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[firesourcegames]

Dev Blog 2 – The Deck-Building-Rogue-like-Auto-Battler-Tower-Defense

When we started working on Bad Hand: Rise of the Discarded, it was a very different idea from what it is now. It even had another name: Back then, it was called Nunaq Errani and the idea was to create a rogue-lite action-RPG with an intriguing spooky story. Style-Wise, it was supposed to be a pixel-art game, both out of choice and out of necessity: With no artist on the team, buying in pixel art is both easier and cheaper than having someone external designing a full game in high definition. But it was a choice, too, since all of us genuinely liked pixel art. (We still do – that’s perhaps the only part of the game that didn’t change).

We were making good progress on the fundamentals of the game, when one day, as we were discussing the way forward, we suddenly came to a very sudden and unexpected conclusion:

What we were building right now wasn’t very new.

Sure, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a rogue-lite dungeon crawler. We all played and loved Hades and Dead Cells and Binding of Isaac and Crypt of the Necrodancer and Spelunky and of course Rogue Legacy and …

Yeah.

So, the concept wasn’t very new. There are plenty of great games out there to compete (take Hades for example: If you haven’t, you should grab a copy immediately and play it!) and although we had some mildly unusual spins in our idea, and, of course, a pretty original story, at the end of the day players had a lot of titles to compare our game to.

Well. The head is round so the thoughts can change course, right? After a short bit of brainstorming, we came up with a wonderful idea! Why not turn the concept around? Stop being the hero that invades someone else’s property – become the owner of said property! A property that is, to your never-ending annoyance, overrun by countless “heroes” ultimately trying to kill a boss – yourself.

Of course, turning the premise around like this also invalidates the genre of the game. If the “hero” is not being controlled by you anymore and you are the property owner, then the game gets a way more strategic aspect to it. Some kind of management or base building game comes to mind, where you try to design a maze that gets rid of the attacking hero. Perhaps with some sort of tower…

Congratulations! We just invented Tower Defense! Not quite where we wanted to end up. But the thought of a game akin to Dungeon Keeper stuck, even if we didn’t want to go full Tower Defense. We just had to move a bit away from real time strategy, away from defense against hordes and towards a more unique way of building and managing a dungeon as an evil overlord.

Cards! Managing your dungeon by playing magical cards. That was an idea you didn’t see too often. It was a budget-friendly for the needed graphics assets and offered a lot of opportunity to integrate an evil sense of humor as well as a deep story the player could uncover. Since hero after hero would try to infiltrate your dungeon, we even had the rogue-lite aspect to it, even though it was no longer an action RPG.

The best part about this change of course was that it came at the exact right time. Our game world would still be pixel style (unlike our cards), so nothing we had built was lost.

The idea was refined in countless iterations after that, but to our surprise, we found that despite the difficulties to name the game’s genre, the cogs fit together extremely well. Being the big bad overlord defending against hero invasions, building up your dungeon using cards – it just clicked. There was – and is still – a lot of work in front of us, but we firmly believe that the foundation for every great game is an innovative idea. And that we have with Bad Hand: Rise of the Discarded.

In the next dev blogs, I will dive a bit deeper into the game mechanics. Until then: Stay awesome!

-Michael

[firesourcegames]

Happy Halloween!

As it's getting colder, darker and, most importantly, spookier, we here at Firesource wish you a very happy Halloween!

As a treat (after all, we don't want to find our house covered in toilet paper!), here's a short story about pumpkins.

Exactly last year, when our game project was still way uglier than it is today (and there are still many many placeholder in now), I needed a test sprite. As you may or may not have read in our dev blog, I am like the opposite of an artist, so when I decided "I'm gonna draw a pumpkin!", it was already pretty clear what was going to happen.

That day, our beloved ugly pumpkin placeholder was born. It's still used today for missing icons, like in this Borrow Money card.

Which reminds me to fix the Borrow Money card.

[firesourcegames]

The story of Gir - Part 2

The sun was going down and Gir felt terribly uncomfortable in his fine clothes. Being a low-life, he rarely wore anything remotely fancy, and these clothes, especially the shirt, were itching. He had to constantly fight the urge to scratch himself. Perhaps it was because he did have to borrow these clothes instead of owning them. Gir didn't want to think about how many men had sweated into this shirt already.

Of course, Gir didn't own many sets of clothes. He mainly wore his usual attire of a light grey shirt along with a leather vest and some brown pants - a practical and unremarkable outfit, but he took good care of it and washed it regularly.

