for the masses", nor we have that level of an interested audience to lever. So, at best, the most engaged player wouldn't be happy, and at worst everyone would forget about us while we developed the next bit of story.
Developing Experience perspective.
We thought we had this down. We understood the challenges of episodic content. Wrong! Turns out that developing the framework to bridge one episode onto the next and have Steam handle it and our engine manage saves and creating recaps at the start of each episode is... a lot... a lot of work. We could put the effort in and do the work it takes to make it episodic OR we could just make the game and skip all those extra features that no one really likes. And that won't even be needed once the full game is out. The last nail in the episodic coffin was asking ourselves: Will the story be better served by an episodic approach? The answer was a definite "NO". So, yesterday, on our Sprint Planning meeting we laid 'episodic' to rest, kissed its forehead and let it float away to its very own Viking funeral with the very clear understanding of why no one does this type of content (except a few very famous developers). It's just not worth it. I guess this is just a really long way of coming to the conclusion that 99% of the industry has already come to and we are going to develop the game as a standalone full experience. Fly Free.
[ 2024-09-13 16:27:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
GeekFestWest Post Mortem: What We Learned (and more) from Presenting Our Game
Its a three-day extravaganza of all things geek, from gaming to cosplay and live wrestling to boot! It took place from July 19 to July 21, and with over 6,000 attendees, the event had a smashing first year. It plans to return every year on the third weekend of July.
How did you even get to attend a conference like this one? There are plenty of ways to register for a conference, but, in our case, the fantastic team behind Seattle Indies got a booth for up to 8 games to be demoed. They asked for submissions on their discord free of charge. We have been part of that community for years, so it felt magical to be selected. How does this apply to you? Join or create genuine communities. Seattle Indies does so much, but one of my personal favourites is joining other indie developers in what is called the Writers Room. A Discord event that allows you to present your script, text, or anything written to receive feedback, but the best part is that you get to be a beta reader of sorts for others, sharing your impressions and feedback, too. Its about offering honest feedback and helping each other make better games and experiences. If you take anything from this post, it's that you should contribute to a community and help others make better games! Thats the indie way, to me.
Shoutout to AidenTheAxolotl for their fantastic Reddit article called Guide to Hosting a Game Booth at Conventions; it was our template. I could try to explain how many things they mentioned were out of our radar, but honestly, Go check it out! Its a well of great tips that will help you prepare for something like this.
July 19 rolls in, and we are at the venue an hour before opening doors setting up our screen and laptop for others to play in. We met our booth colleagues for the weekend and quickly learned that its important to have extra cords of all sorts! One of our newfound friends needed an HDMI cable, and thanks to the guide we read, we were able to provide one of our extras so they could demo their game as they intended! We had an arcade-like video looping on a screen (I cut it from gameplay) and a laptop for people to play on. I know Reddit likes numbers, so here are ours! I will discuss a couple of them later in this post.
Once the event was over, we realized we were only a third of the way through. The next step is to collate every piece of feedback into different categories to parse them all and prioritize them. Here are a few of the categories we sorted all our notes:
Looking back, we had a lot of people interested in our game but best of all, the feedback we received. All the great feedback! Great ideas and many bugs found. Its a fantastic experience to hear how players would fix something that isnt broken and its humbling to see them break something you didnt know was there.
You may have already seen the main one: the Wishlist count. Dont get me wrong; Im thankful and appreciative of each and every person, but although I didnt know what to expect, seeing that number didnt bring me the joy I hoped for. The second thing was our pitch's deliverance. Something you should know about u/satanas82 and me is that we are not salespeople! But we are the only ones making this game, so its up to us to engage with those looking our way to try and give our pitch. Im not here to talk about our game, so Ill spare you the official pitch itself, but what I will share with you girls is that I memorized it and I practiced it, and yet, I didnt give it correctly ONCE! The third thing was testing on different OSs. The first day we had my Windows 10 laptop running the game with the screen playing the 6 min video in loop from our MacBook. For the next day we decided to play the video on my laptop and have players use the bigger screen! After testing right before doors opened, we noticed a visual bug on Mac that made it nearly impossible to complete one of our minigames. We quickly pivoted to our previous setup, and none was the wiser. You can see u/satanas82 trying to fix the issue here.
This is the juicy part!
Not only for ourselves but for our players. We didnt know what to expect from an event like this, but its clear to me that 20 added Wishlists wasnt enough for me. I need to learn to focus on the fantastic amount and quality of feedback we receive. Small number goes up! is not the only success metric. As for our players' expectations, we need to ensure anyone engaging with our game understands clearly what it is about. Less is More rings true for me. Players dont want to hear about your world, the lore, or what is happening; they care about what they do! Letting them do it right away is key. Heres where the following teaching hit me.
