This January we take advantage of the winter months to do some inward growth. This includes unplugging for a bit - a electronic detox inspired by the Amazon Prime show The Feed and a tiny bit of soul searching for the game. This is not to say we haven't done above many - many - many times before. Each time it gets better though. In the past we realize a few things: A FEW THINGS: CommunityUs is about - well people of course. So it starts with the individuals journey. Second it is about family. This can be close friends too. To start a sort of game revolution, we need to think first about family and people of course. Then third is kinda a toss up between; adventure and story - leading to form content, that then forms the community. We think of this as the narrative, the convo both inside the game and out. It is mostly this third part we are working on and perhaps the truth is we can't know until we have the family and close friend part working first. So this Christmas season I worked on that. I simplified all the art, so that a child could contribute to the community if they wanted. Then I asked some children / students ranging from 3-12 years to take an hour and test out what a mod might look like. Here are some screenshots. STEP I: First I showed them some pictures of the game with low end graphics. (Rest assured there will be high end still and it will be glorious - it is just too big to make copies of all the time when I make a change, plus anyone can play with low end art.)
Yup - a little late now that Christmas had passed but at least with family and friends we had some laughs. I wore suspenders this Christmas because I have no hips and I finally just got tired enough of pulling up my pants I wanted to be done with that. So yes suspenders. STEP II: So picking this farmer gal for testing was perfect. Now whenever I were the suspenders, I'm in farmer mode.
STEP III: Have family and friends create their own farmer skin. People, Family, Friends - CommunityUs...see how it works. The real experience I am after is the time in between. The real memories you can treasure. So to continue to try to paint this vision. The vision simply stated. VISION: CommunityUs - it is a framework for life. That phrase can be torn apart and should be torn apart as we mean every interpretation. Lets see how it played a role this Christmas/Holiday Season. 1.) People - I find people to bring ideas to life with. 2.) Family and Friends - help with game art - we don't care about quality - it is about doing fun and creative things with family and friends. 3.) We do this enough times, talk about it, have laughs and share ideas and stories - it starts to catch on and new content of all different shapes and sizes are brought to life and communities pop up all around the solar system. (gotta plan for next 20 years - so solar system)
PRACTICE: As the point of CommunityUs became clear. It didn't matter anymore how we launched, just that we launched. This was further confirmed at a Christmas service we went to - simply stated Christ didn't arrive in a Kingly palace or even at the inn - no that Present showed up in a filthy, unpolished manager (likely a feeding trough.) That was the only thing I got from the service, but it ran deep. It was time to stop trying to make this release super grand, and just release the feeding trough version. Then watch it grow with family and friends. So you begin to see how I play the game. The vision is to have a game that enhances life, brings people together and becomes a modern platform for sharing stories with others. I also want it to edify - to provide facts and history that can be taken in optionally. There will also be a companion app that does this better. In practice this changed my direction for the first release a great deal. We have a lot of old phones laying around. So I dropped the graphics to a very low bar, so old phones can play along. This would allow families to play together. Though we have good graphics and all that - it was a sacrifice I had to make to start with, to drop the graphics quality so we can begin pushing stuff out the door content and product wise. Our music person also caught the vision and has begun writing lesser quality songs - again aimed at allowing anyone to pickup the music in a workshop template and try their hand at making a cue or two. Once I get the new music in, some basic dialogue and quests as a example. I will unlock the lowly manger - feed trough version. The goal will be to play with family and friends. Begin to explore, begin to think of what might come. Begin to dream with us. What I can tell you. The Lacuna Expanse is coming. You will begin to see the name show up in the cities. This will be a key plot point, so watch it closely. Some pictures of the hand drawn "skins" the friends and family made.