Gir shook his head and tried to shoo the thought away. He needed to focus on the task at hand now:

Lord Kael's mansion was just up ahead. If Gir leaned around the corner, he could already see the brightly lit entrance and hear the sound of music and laughter - the ball was already underway. The house itself was a large two-story building made of white marble, with a small front yard, and a big garden to the back, enclosed by a hedge. Gir was not a good judge of property values, but he was certain that the mansion alone was worth a small fortune. He could only start to imagine what riches the merchant was hiding inside.

There were people saying that Lord Kael was, in fact, a Hand, because he was so successful in what he was doing. He was rich and from what Gir gathered, every deal he did turned a profit.

Gir didn't believe that, of course. Not everyone who had a little success in their lives had to be a Hand. Hands were the very few people in the world chosen by fate to accomplish great things. It was said that the Empress herself had been a Hand, but like most people, Gir stopped believing that when she was being overthrown and exiled.

No, a merchant who made a lot of money was still just a merchant. And this particular merchant was going to have his house robbed tonight.

Gir had spent the past days observing the mansion and its owner but found out pitiful little. Lord Kael was a busy man and usually left the house in the morning and came back in the evening. He had a fixed set of servants who worked at the mansion every day, and a gardener who came by in the morning. The cook, the maid, and the personal guard stayed the night, as was custom.

However, Gir didn't have any chance to see what was going on inside the hedge. The heavy iron gate was usually closed and while there were neighboring houses, the mansion was separated from the street with a high hedge, and the windows were high above ground level.

Tonight, however, would be different. The mansion would be full of guests, the garden open for all of them, the gate wide open. Maya's forged invitation would bring him inside and then, he would just have to improvise.

Gir checked his preparations one last time. Invitation, a ring of sausage for the dog - Gir was pretty sure there had to be one -, lock picks and a knife were stashed away in a bag under his coat.

Then, Gir took a deep breath, and walked around the corner.

However, he didn't get very far. As he passed the next alley, he heard a low whistle from the shade. Gir froze and turned his head to the side. The alley was dark, but Gir was sure that there was a humanoid shadow that was moving towards him. He tensed, ready to run.

"Easy there." The voice was calm and soft. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Slowly, the silhouette of a person became clear, but whoever the other person was, they were not moving out of the shadow entirely.

"I have seen you scouting the mansion", the voice continued.

Shit. Gir hadn't even started the actual theft and he was already caught. He should have known that nobody could rob a merchant that easily.

"Don't worry." the stranger continued. "I'm not here to stop you. In fact, I'm here to help you."

Gir stared intensely into the shadows, trying to pierce the darkness and see who he was talking to. The voice sounded male, but not so deep it couldn't belong to a woman.

"And who are you?" Gir asked, cautiously.

"I'm a friend. Or maybe you'd rather say, an ally."

"I've never seen you before, and I don't like people spying on me."

The stranger chuckled. "Oh, but that's the exact thing you have been doing the last few days. But I don't blame you. And yes, we have never met before."

Gir didn't know what to say.

"You don't need to worry.", the voice continued. "I don't know your name and I probably wouldn't be able to remember your face well enough to describe it to anyone. However, it is clear to me that you plan on stealing something from Lord Kael's mansion tonight."

"That would be illegal." Gir stated. Not the most quick-witted reply, and the stranger just ignored his words.

"See, I have a personal score to settle with Lord Kael as well. And while I can't break into his house myself, I have the ability to support someone who can. I can't let the opportunity pass."

"You... have a score to settle? With Lord Kael?"

"Of course. Every coin he earns, every business venture of his, is money stolen from someone else."

Gir didn't reply immediately. He could feel the cold metal of the dagger on his chest. It was the only weapon he owned and the only one he could hide underneath his clothes. Yet, Gir was no fighter, by a long shot. If the stranger decided to attack him, he would need to flee. While still looking straight ahead, he looked for possible escape routes in the corner of his eyes. It shouldn't be too difficult, but if he did, he would be visible from the mansion, making his theft impossible.

"So, you want to help me. Why should I believe you?"

"Look, I can see you're not convinced, and that's fine. I don't expect you to trust me. We're just two strangers meeting each other in an alley. How could you?"

Gir found himself nodding. The stranger was being reasonable.