As I struggled to be a person who communicates with other people, the pitch slowly mutated in my mind and my delivery. Id forget parts of it or replace them with new ones. However, as I gained confidence, the same three things kept showing up: Genre, action, and characters. So this is the one-liner that evolved from my many failed attempts at saying our actual pitch: Hi! Want to play a point-and-click game where you steal a spaceship, and your crew hates each other? I read it and know theres a lot wrong with it. There is no call to action, no clear aesthetic, and point-and-click is barely a genre; its more of a mechanic. But what I think about the most as I write these words is that your pitch will mutate as you deliver it. Let it tell you what it should be. Our pitch was written to be read under Steams page capsule, and people dont talk like they read or write. So, make sure your pitch is speakable and rely on your promotional material to explain what your pitch leaves out.
Your enthusiasm matters way more than your pitch (in an in-person event like this one). Often people would see me stumble through my pitch and lean in to learn more about what was on the screen. Not because the pitch was good, I just butchered it, but because they could tell I cared and what had brought them to the table was up their alley enough to want to know more.
The truth is that it is as awkward for them to stand there as it is for you. They want to play your game; make it the easiest you can for them to know what its about so they can sit and play it. If they ask, share as much as theyll hear but otherwise get them to play as fast as you can.
Bring a pen, notebook or whatever you feel most comfortable writing on. You will need it and most importantly: STAY SILENT! No one wants to be backseated through a demo, but worse than them not liking your game is you wasting their time and missing the live version of someone engaging with your game for the first time. Its painful to see how things you never thought of are a problem for many people. For example, even though our game is a point-and-click, we actually need controller and keyboard support after all. Identify what you want to learn about; it will impact how you take notes. We didnt know, so we wrote pretty much everything we saw. Things we wrote down include:
Im being hyperbolic, but what I mean is that after reading and discussing every piece of feedback we have received, the big ticket items are turned into tasks so we can execute them and improve the next build. We only have a couple of weeks before we showcase the updated demo at SIX Seattle Indies eXpo on Sunday, Sept 1st, 12pm - 9pm @ Motif Hotel and SIX Online on Sunday, Sept 29 on Seattle Indies Twitch Channel.
To be honest, the experience was fantastic, and we are excited to do it again, but just under 500 Steam page visits and 20 new Wishlists seem a little underwhelming to me. I really didnt know what to expect, and it got me pumped to continue working on Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts. At the same time, I wouldve loved to have broken the 100 Wishlist barrier that weekend. That said, the amount of feedback we got is priceless and makes up for it for sure! For us, the cost of going to GeekFestWest was low since we didnt pay for the booth, and we are in the privileged position to get our asses there because its our own backyard, but for further events at a much higher cost, its hard to say what it could be like. The upcoming SIX will be more of an indication of what it could actually be like to attend something big! That has me a little scared but overall excited! We will hopefully bring what we learn from SIX to you in a few weeks. Id be happy to answer any questions you may have about attending an event like this one in the comments below! Take care, and Fly Free!
[ 2024-09-10 21:30:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
We want to share our experience and what we learned after having the wonderful opportunity to attend GeekFestWest 2024 to present the demo for our point-and-click adventure Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts.
About GeekFestWest 2024
Its a three-day extravaganza of all things geek, from gaming to cosplay and live wrestling to boot! It took place from July 19 to July 21, and with over 6,000 attendees, the event had a smashing first year. It plans to return every year on the third weekend of July.
Before the event
How did you even get to attend a conference like this one? There are plenty of ways to register for a conference, but, in our case, the fantastic team behind Seattle Indies got a booth for up to 8 games to be demoed. They asked for submissions on their discord free of charge. We have been part of that community for years, so it felt magical to be selected. How does this apply to you? Join or create genuine communities. Seattle Indies does so much, but one of my personal favourites is joining other indie developers in what is called the Writers Room. A Discord event that allows you to present your script, text, or anything written to receive feedback, but the best part is that you get to be a beta reader of sorts for others, sharing your impressions and feedback, too. Its about offering honest feedback and helping each other make better games and experiences. If you take anything from this post, it's that you should contribute to a community and help others make better games! Thats the indie way, to me.
Preparing for the event
Shoutout to AidenTheAxolotl for their fantastic Reddit article called Guide to Hosting a Game Booth at Conventions; it was our template. I could try to explain how many things they mentioned were out of our radar, but honestly, Go check it out! Its a well of great tips that will help you prepare for something like this.
