howardglitch-blog

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We kickstarted an error HERE, and continue to err/develop a multi-platform story/quell the latent psychological demons of the the author. For fans of apathy/chiptunes/gloom, check out our pseudo-game HERE.

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End of year reflections:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2028883617/howard-glitch-a-multimedia-jigsaw-puzzle/posts/1443019?ref=backer_project_update

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Synths have feelings too... 011011010110100101100001

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ᾧ͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑̋͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑ᛅ͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑̋͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑ᅪ͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑̋͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑ᓩ͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑̋͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑ȷ͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑̋͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑⑙͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑̋͑᷆͑ͥ͑᷆͑

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I forgot how to human...[ᴇʀʀᴏʀ: ᴄᴀɴɴᴏᴛ ʟᴏᴄᴀᴛᴇ ʀᴇꜰᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ]

Strange to live on a planet with only a single moon...Don't know iɟ I will return to tang𝕀ble communications with the natives anytime soon, and the Book of Face seems only to loom at me like the mothman. I have ɟound clean drinking water and refuge in the non-commital domain of Twitter. The depʇh of hold the 140 has upon me has not solidified...Mʎ rack of ice axes seemed an optimal defense sysʇ em by an owl's glance, but it was folly of me to ɥave not accepted the ɹaven's help.. Into the labyrinth I waded, a yawning polygon of grǝen.. but what is it that sustains the plants in this hallowed hideaway? We experience not rain nor the breeze of any voices on our skin...My name here is temporal, my household turns to chalk.. is it alright that I relish my death?? Will father understand when my identity is interwoven only with the spǝctral..

D𝒐 𝒏o𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒍o𝒘 m𝒆... https://twitter.com/HowardGLITCH

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LOAD/DECODE/DOWNLOAD/

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U+2BC4 [1433026216530672563] U+2BC4

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my pet soul. feed. feed. cage. destroy.

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The majesty of inertia.

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I ᴡᴀs ᴏɴʟʏ sᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ  ̛̛̰̭̭̰̃̃【̛̛̰̭̭̰̃̃ ̛̛̰̭̭̰̃̃【̛̛̰̭̭̰̃̃ ̛̛̰̭̭̰̃̃【̛̛̰̭̭̰̃̃[̛̛̛̛̛̛̰̭̭̰̰̭̭̰̲̰̭̭̰̃̃̅̃̃̃̃ḭ̛̛̛̛̛̭̭̰̰̭̭̰̲̰̭̃̃̅̃̃̃ ᴀʀʀɪᴠᴇᴅ..Tʜᴇʏ ʀᴇᴡɪʀᴇᴅ Fᴀᴛʜᴇʀ, ᴀɴᴅ ɪɴ ғᴀɪʀɴᴇss ʜᴇ ʙᴇᴄᴀᴍᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇᴀʙʟᴇ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪʀsᴛ ᴛɪᴍᴇ, ʙᴜᴛ Mᴏᴛʜᴇʀ... ᴡᴇʟʟ, sʜᴇ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴀᴅᴊᴜsᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴇxᴛʀᴀ ᴇʏᴇ sᴇᴡɴ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʜᴇʀ ᴀʙᴅᴏᴍᴇɴ.

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who are you?

I'm you, from the future  :P.. you probably don't recognize me because things shift so drastically 200 years from now, and our DNA has completely activated by then.. But people also call me Rob.

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Aɴ ɪɴᴛʀᴏᴅᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ Aʟᴄʜᴇᴍʏ

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Who are you and what do you do?

We’re Bits & Beasts from Switzerland and have just released our game Feist.

To appease the inner geek in me, what was your choice of computer and operating system whilst developing Feist?

We’re both Mac users and preferred to use Macs for exhibiting Feist all through it’s development because they tend to work more reliably and look better than any Windows computer.  We’re mostly working on laptops, Florian on a MacBook Pro and I on a MacBook Air 11”, which we hook up to external screens in our studio. My MacBook Air is rather underpowered but worked well and it’s not bad to work on a computer where the game doesn’t always run great whatever you do. At home I have a Hackintosh that runs the game much better.

