It was promised that there would be an update post this year, and considering it's already June, it's about time there was some new information coming out. Without trying to make this a lengthy rambling, here are the plain facts:

• The game is still being actively worked on.
• Progress is unfortunately slow, but faster than before.
• A lot of things have been reworked / updated, including the presentation style.
• There's a plan to release a short playable demo this year.
• The game will quite possibly release in bigger chunks in the future, getting updated as development moves forward, as there's simply too much content that needs to be added.

To close this up, here's a few preview images of how the game currently looks (New dialogue sprites, inspection / narration text, dialogue option window). Character models are currently not displayed, but you can have a feel for the overal style.

HEY MEATBAGS!

November brought the usual chills with it, along with my monologue of our current progress. We've been super busy re-designing a lot of areas, and doing some other fun stuff, including some real life commitments to courses, workshops, general work and the usual battle of feeling anxious about not getting as many things done as we'd like to. But that's life, can't really complain about that, now can we? Nah I can, and do all the time. It SUCKS. Both the complaint and the complainer. ANYWHO-

What's up with the grant?

As mentioned previously, there was a grant I was awarded, which made me ran into some issues. The good news is, that the issue seems like it will get resolved by the end of December (touch wood, TOUCH WOOD!), so hopefully I won't need to sell off Grandpa to the circus. Though, the cheeky old man might actually do that by himself anyway, just for fun. Silly boomer.

Crowdfunding?

I'm still not sure about any sort of external fund injection to the project, albeit I need to also correct myself: The EU crowdfunding law change I wrote as 'late October' in my last post, is actually November 10. Don't ask how I got that wrong, but I did. So at this point the details are still uncertain, and I cannot comment about it any further. Dementia runs in the family. However, what I can mention is that some time ago we passed 300 wishlists on steam, which I hereby would like to thank you all for. Especially with the fact that compared to other teams, we're really really slow, and have still yet to show off the significant progress we're making. Know this though: with our current plans, you will get much more out of the game, than we originally planned, some of this you'll find below in this post.

Behind the scenes: How our backgrounds / environments are made

I wanted to create videos for this segment, as per 'tldrs', shot some footage, started editing and scoring it, but ultimately decided against it. It was just not on the level I wanted it to be, so for now, I've put that on hold. However, I still need to provide some updates to you guys, so we're back to the fun ways of doing things: me vomiting a wall of text, and you guys ignoring while looking for images. Well, I do hope you read at least some of it. We're skipping over any backstory on how and why Creepslore exist, purely because it's far from done, and I've found talking about it to be too egocentric, and pointless. We're a bunch of unimportant no one's, so who cares, right? Hence we're kicking things off by showing you the how's and whys of our environments, how it started, and where it's currently leading us.