During the event
July 19 rolls in, and we are at the venue an hour before opening doors setting up our screen and laptop for others to play in. We met our booth colleagues for the weekend and quickly learned that its important to have extra cords of all sorts! One of our newfound friends needed an HDMI cable, and thanks to the guide we read, we were able to provide one of our extras so they could demo their game as they intended! We had an arcade-like video looping on a screen (I cut it from gameplay) and a laptop for people to play on. I know Reddit likes numbers, so here are ours! I will discuss a couple of them later in this post.
- A total of 36 people sat and played our demo.
- The average play time was 30 minutes.
- 494 visits to our Steam Page.
- 20 wishlists during the event.
- Hundreds of pieces of feedback to sort through
- Over 50 people stopped to speak to us about our game.
After the event
Once the event was over, we realized we were only a third of the way through. The next step is to collate every piece of feedback into different categories to parse them all and prioritize them. Here are a few of the categories we sorted all our notes:
- Player Behavior
- Puzzles Design and Hints
- UI/UX (This is a big one)
- Character Behavior
- Input Support
- Dialogue Flow and Control
- And many more.
What went well!
Looking back, we had a lot of people interested in our game but best of all, the feedback we received. All the great feedback! Great ideas and many bugs found. Its a fantastic experience to hear how players would fix something that isnt broken and its humbling to see them break something you didnt know was there.
What didnt go so well!
You may have already seen the main one: the Wishlist count. Dont get me wrong; Im thankful and appreciative of each and every person, but although I didnt know what to expect, seeing that number didnt bring me the joy I hoped for. The second thing was our pitch's deliverance. Something you should know about u/satanas82 and me is that we are not salespeople! But we are the only ones making this game, so its up to us to engage with those looking our way to try and give our pitch. Im not here to talk about our game, so Ill spare you the official pitch itself, but what I will share with you girls is that I memorized it and I practiced it, and yet, I didnt give it correctly ONCE! The third thing was testing on different OSs. The first day we had my Windows 10 laptop running the game with the screen playing the 6 min video in loop from our MacBook. For the next day we decided to play the video on my laptop and have players use the bigger screen! After testing right before doors opened, we noticed a visual bug on Mac that made it nearly impossible to complete one of our minigames. We quickly pivoted to our previous setup, and none was the wiser. You can see u/satanas82 trying to fix the issue here.
What did we learn?
This is the juicy part!
Expectation management is key!
Not only for ourselves but for our players. We didnt know what to expect from an event like this, but its clear to me that 20 added Wishlists wasnt enough for me. I need to learn to focus on the fantastic amount and quality of feedback we receive. Small number goes up! is not the only success metric. As for our players' expectations, we need to ensure anyone engaging with our game understands clearly what it is about. Less is More rings true for me. Players dont want to hear about your world, the lore, or what is happening; they care about what they do! Letting them do it right away is key. Heres where the following teaching hit me.
Mutation is the word for Pitch.
As I struggled to be a person who communicates with other people, the pitch slowly mutated in my mind and my delivery. Id forget parts of it or replace them with new ones. However, as I gained confidence, the same three things kept showing up: Genre, action, and characters. So this is the one-liner that evolved from my many failed attempts at saying our actual pitch: Hi! Want to play a point-and-click game where you steal a spaceship, and your crew hates each other? I read it and know theres a lot wrong with it. There is no call to action, no clear aesthetic, and point-and-click is barely a genre; its more of a mechanic. But what I think about the most as I write these words is that your pitch will mutate as you deliver it. Let it tell you what it should be. Our pitch was written to be read under Steams page capsule, and people dont talk like they read or write. So, make sure your pitch is speakable and rely on your promotional material to explain what your pitch leaves out.
Genuine enthusiasm matters
Your enthusiasm matters way more than your pitch (in an in-person event like this one). Often people would see me stumble through my pitch and lean in to learn more about what was on the screen. Not because the pitch was good, I just butchered it, but because they could tell I cared and what had brought them to the table was up their alley enough to want to know more.
Dont waste time
The truth is that it is as awkward for them to stand there as it is for you. They want to play your game; make it the easiest you can for them to know what its about so they can sit and play it. If they ask, share as much as theyll hear but otherwise get them to play as fast as you can.
Take Notes and Shut Up!