"Here. Take this. It's a potion of invisibility. It will only work for about half a minute, but it should help you nevertheless."

With these words, the stranger produced a slim vial filled with a near transparent milky-grey liquid.

Gir's eyes went wide. Magic potions, even comparably weak ones like these, were *expensive*. He couldn't believe what the stranger was doing.

"I ... uh, thank you." Gir said, carefully. He was not going to let his guard down, but the stranger was offering a valuable gift. The hand offering the vial was wearing fine, black leather gloves. Perhaps, Gir thought, a noble or another merchant. That made some sense. If the stranger was a rival merchant, perhaps they just wanted to weaken Lord Kael and gain some advantages.

"Just make sure Lord Kael gets his comeuppance."

"I will do my best." Gir replied.

"Then, I wish you good luck."

The shadowy figure retreated into the dark alleyway and left Gir with the potion vial in his hand. Well, if the stranger wasn't lying, this would make things a lot easier.

Gir took another deep breath and then moved on.

It didn't take long until he was in the front yard of the mansion, standing behind a small group of other guests about to enter. The place was beautiful and lively: The hedge surrounding the mansion was decorated with colorful lanterns, and the sounds of music were coming from the open door.

At the gate, there was a joyful guard who checked the invitations of the arriving guests and ushered them inside. Gir felt nervous. The guard, while dressed in the red and black livery of Lord Kael, was also wearing a leather armor alongside a short sword.

This was it. Gir reached into his pocket, produced his fake invitation and handed it to the guard. As he did so, all nervousness and fear were gone from his face and he greeted the guard with the happy face of an excited party guest, playing his part perfectly.

"Ah, a newcomer to the new moon ball. How exciting! Welcome, welcome!" the guard said as he accepted the invitation without even looking at it too much. "Be sure to try some of the food, we have the best cook in the city. Especially the reindeer roast..."

Gir gave the guard his brightest smile, nodded and entered.

Reindeer roast. He knew Lord Kael was wealthy, but that was just ridiculous. Gir had only heard from this, but never seen or tasted it. Reindeers didn't live in the south, but up in the northern mountains. That meant the meat had to be brought in before it spoiled, and that made it extremely expensive.

Once he was through the door, he had to pause for a moment to take it all in.

The interior of the mansion was spacious, clean and well decorated. There were several servants bustling around, bringing drinks and food to the guests. A few tables had been lined up along the wall and were laden with a variety of appetizers. Gir saw some roasted chicken, various cheeses, grapes, and bread. Apparently, the main course had not been served yet.

In the back of the hall was a large staircase leading upstairs, and in the center, Gir could see a large ball area, where the guests had already gathered and were dancing and chatting.

The hall was filled with light and life, the voices of the guests echoing off the walls. There were so many people and so much going on, Gir thought, that sneaking around would probably be much easier than expected. The stairs however, where obviously closed off to the guests with a decorative fence, and a just as decorative house servant was keeping an eye on it.

Gir sighed and started moving through the room, observing the people and the mansion. Most of the guests seemed to be merchants and nobles as expected. Even though he had borrowed the finest clothes his money allowed, he was clearly one of the least good-looking guests here. There were a few guards, all armed, but none of them seemed too alarmed.

For a while, Gir took it all in, chatted a bit here and there and tried the food which was indeed amazing.

Even though the stairs were right here in the central hall, the guests didn't pay too much attention to them. They were clearly reserved for Lord Kael, as the master of the house, who was busy tending to his guests, talking and laughing. The stairs turned away after a dozen steps, so once he was there, he would be out of sight.

The problem was getting this far. The decorative brass fence wasn't much of a problem in itself - Gir was athletic enough to hop over it without any issue. But doing so would draw attention to himself, not to mention the servant watching the stairs.

Gir was thinking, weighing his options. The invisibility potion would give him the necessary edge. However, he had never used one before and didn't know how it would work - or if. Gir didn't know the first thing about magic but only heard stories. Perhaps the potion would only make his body invisible but not his clothing or equipment. No, he only wanted to use the potion if he didn't have any other choice.

Instead, Gir considered the possibility of using the music to his advantage. At the moment, there was a violin and flute playing a nice slow song. It wasn't quite slow enough for people to dance to it, but there were a few couples standing close together and swaying a little.

Gir made a few more rounds and got himself a drink, waiting for the right time.

The song ended and a new one began: a much livelier tune. The guests on the dance floor cheered and started moving faster and beginning to dance.