The VERY early version

Way back, when the game itself was just a 5 character, one location parody (or rather mockery) of Visual Novels, we started off with Tyranobuilder as our engine. Tyranobuilder is a rather easy to use tool, but it has some funky limitations. We thought that it would be more than enough for our goals, we weren't going to add anything special. Oh how we were wrong. The first conceptual iteration of Creepslore was like this:
2D, black and white characters, with monochrome backgrounds, done with quick BSP mapping, with composited 3D models and some rudimentary post processing. These backgrounds weren't even 'rendered' so to speak (maps need to be compiled), as we just took screenshots in our viewports. Again, much simpler times, much less effort. The color purple was already the main focal point in this version, we really wanted characters to 'pop' from the backgrounds, and limiting things to a scheme like such, achieved this rather easily. Not much time later, we began experimenting with more detail, where we exported the base layouts from J.A.C.K. (a BSP level editor) and added props in Blender. Then, the end product was rendered in Substance Painter. While this looked good, we had a lot of technical issues from the software crashing, or plain simply refusing to co-operate. That sonofa***** has a mind of it's own.
Around this time, our character count, and story grew so much bigger, that we ended up making things more and more complex. We began playing around with the idea that we should give players more freedom, more things to do, and not just stick to the typical 'Interactive Story' formula. Both of us are very much into 'exploration' types of games, or anything that let's you roam freely, at your own pace, despite not being essential to the gameplay. Now this doesn't mean 'walking simulator' on our end, but purely the ability to investigate whatever you wanted. Yet again, we tested things out, and made a version in which you could do so. We were also reminiscing about the games we enjoyed as kids, and we came to the conclusion that we don't actually like our current style that much. We both grew up with 'old school' games from the 90's, and adored their looks. But, we also got annoyed at how emulating these, most people seemed to never understand what made those environments work, the way they did. Taking a look at indie games, the majority seemed to achieve the 'low polygon' look by simply not smoothing their objects, using solid color shades instead of textures, yet still having simple items, such as a box eat up 500 verticles. We're not purists by any means, but with the exception of a few developers out there, who truly tried to hone in on the early 3D style, the rest wasn't exactly using it, as they claimed. No offense.
Another one of our annoyances, at least mostly mine, was that there's barely anyone doing pre-rendered backgrounds anymore, specifically in a 2.5D format. The old Resident Evils, Final Fantasys, Chrono Cross and similarly styled products are the reason why I ever had the slightest interest in making games, and as a child I've found it to be the pinnacle of artistic expression. *shrugs* Sure, technology changed, trends changed, but I cannot disregard the fact that I'm missing this method of presentation. Since that's how things are, how about we actually make it like such, instead of waiting for someone to MAYBE do what we'd want.
I whipped up a quick concept on how this would effectively look, and was quite pleased with the idea. Using a combination of the Trenchbroom Level Editor and Quake, I not only skipped over a lot of post processing, but achieved an era-accurate look, by simply using a rendering engine from the era. Sometimes the most obvious choice escapes us. Of course, this would lend us a big hand, but also a bit of a handicap as well. We didn't have set cameras, so we're going to need to literally position ourselves in game, and take our screenshots for the backgrounds.
Our triangle count is also limited to that of the engines, so we have to optimize everything as much as possible, otherwise we cannot compile the map. Luckily for us, there's a lot of forks of the Quake engine, eliminating or increasing limits, so we could be more lenient with our resources. Still, we didn't choose the 'best' version, but one that increased our limits, and mostly allowed us to use external textures. A quirk of the Quake engine is that it uses a set color palette and image size for it's textures, so being able to increase some of that resolution and load in elements that weren't bound by said color palette, allows us to be more vibrant. We'll be still building everything in a set palette, but after the level is compiled, the game will automatically load in the better looking textures.
Our environments finally started looking better, more unique, and filled me with great anticipation. There was just one more thing: I wanted scrolling backgrounds and more base resolution to work with. The issue here is, that the game's output is tied to your computer specs, and you cannot simply set any custom screen size, as you would like in a 3D package. Before we even started working on the game, we established one core rule that we had to follow: the game has to run in 1920x1080 natively. The problem here is that we couldn't take pictures bigger than that either, since our hardware didn't allow it, ergo: scrolling backgrounds had to be stitched together from multiple screenshots. Needless to say, this didn't work out, as the field of view and other distortions made it quite hard to properly mask things together. I almost gave up on this element, when Nvidia came to the rescue.
What a lot of people don't seem to know, or rather, it's not a common knowledge, is that Nvidia GPUs have support for emulating bigger screen resolutions, than what your PC is actually capable of. So, you could set up a game to run in 4K, even if your graphics card didn't support it. The way this works, is that the the output will still be displayed in your native resolution, let's say 2K, but 4K of data is going to be shrunk into it, creating a crisper image. What this also means, is that when you take an ingame screenshot, you will end up with an image in 4K. I have no idea why this feature is not talked about, as it's super useful for a lot of things. Either way, it solved a huge problem with us, and even gave me more leeway in terms of post processing.

Let's start over

I'm not a fan of scrapping content, in fact, we tried to adhere to the philosophy of trying to re-use everything we could that we made for Creepslore in some way, be it either a re-purpose, an unlockable or some other form of secret content. After more than 1 year of development however, I was trying to cumbersomely hack out weird methods that would allow us to use Tyranobuilder for more than it was ever meant for. Since I'm the one assembling things, it was mostly a 'me' issue, but I didn't know how my partner would react with me starting to doubt our engine. But it just didn't cut it anymore, I had to look for an alternative. Luckily, he was understanding after I showed him what more we could do, so I bought a license to Visionaire Studio, an adventure game engine and started from scratch again. Now a lot of people might be wondering 'Why not Unity?' or anything else. Thing is, If I could, I would have my own engine for this very specific reason: a lot of things are overcrowded or lacking features that I would need. Unity is good for what it is, but I despise it with a passion, I'd never want to touch it. It just has too many issues for me. VS on the other hand, has some extensive features, that would allow us to expand more on our explorations, and even add 3D characters. It was honestly a no-brainer decision. But it ended up giving us more work. With new features and possibilities, our ideas suddenly doubled as well. Now we wanted to do much more. Since we weren't capped by Tyranobuilder by this point, we kept adding more and more things to the game plan. The funny thing is, that we ended up in an infinite circle because of this: new tools brought new features, which influenced our gameplay, which lead us down a path where the story became bigger yet again, which in turn resulted in a changing design.