Were all the creatures drawn digitally, and what software and hardware was used to create all the graphics before the task of animation occured?

When we developed the prototype of Feist, we deliberately developed the aesthetics inside the Unity engine. When you make something outside of the engine (like a concept drawing or even work on some textures) and then take it inside, it’s always going to look different. This is especially the case if you use post effects like the glow and noise we use in Feist.

That’s why we created the aesthetics of the game directly in the engine, so that nothing would get lost in translation and we could develop a look that uses the nature of the rendering to its advantage instead of working against it. The creatures consist of a bone structure imported from Cinema 4D, which was also used for animating, and then equipped with sprites and meshes in Unity.

What name do you call the protagonist by?

We just call him Player. Likewise, we also don’t have names for the big creatures and just call them NPCs or creatures. Players like to call the protagonist Feist and while we don’t want to endorse that, we also don’t mind.

Tomek Kolczynski did an incredible job in scoring the soundtrack. How early on was he brought into development? 

Tomek came on the project in early 2014. Before we used existing music by Podington Bear from Portland, who graciously let us use his music for our prototype. While we had great feedback for Podington Bear’s music, we decided we wanted to collaborate with a musician and create a soundtrack specifically for Feist. We were lucky to meet fellow Swiss musician Tomek and then worked together closely to create the new soundtrack. And, yes, we also think Tomek did an incredible job!

I had a mortal fear that Feist would not run on my Sony Vaio laptop, but thank the forest gods, it did! Was it a difficult choice choosing Unity as the game engine?

There are always up and downsides. We struggled with many idiosyncrasies and bugs in the Unity engine but were able to profit from a great extensible editor and wide platform support. We developed on Mac and when we made builds for Windows or Linux, they mostly just ran without any issues. Doing that by ourself would have been very difficult.

As a duo developing a highly ambitious project over an extensive time, did you ever come close to hurling rocks at one another, or even the occasional beating with a slim tree branch? And who won?

Luckily, we never had a big argument and were able to resolve all our disagreements without physical force. We have a studio were we work together but often also work from home, which probably helped not to get in each others’ hair too much.

What was the hardest thing that you had to cut out of the game? I can see from earlier screenshots, alternate creatures and landscapes that never made it into the final version.

There’s a tonne of stuff that didn’t make it into the game. Some of it evolved into parts that did make it into the game but lots of it just didn’t work in some way or another.

How difficult was it to set the final release date, and what influence did Finji -your publisher- have with that?

We partnered up with Finji when we were pretty close to finishing the game. The plan to release the game this summer was already set when we started to look for someone to help us release the game.

It’s really hard to estimate how long development is going to take, especially when you don’t yet know what the solution is and when you have to work on the side to make your living. That’s why we had to push back the release date again and again, until we founded our studio Bits & Beasts and pulled through the last stretch of development.

During the beta testing of the game, I did consider for a moment that the species of the protagonist might not actually be different to the giant predators that try and kill you. My fan theory is this.. natural resourses are dwindling for the large predators, so when you were born they were forced to abandon you. Your appearance is different because you’re a newborn, but you were also left behind because you were born without any intrinsic magic abilities. Thoughts?

Interesting! I really like that interpretation. We intentionally left the story vague and didn’t even have one for a long part of the development. I think we do see the player and the big creatures as different species but our interpretation isn’t any better than yours!

Describe the development cycle of Feist using only one word per year.

2008: Prototype

2009: IGF

2010: Fantastic Arcade

2011: Swiss Game Selection by the Swiss Arts Council

2012: Lots of work besides Feist

2013: Bits & Beasts founded

2014: Long last stretch

2015: Release!

Exhibitions like for the IGF, Fantastic Arcade and the Swiss Game Selection, were often important milestones for us because we could show a new build to the unsuspecting public and see how the played.