That was his cue. Gir moved towards the stairs, slowly but steadily, keeping a safe distance. He made his way to the dance floor, trying not to look suspicious, and started moving his hips. When he was sure nobody was watching, he purposefully bumped into a nearby dancing lady, who toppled over and fell on her butt.

"Oops, sorry, so sorry! Are you okay?" Gir apologized loudly, drawing even more attention to the scene but retreated back into the crowd instantly.

As he had hoped, the attention was with the noble woman right now, and the servant guarding the stairs rushed to her help as well.

Gir seized the opportunity. He was only a few feet away from the stairs and no one was watching him. He jumped over the fence, his heart racing.

He could hear the commotion below him, the guests helping the fallen lady, the servants and the guard trying to restore order, but he focused on climbing the stairs.

When Gir was around the first bend of the stairs, he allowed himself a glance behind him. The servant was back at his station, and the lady seemed to be well. Nobody was following him. Getting down would be another challenge, but that was a problem for future Gir. Now, the real work began.

---

It's Firesource-Friday! Here's the next part of the story of Gir, delving a bit deeper into the lore of the world on the way. And the first playable character of the game has been mentioned! Can you spot where?

[firesourcegames]

Dev Blog 1 – The long start

Besides entertaining you, our most valued reader, with in-universe stories, we want to give you insights into our development process - along with sneak peeks behind the curtain on what to expect from our game Bad Hand: Rise of the Discarded.

Even though it won’t tell you much about that exact game, a wise person once said that it’s best to start at the beginning, so let’s do exactly that.

Technically, the company Firesource was founded 8 years ago, in late 2015. So, why are we only now, 8 years later, starting a dev blog? It’s because of the long start!

Perhaps you know the nagging feeling of a dream waiting to be realized deep within you? That is what my best friend and me, who worked for the same company at that time felt ever growing stronger. I, in particular, wasn’t too happy with my employer on the one hand and being both a software engineer and an avid gamer, always had the dream of getting into game development on the other hand. So, why not live our mutual dream? Why not make it a reality and earn money doing what we really burn for? We had stories to tell and ideas to share.

Of course, that’s a rather idealistic point of view. The reality (and we knew that as well both then and now) is that it is hard to get into this industry, as an independent game developer. We have all heard stories about how Concerned Ape created Stardew Valley all by himself and had a huge success, or how Notch got rich over Minecraft. But what about the average indie developer?

Well, according to a recent analysis, the average steam game earns… a little over $1000. Not per month or per year, but over the whole game lifetime. That is… not a lot.

So, why even bother? Doesn’t that mean it is pretty pointless to even try? Of course not, no. It just means that we have to deliver an above-average game. And probably more than one, too, learning in the process. What these statistics do mean however is that, if you don’t have the luxury of having a few hundred thousand dollars lying around, it’s a pretty risky move to just bet on success, resign from your previous job, take a huge loan and start into game development full force.

I am a pretty optimistic person, but that’s a risk that’s too big even for me. So, what we decided on was to take the long road – and that means doing game development in our free time until one day, we are successful enough to rely on that for a living. Thus, the long start was born.

Since then, we have done some smaller projects: A quiz game for a local museum and a peaceful gardening simulator (Tiny Garden – check it out on Android or iOS!) for mobile phones. Most of all, though, we have, in a way, assembled our team. Working in your free time for the prospect of a possible future success is hard, even if you burn for what you do. Besides my best friend and me, who stayed with the dream the whole time, we had some friends joining and leaving the project. In the end, we have found a constellation of four friends that works and harmonizes – and, most importantly, share the same dreams and passions.

Of course, with every person joining and leaving the project, the question of what we want to do – and what we can do – varied, leaving us with a heap of great or not-so-great ideas that we started working on, only to realize that it’s not what we want to do or that we can’t continue them yet because of missing skills.

Missing skills? Yes! We started (and ended up) without a person with any graphics designer skills. As you can imagine, that’s pretty much a killer for game development. Text adventures are out of fashion and everything else has to have some amount of graphics. There are good games with relatively minimal graphics out there, but even those have something to show. We tried to win some of the very few friends with graphics skills for our project, but ultimately failed.

What a bummer. How are you supposed to develop a game without an artist?