3.0.

When we switched over to Quake as a level design tool, we bypassed limits, by simply creating a modular environment. Our core location was a city, that was built with 'blocks' in mind, that we would connect together through transitions. This was a bit wonky, and we never truly managed to get it perfectly right. Furthermore, since things escalated, our original city design was no longer viable as it started to clash with our story. While we could re-use parts of it, the overall picture differentiated so much from when we started the whole project, that it would only lead to confusion if left as is. Something had to be done.
I took one of our older locations, and tackled upgrading it. When we switched to the Quake engine, I tasked myself with creating props, that we could seamlessly insert into any location, but these were very generic, and couldn't be used for what we currently aimed for. So I've started creating entirely new ones, specifically for each environment.
A lot of things came from jokes, for example: A run down, Finnish SPA inside a cave. But this didn't make any sense with the changed story, so it evolved into a Japanese Bath, on the top of a mountain. Except, it didn't look like one. After gathering a lot of references, I reworked it (pictures from unrendered viewport) and became quite happy with it. Of course, once it get's the higher definition, and expanded color palette textures, it will be even better.
Another thing that had to be noted, is that when we started, we thought the game would take place in the 90's. Now, it was the 70's. Collecting more and more references from the era made me realize one flaw that most of us tends to forget: When designing for a specific period, we tend to focus solely on said time, and not before. Yeah, the 70's had it's own style, but the world existed before that as well, and it's not like everything suddenly changed from the 60's, it was a slow process. Not to mention, a lot of things were even older than that, and still stayed around in their original state for quite some time. It's such a simple thing, but we really tend to skip over it, and not remember that every process is gradual. We completely missed this the first time around, when we started on Creepslore. Welp.

Now and the Future

Currently, we're still reworking locations, while also writing more to the script. We picked a story branch, that has the most common elements with the others, and are focusing on that. The important thing is to get the environments right here, but to also make them viable for the other's. It wouldn't make sense if there was to be too big of a change between them, so we have to make absolutely sure that what we end up in one branch, will almost exactly fit into the other's as well. Things are taking a bit longer than expected, but hey, if it's worth the extra mile, and will be much better in the end, it's not a problem, right? Between this and the last post, we've decided that it would be best to head into early access this year, with one branch, and continuously update it, by adding the rest later. It's not exactly a common choice for this type of game I think, but atleast people would have more of an inkling what Creepslore really was. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen in 2021, the soonest it will, would be the first quarter of 2022, assuming there's no other setbacks. Thing is, there's one added distraction that I didn't mention yet: I'm in my last semester of trade school, and forgot that I have to hand in a final project there as well, while also preparing for a graduation exam. Yeah, what I can I say, I'm senile with a super cluttered schedule... While this doesn't effect much... to hell it does, lol. I wish I could put my full attention on the game, I wish we'd have something out already, but again, this is life now. Progress is there, but it's slow. Can't do anything about it this year, it is what it is. We won't forcefully try and speedrun development either, let alone release something that's crap. Things are done, when they're done.

HEY MEATBAGS!

I've been on the fence about writing this post, as while it directly involves the development of the game, it's also more personal, and I'm not entirely sure if that's something people would find an interesting read, or just plain annoying. However, I've promised more details in the future, and I'm seeing this as a good opportunity to give you a bit of a 'filler' before we get into the core of things. So let me explain some of what's been happening behind the scenes. Additionally, enjoy some scrumptious character art.

Do Publishers dream with electric sheep?