Bring a pen, notebook or whatever you feel most comfortable writing on. You will need it and most importantly: STAY SILENT! No one wants to be backseated through a demo, but worse than them not liking your game is you wasting their time and missing the live version of someone engaging with your game for the first time. Its painful to see how things you never thought of are a problem for many people. For example, even though our game is a point-and-click, we actually need controller and keyboard support after all. Identify what you want to learn about; it will impact how you take notes. We didnt know, so we wrote pretty much everything we saw. Things we wrote down include:
- How long they took to at different stages (Tutorial, Main area, and when they left the game)
- Whether they read optional material or not
- When they chuckled or found something funny
- When something seemed frustrating
- The controls they first tried to use
- Anything they shared with us during or after their game
- And so much more.
Tasks are real; feedback is meaningless
Im being hyperbolic, but what I mean is that after reading and discussing every piece of feedback we have received, the big ticket items are turned into tasks so we can execute them and improve the next build. We only have a couple of weeks before we showcase the updated demo at SIX Seattle Indies eXpo on Sunday, Sept 1st, 12pm - 9pm @ Motif Hotel and SIX Online on Sunday, Sept 29 on Seattle Indies Twitch Channel.
Final Thoughts
To be honest, the experience was fantastic, and we are excited to do it again, but just under 500 Steam page visits and 20 new Wishlists seem a little underwhelming to me. I really didnt know what to expect, and it got me pumped to continue working on Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts. At the same time, I wouldve loved to have broken the 100 Wishlist barrier that weekend. That said, the amount of feedback we got is priceless and makes up for it for sure! For us, the cost of going to GeekFestWest was low since we didnt pay for the booth, and we are in the privileged position to get our asses there because its our own backyard, but for further events at a much higher cost, its hard to say what it could be like. The upcoming SIX will be more of an indication of what it could actually be like to attend something big! That has me a little scared but overall excited! We will hopefully bring what we learn from SIX to you in a few weeks. Id be happy to answer any questions you may have about attending an event like this one in the comments below! Take care, and Fly Free!
[ 2024-09-10 21:30:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are going to GeekFest West!
[ 2024-07-08 19:00:40 CET ] [ Original post ]
Seattle Indies is putting together a booth at GeekFest West and we are part of it! If you are in the Everett/Seattle area from July 19 to 21, we'd love to meet you! Find us at the Geektopia Hall (Angel of the Winds Arena Center) at Booth E32/33. We will bring our most polished Demo Yet! Come play the demo and join the Cicadas in our quest to give humanity another chance to Fly Free. We are sending two agents to run a training simulation and answer all your questions. Wishlist Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3072180/Hope_A_Sky_Full_of_Ghosts/
[ 2024-07-08 19:00:40 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts
[ 2024-07-05 22:45:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello Crew!
Before we jump onto where Hope comes from (That's the next dev log, stay tuned), we'd like to give a little introduction.
Hope is a point-and-click adventure game focused on telling the journey of the Titan Mission's crew through conversations, puzzles and mini-games.
Although, you will be not playing as yourself but as the Crew's Captain, Agatha, you will influence the story through the conversations with the crew. This is the main way to learn about them and about her. You'll be chatting with them, solving problems in your ship and uncovering its secrets.
As for puzzles, we will avoid "Moon Logic" puzzles in favor of a more direct approach with mini-games for a balanced game. Hope is planned as a compact experience that serves as a window to its world in a way that you'll be inclined to come back to it.
More will come in future announcements. As we develop the game you'll be able to test and to give feedback on it. We are working on the demo where you'll be able to play the first few moments of the game. There's still a lot of work to do but we are excited for you to finally be a part of the process.
Welcome to Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts!
[ 2024-07-05 22:45:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts is a minimalist sci-fi point-and-click adventure focused on narrative.
You are Agatha Hope, a leader of the Cicadas, a rebel movement fighting against NexxusCorp's tyranny. To escape their oppression, you must steal their spaceship. To save humanity, you must unite your crew. Your decisions will shape the course of your story. You must overcome challenges through mini-games and puzzles. All in an attempt to accomplish your mission and uncover dark secrets.
You are Agatha Hope, a leader of the Cicadas, a rebel movement fighting against NexxusCorp's tyranny. To escape their oppression, you must steal their spaceship. To save humanity, you must unite your crew. Your decisions will shape the course of your story. You must overcome challenges through mini-games and puzzles. All in an attempt to accomplish your mission and uncover dark secrets.
MINIMAL SETUP
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04 / SteamOS 2.0
- Processor: Intel i5 Quad-CoreMemory: 4 GB RAM
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD 4000
- Storage: 4 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: 32-bit systems must use virtual memory to get over 2GB.
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