Well, you don’t. But since we didn’t quit our “daytime jobs”, we had one other option left that worked out better than expected: We could just buy the graphic assets we needed from external artists. After some mediocre experiences, we finally found two awesome artists (on opposite ends of the globe!) who are very happy to work with us. Of course, having to buy assets somewhat limits what kind of game you can realize, but we made that work. After multiple years of trying to get started with different concepts and different people, finally, the long start was over.

We are still working in our free time and are not progressing as quickly as we would if we could concentrate on our game exclusively, but that’s okay. For the first time since the beginning, we are finally moving forward with our bigger project – following our dream one step at a time! By now, we are confident that we will make it. And that’s where the long start ends and the journey begins – and we’re taking you with us along the way, with these dev blogs.

- Michael

[firesourcegames]

The story of Gir - Part 1

"You want me to do what?" Gir asked incredulously - and just a little too loudly. Several people in the crowded tavern turned their head towards the small table where Gir and his twin sister were sitting. It didn't take Maya's hectic gesture for Gir to recognize his mistake and lower his voice.

Instinctively, he looked around the room. It was full and loud, as it was to be expected on an autumn evening like this. Next to their table was a big round one with half a dozen women and men playing cards - of course Rotov, as Gir recognized - with the low stakes he would expect from workers or sailors like them. However, those were not the people Gir cared about too much. They would have forgotten everything they might have heard anyway by the end of the evening, judging by the amount of beer mugs on the table.

Behind them, located at the wall, was another table, however. Even though it had three chairs and was also big enough to support three people, and the tavern was crowded tonight, only one of the chairs was occupied. A stern looking woman sat on the table, clad in leather armor, with a sword and shield leaning against the table. Of course, it was not allowed to bring weapons into the tavern, usually. But both her immaculate appearance and the guild emblem on her shield clearly identified this woman as a hero - and nobody would ask a hero to leave their weapons outside, right?

Even though Gir had to admit that the hero guilds were an absolute necessity because they protected the cities and merchants against monsters, his first instinct on seeing one of them was to run away and hide. The heroes had a knack to catch not just monsters but any criminal - and that probably included Gir. He had managed to stay out of their way so far, but even his luck would probably end one day.

But today was not that day, as the hero didn't look up from her beer mug.

After a second of observation, he turned back to his sister, who, in a low voice, explained her request again.

"I don't know what gets you so upset all of a sudden. Aren't you a..."

Speaking the word made her visibly uncomfortable and she looked around the room as well before continuing in an even lower voice:

"... thief? I'm just asking you to use your talents for something useful for once and steal a thing for me."

"You want me to break into the mansion of one of the richest merchants in the city and steal a ... book for you? Have you gone mad?" Gir replied, agitatedly. Before his sister could answer, he added:

"You should really get out of your writing room sometimes, little sis. That's insane!"

He knew that Maya hated it to be called his little sister, although it was technically correct. They were twins, but he was the older brother by means of a few minutes. Other than that, he had to admit though, that his sister was far more successful in life than he was. She was a scribe working in some merchant's counting house by the port, earning a modest, but honest living. Gir, on the other hand, was a thief, just as Maya had said. He wasn't necessarily bad in what he did, but he had the good sense of keeping it low. Once the guards (or a heroes guild) was on his tail, he was in serious trouble. So, most often, instead of stealing jewelry or valuable goods from wealthy people, he took stuff nobody would miss quickly: Loaves of bread, some coins from a purse... nothing worth chasing after him. That didn't make him a rich man - but at least a free one.

Maya sighed. "Yes, I know it is risky, but this is important to me. Please, I would do it myself, but I have no idea how."

"I know this be surprising coming from me, but have you tried just buying that book? Lord Kael is a merchant after all, and for the right price he would probably sell his gran."

"I didn't. Even though it's just an old book in his shelf, he would surely ask for more than I can pay. And then he'll be keeping an eye on it and know who's behind the theft immediately."

Gir nodded reluctantly. His sister was smart - much smarter than him - even now. She was right, of course. If this book wasn't one of Lord Kael's most prized possessions, he wouldn't keep a special eye on it. If, however, there was a sudden interest in it, that would change.

"I don't know, Maya." Gir sighed. He already knew how this conversation would end. "I'm a thief, not a burglar. I don't think I'm very good at breaking into somebodies home."

"You're the best I know." That wasn't much of a compliment of course. Maya, being a law-abiding citizen of course knew no other thief - or burglar - than him.

"Please, I need to have this book." she pleaded, her eyes sparkling. "This might just be the last bit of information missing."