Publishers have always weirded me out. On paper, they sound nice, as long as you don't start reading any contracts. Then it just becomes terrifying, especially so if you're a small time dev. Even if their public relations and track record gives you a positive vibe, you cannot ever really be sure, how things will go down, once you sign that piece of paper. Your partner is still someone who has much more resources, manpower and experience in the field. Despite this, it has always intrigued me, how much it would actually take to get signed, so last year, I did the unthinkable, and submitted a pitch to a company whom I thought would be fitting for the weird game we're trying to make: Devolver. Usually people don't name drop anyone in posts like this, in fear of cutting off future prospects they might have, but I think there's no point talking about something in a round about way. And it's not like my experiences were really bad either. Surprisingly, someone from Devolver responded within a week, saying they're intrigued, and that we should chat. Shocking, really, but at this point they haven't even seen the game in motion, and all they had was a 10 page document outlining what the project is, with some art attached. We talked for about 1,5 hours in detail, and things felt they went rather well, despite me doing this the first time. Few months down the line I've sent them access to the prototype, which ultimately ended up with them passing. Which isn't bad really, as the prototype is just that, a prototype, not to mention the game started to evolve and change quite a bit meanwhile, for the better I might add (the current media available are all from that). I've also never done anything of the sort before, so having a company show any interest at all was quite uplifting. So here I thought: well, might as well get more experience with this, not like I have anything to lose. Even if it's only wishful thinking, I might end up being able to work on the game full time, so let's try this again, shall we? While I fully understand not every game can get or even deserves a publishing deal, I didn't let that discourage me. Again, I'm literally a no one. So let's see who else is out there?
Humble Games is an odd one. They seem to have streamlined their process of accepting pitches, and provide a template for you to fill out. They're also always looking for games to include in their next batch of monthly subscription bundle, so hey, who knows? Filled out their forms, and waited for their reply, which was to be generally within 5-7 workdays. Well, it's been about half a year, and they still haven't even watched the video I've sent them. Eh, must be busy, maybe too humble. Or our game really sucks, who knows, lol. Albeit in the meantime, I've also learned that if you do get a contract with them, you will earn the mesmerising amount of 0$ dollars from being in their monthly bundle. Depending on what situation you're in, I'm willing to bet that most people would say 'that's OK with me', given the chance that they get a lump sum for development, and can go full time. Honestly, I would probably too. But making literally nothing off of your work doesn't sound right. Sure, you can argue about the multitudes of aspects regarding this: you could make the game you wanted, because of their investment, people who potentially get the bundle, might never have bought your game otherwise, or that said bundle gives you exposure and all that. However, the only exposure that has ever helped people in my book was with an X-ray machine, so I'm really not fond of not getting a dime for my work. Not exactly disappointed that we never ended up with a conversation, except for that sweet upfront payment. But would that have been worth it in the long run? We'll never know. About two months after not getting any replies from Humble, I've decided to not let their pitch template go to waste, and sent it out to a few smaller publishers: Fellow Traveller Games, Untold Tales, SUPERHOT, Ysbryd and a few others I don't remember. Nearly all of them replied within a span of one week, except for one, who profoundly apologised for taking an extra week, as they were busy with E3. In the end, everyone passed on working with us. Which sounds dramatic, I know. But it wasn't a bad experience at all. We've been politely told that our game either doesn't fit into their catalogue, or it's not what they're looking for. Some gave us words of encouragement or that their doors are always open for anything else in the future. Guess never say never, right? Who knows, there might be something down the line that clicks, and ends up in a collaboration.

So what's the takeaway here?