You’ve gained access to a time machine. The butterfly effect is too hardcore for you to consider making any major changes. Instead, to appease the ten year old in you, you’re going to re-release / de-release Feist on an older console. The graphics and audio will be reduced heavily, but you still manage to retain nearly all of the physics-based environment thanks to a memory mod given to you by Doc Brown. Would you redesign it for: Amiga, Snes, or Megadrive?

I have fond memories of many SNES games so that’s the console I would choose, Florian might go with the Commodore 64, though.

When the original idea for the game bloomed, where were you, and what was going on at the time?

We made the prototype as part of our final thesis for the game design course at the Zurich University of the Arts. It was a three year course and Florian & I were in the same class. We learned a lot, but nothing prepares you to completing your first big game. :)

What would be your desert island indie game, and would you want a keyboard, gamepad, or an untested alpha VR headset?

I’ve been playing way too much Nuclear Throne lately and haven’t gotten tired of it yet, so that’s a good candidate to take on a deserted island.  Keyboard or gamepad works for me, Florian prefers playing on a keyboard. VR is still in its infancy and it’s interesting to see where it goes. I get motion sickness too easily to play with the current gen of VR headsets for too long.

What was the hardest element to iron out, when creating an environment that is so rich with interactive physics? The detail that goes into the swaying tree branches is incredible, not even to mention the creatures that haunt the woods.

We tried out all kinds of things and continuously iterated on what we had. It was always difficult to find something that was interesting from the game play perspective and was also possible to represent believably in the game world. Often either would work pretty well but the other fell short.

Did you at any point consider quitting the project due to the sheer scale and ambition of it becoming overwhelming?

No, we managed to stay pretty motivated throughout. But our desire to finally complete and release it grew stronger and stronger.

Have you ever managed to complete the game in a single run without dying?

We rarely play the game in a single run and when we do we try to play naively like a regular player would to avoid having a very different perspective of the game. But that’s an interesting idea to try should we ever get bored after the game is released! :)

Relatively early on in the game, I managed to pickup a branch and proceed to smack a flying creature that was endangering my character. It hit the ground then proceeded to twitch on its back. Unlike any other game, it actually evoked real guilt within me. Were elements like this intended, or have I just fallen too deeply in love with the game?

We wanted the world to feel alive and organic and each element to be believable and have a life of its own. We didn’t intend to incite that reaction in players but for you to connect with the world was definitely one of the initial goals of the project.

Being so close to your release date, what are you thoughts about future projects? Can we expect a sequel to Feist, or are you ready for a break from the woods?

We first need some time to wind down after the release and there will still be work for us to do with updates and potential console versions. We do want to continue making games but don’t know yet what that will be.

It has been an absolute honour to interview you. The project’s long development has only increased my excitement, and after actually getting to play and complete the game, I can honestly say that it has done the impossible, and eclipsed years of collective expectations. Thanks so much for all your hard work and persistence!

Thank you so much for your feedback and some of the best questions we’ve received in interviews!

[FEIST is out now on PC, Mac and Linux. You can also follow the latest news and updates at @feistgame]

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six-word-stories

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Hey. First off, I want to say I love your interactive Youtube game and your site's content. I especially enjoyed the music and theme of the game (it still gets me thinking every now and then), and I'm wondering: is there somewhere you can download or purchase the music from your video series? I'd be more than willing to pay a few bucks to get to listen to your work elsewhere.

Hey, thanks I appreciate that a lot.

The original music recordings were destroyed after my old hard drive c͏oŗru͢pt̀e̕d which I'm sad about, but I may have a few mp3 copies somewhere on an old disc.. I'll have a search for you today..

It's a funny story regarding the recording of the songs featured in the game.. I was using a tiny netbook religiously back then to write and make music, and I had about a 45 minute window to literally improvise and record all of the tracks with a yamaha portasound into a minidisc player, before I would catch a flight and not have use of it again for a few months, hehe!

But given the feedback I've received on the game music, it is something I am now incorporating into the main project soundtrack, so I'll let you know as soon as that is finished :)