Gir looked at his sister's face, and for a moment he thought that it would be worth it, if only to see her smile. He briefly considered asking her what she was hoping to find in that book or what she was researching but decided against it. Chances were he wouldn't understand anyway and if he got caught, the less he knew about this the better.

"Okay, tell me about this book, how do I recognize it."

Maya smiled and her eyes lit up. "You will not regret this. It's a small book, bound in leather, with a silver lettering on the spine. You won't be able to read the title, so I wrote down the words for you here."

Maya slid a note across the table and Gir took a brief look. She was right: to him, the short title was only gibberish. Gir was one of the few low-lives who had learned how to read and write - of course, his sister had taught him - but this writing was foreign to him. He carefully folded the note and put it away.

"You know, you'll owe me one, right?" Gir smiled. It was probably going to be okay. He just had to steal an old book the wealthy merchant wouldn't miss for a very long time. If he managed to get in and out of the house without anyone noticing, it wouldn't be too risky. On the other hand, it was a challenge, and Gir loved challenges. In his mind, he was already recalling everything he knew about Lord Kael.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Whatever you want. Thank you, big brother."

Gir sat there, pondering his next move. It was obvious that the easiest way would be to wait until Lord Kael would be away. Being an influential noble and merchant, he was sure to be in other parts of the empire more often than not. However, perhaps that would be the times were the mansion would be guarded best.

No, a better plan would be to strike when it was least expected: When Lord Kael was at home.

Of course, it would not only be Lord Kael himself in the house. He had servants, a cook and a maid at least, and probably his own guards. Perhaps a dog. Maya didn't say how quickly she needed the book, but she would have to wait a few days at least. First, Gir needed to scout out the mansion and learn a routine.

Perhaps...

"Hey, are you listing?" Apparently, Maya had said something while Gir was planning.

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

"Really?"

"Of course. What did you say?"

Maya gave him an annoyed look. "I just told you that the merchant will be hosting a ball in a few days. I have seen the invitations and I think I could create a copy for you."

"Oh, that would be perfect. Is it a night of the new moon celebration?"

"Yeah, it is."

The nobles in Sevhar were notorious for throwing huge parties, mostly as an excuse to show their wealth, so regularly that someone was hosting something on every new moon. Gir had never been to one since those parties were strictly invite-only. That this month it was Lord Kael's turn to host one, was perfect timing for his plans.

"I don't want you to get too involved, Maya." Gir said. "I just need you to copy an invitation, nothing more."

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. You'll be the one who's getting into trouble."

"Let's drink to that". Gir couldn't hide his smile as he rose his mug. He was more and more looking forward to this whole thing. It would without a doubt be the biggest heist he had ever done - and although he wouldn't be able to tell anyone about it, he had a good feeling.

-----

This is the first part of our first in-universe storyline which we will be continuing alongside the game development. Stay tuned for more stories and insights surrounding Bad Hand: Rise of the Discarded!

Just a quick note on the images used: In the storylines, we will mainly be using AI-Generated concept art to get a look and feel for the world, intermixed with occasional game graphics (you will be able to tell instantly: The game will be in pixel style!)

In the final game, there will be no AI-generated content.

[firesourcegames]

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to our blog! Please enjoy your stay. If you have just stumbled onto this Tumblr, you might be asking yourself the important question: Who? What? Why?

Well, let's answer these!

Who?

We are Firesource! A conglomerate of just a few friends, who formed Firesource in late 2015 (one day before christmas!) as a part time company to realize our dreams of game development. You might not have heard from us yet - at least if you haven't played TinyGarden, a really tiny mobile game - but we strife to change that and elevate our passion of game-making to be our main occupation at some point!

What?

Our current project is a medium sized PC game, that will come out some time in the future. And in this blog, we invite you to accompany us along the way. We will post regular dev updates as the game evolves, alongside screenshots, polls and so on.

Since that might be a bit boring for you to read in the long term, we will also tell multi-part stories set in the world we are creating, decorated with both in-game and (AI-generated) concept art.

Why?

Because it is our firm belief that games can be used to enrich the lives of the people around us.

We want to open lovingly created worlds for you that will captivate you.

Commercial success is not our first priority, instead we work with dedication, expertise and passion: our mission is to develop games that we would want to play ourselves.

So, join us on our long journey towards the release of

Bad Hand: Rise of the Discarded

(AI-generated concept art)