During the pitching process, I've noticed a few things. For starters, obviously everyone wants to work with a group, who already have some sort of experience. Rarely, if anyone wants to sign a deal with a person who they can't be sure of. Money IS on the line here, it's a business, no matter the artistic merit or passion an individual has. It's not a guarantee of any sort. In our case: while there's some mods, games on steam, or even the app store in which we were involved with (to varying degrees), not every credit counts. You can have great experience in modeling, but If you don't have at least a short / tiny game that you've finished and released by yourself / with your team, your chances of getting signed are rather slim. Secondly, not everyone you think is fit for you, will think that you are a fit for them. I ran into this, expecting something from companies who had a track record in the same / similar genre, only to be told that the they're currently not looking for said genre. Bummer. Thirdly: our game is weird. I've talked about this before, but the sheer mention of 'Visual Novel' being involved with your title, puts a huge stigma on it, even if content and style wise, it bears little to no resemblance to it. Similarly, we're a 'Point and Click' game, but at the same time, we aren't. Creepslore is a hybrid bastard, that is hard to define properly, and the closest I've come to lately was 'Narrative Comedy Adventure'. It sounds like @$$. So let me rephrase that: We are and aren't a Visual Novel and Point and Click adventure game. You see the problem? If you say you're part of a genre, some people will ignore you, but if you mention that you are not exactly the clear cut vanilla of said category, you will alienate those, who would otherwise be a part of your market. We're stuck between a cliff, in which case a single bad move can cost us greatly, and let us fall down into obscurity. Be it pitching to publishers, or marketing directly to players, we've certainly shot ourselves in the foot with this one. Honestly, in a demented way, it's great though. Being an underdog relaxes some of the pressure you might feel from high expectations, and it enables you doing whatever you want. Doesn't mean you should, or that it will bring you great fortune, but at least you've been working on something that you really like, and stuck to it, until the end. Sure, money and appreciation would be nice, but having the luxury of not getting pressured is a wonderful perk. Although the damn bread keeps costing more and more, so I might just be talking nonsense from delirium. *chews on grass*

Money should grow on trees.

Ever since the supermarket notified us of having restocked their toilet paper, the second most exciting news has been, that: We've been awarded a grant! Well, sort of. And it only took 18 months to get it... The country I live in, has 0 supporting measures for most things, especially videogames, so no funds or opportunities exist. The single one that is available to us, is through Creative Europe from the EU, but unfortunately, it has strict guidelines, which is impossible to meet as a start-up. Thus, here comes the single saving grace: the grant for New Entrepreneurs! With the absolutely weirdest prerequisite ever: 1. You never had your own company 2. AND You are a NEET under the age of 30 3. OR You are UNEMPLOYED and above the age of 30 Well, coincidentally, back in 2020, I just said goodbye to an abusive Hospitality job, so I applied immediately. Then world events happened and everything changed. Delays followed delays, until I finally got a confirmation back, that I've made reserves. Cool, I thought, guess this means we'll be in business shortly, right? Wrong. It became abundantly clear, that this is going to be a really dragged out process, where every tiny bit of thing needs not only approval, but extensive administration and a lot of hours put into it. We had to go through multiple workshops, that thought us nothing (besides basic advertising on facebook), outline and present business plans (which had to be realistic, but also inspiring) and of course, pitch our business idea to a committee. Mine was made up from 60+ year old grandmas... If you think you've seen thoroughly confused people in your life, try explaining a super niche videogame to people who don't even know what tetris is. The only thing you can do is throw out industry sales data, and portray confidence. In this case, it somehow worked. Flash forward to 2021, I hand in my final business plan and await approval. Which never comes. Instead, I get a message that my goals are not aspiring enough. Cool. I rewrite the plan, and using the book 'Masters of Doom' as a starting point, I proclaim to the Grant People that I will become rich and famous in the next year. Talking out of my (m)as(s)k seems to work, I get the okay. Except, their money runs out, and they need to fuel more into the program, which takes another few months. At this point, in my mind, I quietly give up, and assume that I've wasted more than a year of my life on something stupid. One day, through some sheer miracle, I get a message, that everything is OK. I accept the contract, and await the glorious loot. Weeks pass, and yet another random encounter happens: their system farts their code out, the digital contracts have been corrupted, and we all need to re-sign it. Lucky me. I start laughing hysterically and do as I'm told. The money arrives, in late august. Without notice, of course. I can't believe it happened. I'm baffled, that I actually have it. It's surreal! I keep checking the balance for an hour, until it hits me, and I let out a massive shriek of joy. Almost two years down the line, but made it. I've got funding!... To basically upgrade my PC. The amount is... Abysmal, compared to general development costs, but it allows me to buy a new rig. I honestly can't really 'upgrade' anything from my current setup, as it's 12+ years old, and even then I bought it used. While our game doesn't require a beast of a configuration, development will benefit from not having to use an AMD Phenom cpu from 2009 anymore... This would sound nice if it ended here, but there's more to the story.
Since this is essentially a start-up grant, there's a couple of things that need to be done. Firstly: a certain income quota has to be met within a year. If it's not, the money has to be repaid. Our course leaders told us to always stand on both of our feet, meaning we have to have a backup, in case our venture fails. Because our game is not being sold yet, I've been doing some freelance work on the side. Nothing too spectacular, but combined with the excruciatingly detailed administrative tasks we need to do in regards to the fund, is more hassle than anyone would honestly think. And here comes the second problem: quarterly business report. Again, such a thing would not seem to be an issue, except, because of strict guidelines, everything has to be accounted for, and documented in down to minute detail. Introduce a new challenger: my bank, the saboteur. At every turn during this whole process, I've had issues with my bank account, which had to be newly created for this grant. A main account used for the business and a sub one, used for the grant. The bank 'forgot' to give me access to my sub account, charged expenditures from it (should have been the main one as a default), wasn't connected to the main account (how is this even possible?), sent me reports through paper documentation (despite opting in for digital) and had statements per transactions, instead of a general monthly one. After finally fixing all of these issues (which didn't exist on the main account) the biggest problem arose: They cannot give me a monthly statement retroactively, if the account was not previously set up in it as their system cannot do so, nor can they manually create one, as it's against their policy. And guess what the grant needs? Monthly statements. If I cannot provide the required documents, I'm in a breach of contract, and have to repay the grant with interest... After finally getting a PC that can run more things than Solitaire and Minesweeper, I might be forced to go back to the rig that smells like burnt toast, and unlock complete financial suicide. How fun. Now, I pride myself in being able to deal with lots of stress (well, just ignoring it really) but I haven't been this freaked out in a decade. The single time something moderately good happens in life, there has to be someone kicking you in the shins, snapping you back to reality. With zero support and opportunities, the sole thing that could finally help you is about to be taken away, because of the incompetence of a third party... Things are still in limbo though, so we'll see what happens. Here's wishful thinking that Lord Cthulhu shows up this Halloween and accidentally blasts the bank to smithereens. I've heard he doesn't like tellers.

The road to Crowdfunding doesn't exist... Yet.

A while ago, I wrote up an article about the improbabilities of Crowdfunding for us. The amount of tax that we'd need to pay after one, is about half the money we'd get. And then we weren't even talking about physical rewards with the cost of their production, which are one of the bigger reasons people pledge their support. Not being in the US, has several disadvantages, where Crowdfunding becomes almost impossible for us mere pleb... For now. In late October this year however, the EU law will change. While there's some noticeable changes even now, the biggest is yet to come. Not being fully versed in the explicit details yet, as I've mostly seen the investor sides of things getting mentioned, there's hope for the future. If things go through, we might do a kickstarter later this year, with a lot of exciting exclusivities, including a lot of custom trinkets, buying the game at a discount, and even getting the original, hand drawn character art included as part of the rewards.
One character actually found a new home already. Fitting, as he is homeless. Unfortunately none of the bigger Crowdfunding sites support our countries, so there's no way for us to do any of this. It's just a possibility at this point, nothing more.

When is the early bird too early?

I'm not a huge fan of Early Access. I've only ever backed 2 games, one was a 'dine and dash' where developers left us with a broken pile of garbage, while the other one exceeded expectations, and became one of my go-to activities. So in my personal experience, it's a 50-50 chance that something good will come out of these things. We've been dabbling with the possibility in this regard, to launch in Early Access, as it might benefit us in the long run. We've been working too long on Creepslore, and there's still a lot to be done (especially with our rework). Having 5 individual branches is both a blessing and a curse. A curse, because we want to release everything in one big package. A blessing, because technically these are segregated, and can be released periodically. So we've been thinking of releasing the game through periodical updates. Launch with 1 or 2 of the branches, and have the others come in at a later point. This wouldn't be the typical 'episodic' formula that most games use though, as we still want everyone to have access to the full game by the end of development. Some might say, that it's good to have separate chapters as individual purchases, just in case you don't like the first one, but I feel like that's besides the point. People can always get a refund or just try our demo. Yes, there WILL be a DEMO in the end, so you could check the game out freely, without worrying about playtime and refunds. However, in the meantime, those who wish to support the game early, will be able to do so, at a possibly discounted rate, and tag along, first in line, as the newest stories get released. These are all just ideas and speculation at this point, nothing is set in stone. It can go either way. We might do either, or neither. The single thing that is for sure: the next time you notice an update on our steam page, it will include a video.

Concussion or conclusion?

With all that said, thanks for taking the time reading this. As promised, I'm trying to be as clear cut and open about everything as possible. I'm not sure if this is the explicit direction we need to be heading in, but I've always valued raw honesty more than anything. With that said: If you have any questions, suggestions, or just a witty remark, drop a line below, and tell us what you think! Cheers, Logen

Hey there you wonderful people whom I'd like to give a cutesy name to, but think that 'creeps' would be more degrading than adorable. It wouldn't be fitting anyways, so let's just go with what humans are called in the game:

HEY MEATBAGS!

Just wanted to give you a short TLDR, as the last news update on the steam page has been... well... not yesterday, lol. A lot of things happened, which effects you'll be seeing slowly creep into the store page in the coming weeks. Our plot was finalized, some things rewritten or expanded. We're currently changing our workflow and also reworking locations, some from the ground up, not just to make them look better, but also to make them fit more in with the world. We realize that in the process of trying to not spoil anything, we've kept too much to ourselves, so expect that to change: More screenshots, more videos, behind the scenes devlogs and much much more. We'll slowly open up a can of worms in terms of content and talk more in-depth about everything.

Back again with another summary of what happened so far. If you want more frequent updates, follow us on twitter, or check out our development blog, where we share extra details about the game on a weekly basis (unless shenanigans).

Characters, characters everywhere

First and foremost, we've been expanding our character with detailed backgrounds, personalities and goals that they have in mind. What this basically means is that they essentially have LIVES, instead of being stock 'store clerk' or 'funny one liner guy'. They are actual, developed characters. Games in general tend to fill environments with random NPCs just to meet a certain quota, and make them seem more believable by the sheer number of people moving about there. We really wanted to avoid something like this, so if you happen to meet someone in Creepslore, there's usually a personal reason behind the things they do, and where they currently are, not just because we've put them there.
Our final character count (currently) stands at 112 (!) characters, so we've upgraded quite a but from the announced 80 (albeit we did mention that it's going to end up abovea 100, we weren't sure by how much). Most of the characters are done at this point, and we don't really plan on adding any more, but you never know what happens during the development of a game. We don't want to endlessly expand things either though, then we'd never finish anything.

Shaping things with detail

Additionally we've been expanding and changing up the world in which Creepslore takes place, we've been doing an overhaul of the main city where things start out, making it bigger and moving things around a bit. We've never really shown it, but we really do intend to do as much as possible within the Quake engine itself (where we render our backgrounds), so to give you an idea, here are some of our props, just to give you an idea of the lengths we try to go (Yeah, we love our BSPs). Also, here's an example cross section on how things look before and after post processing is done.

Things are a bit fuzzy

Until now, we've been using some edited stock footage as a place holder for our FMVs, just to get a feel for them, but started to work on these as well. Originally, we planned to make our cutscenes 3D animations, but opted to change to a 2D solution instead, as we found it visually a lot more interesting, and came up with a style that we think 'pops out more'.

I've put a game in your game

Lastly, we've also came up with a 'game-in-a-game', which itself is more of a throwback than Creepslore, but still fits within the confinements and style of the main game. More details to follow this later. Until then, enjoy your Holidays.

A bit of time has passed since we launched the steam store page, and we've been pretty much silent ever since here. That doesn't mean we didn't do anything though! If you want more frequent updates, follow us on twitter, or check out our development blog, where we share extra details about the game on a weekly basis. First things first, if you've added the game to your wishlist, thanks for the interest! We appreciate every bit of positive push we get feedback from. Now, onto the main course. We've been working on quite a few new things, some visually interesting, some not. Here's a short TLDR of what might interest you:

Title Cards

Since Creepslore is made up of multiple chapters, we thought it would be a fun idea to give each of these their unique flavor, by providing a Title Card. These are all digitally painted, in a style which is reminiscent of old Movie and Cartoon Titles (Batman TAS). They give a brief summary and feel of an upcoming event without spoiling it.

Recap System

If one complaint I have of longer games, it has to be the fact that sometimes, you just can't play them nonstop, and by the next time you continue them, you've probably forgotten what you were actually trying to do. The Recap System is here to solve this issue, by giving you a brief synopsis of the last things that happened in story. Whenever you load up one of your save files, you'll be treated to a short blurb that gets you up to speed, so you don't have to run around aimlessly and try to do things you've already completed.

Playthrough Ranking

Another key feature that's now also in Creepslore is a ranking system, where your progress is rated on a chapter by chapter basis. Depending on how much you explore, and how many things you do, you get rated in a classic alphabetical manner. If you reach a certain rank, you'll be rewarded with extra content, and the higher you score, the better your rewards will be. That's all for now. See you peeps in a bit.

Writing introductory announcements is boring as hell, so lets skip the usual fluff that no one cares about, and throw professionalism out the window. Dare say for immediate release and all Ill think about is diarrhea and poop jokes. No one really wants press kits, nor bothers to properly read them, so heres the main bullet points that you want to know:

• What is CREEPSLORE?

CREEPSLORE is the lovechild of Ferris Bueller's Day off and Final Fantasy with a hint of Resident Evil.

• What genre is CREEPSLORE?

CREEPSLORE is a hybrid 2.5D point-and-click adventure visual novel that mixes these classic mediums and mashes them together into one giant ball of fur.

• Can you say CREEPSLORE one more time?

I can, but it wont just suddenly materialize next to me. This isnt Beetlejuice or Candyman. *gets head bashed in*

• What is the Story of CREEPSLORE?

During the 2018 Christmas season I got annoyed at myself and pissed off at how most games are not being the way I want them to be anymore. I came up with the base concept of CREEPSLORE, and hit up a good friend of mine to tackle the character designs and-

• HOLD ON, I meant the *the games* story. Not your self important biography.

Well, from one hack fraud to another: Ask proper questions then. CREEPSLORE is about a character who gets suckered into an adventure after applying for work somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. After realizing he answered to a fake ad, and theres neither beautiful women nor men around, he now has to deal with a bunch of intoxicated and ugly monsters with idiosyncratic tendencies (ergo: theyre also stupid). However, what starts out as sheer annoyance on his part, slowly changes into acceptance, and an understanding that humans might be the worse creatures after all.

• The game claims to have 5 completely different scenarios. How does this work?

One flaw of Visual Novels is their replayability. If you ever wanted to get the most of them, you were generally forced to replay a good chunk of the same thing again, only to get a meagre amount of extra content. We feel that this is equivalent to punishing the player, so instead, well have you influence the story right at the very start. Depending on your choices, you will end up in either of the above, and you will know almost immediately if youre on a new branch of the story or not.

• When you say theres 80 individual characters, do you actually mean it? Youre not copy pasting things, are you?

Yes, we actually mean that. The original concept started out with only 4, but things kind of got out of hand. Technically the final count is above 100, but about 80 of those are drawn at this point.

• The game features 18 explorable locations. Is this true?

Dont let me get started on those... It really does. And its not store_front.png, store_street.png. Youll see us teasing more locations as time goes by, but we obviously dont want to spoil too much, especially at the stage of this announcement.

• Why the hell are you using the Quake Engine to make your backgrounds? Doesnt this seem counter-intuitive?

It may seem that way, but it actually isnt. We tried the classic method of building environments in 3D modeling packages and rendering them, but we came to the conclusion that it just takes too much time to do anything, for a project of this scale at least. Especially if you want to replicate / reference a look of an era, its a lot easier to just use the actual thing itself, and not spend extra time in some tool to get it right. The look it gives us complements the story quite well. Not to mention, we have a good chunk of experience with BSP mapping, and an undying love for it.

• Whats with the whole Zebra thing?

Yes.

• When can we expect to PLAY CREEPSLORE?

When its done. Were not making any promises here, were not doing this full time as of this point. Sometimes theres more progress, sometimes theres less. We have an in-house ETA, but you never know nowadays. Plus were only two people.

• Speaking of which, WHO ARE YOU?

Oh so NOW youre interested? Gee, thanks... The team is made up one part from a Mysterious Creature fueled by a high percentage of Alcohol and Art Supplies, while the other half is a Bootleg Johnny Depp dashed with an Angry Gerbil and a Diploma in Internet Mouth Karate.

• Youre not going to answer this seriously, are you?

Our motto is to not take most things super seriously. Theres no fun in that. Feel free to point at us and laugh, we dont mind. CREEPSLORE Studio Sonant, 2020