Key art and stuff.

Hello Hello,

I once again took a few weeks off from posting here. My thoughts have been mostly with Lucius lately and I'm unable to show stuff from that yet. It's not really a good idea to show unfinished stuff from that.

In L3 we are mostly just concentrating on Animations now and the actual puzzles. Finalized version of the main player model is starting to be done and also the first 3 chapters are starting to be fully ready. Soon we will start doing some testing sessions.

As for Unintended. I've been starting to look into some key art and finally creating the last playable character.

Both are still a little WIP.

I wanna keep up with the style of weird hats, and possibly that's the reason why they will survive the sudden winter that strikes here.


Some key art also is in the works. Still working on it, but something like this I'm thinking I'll put on the Steam page. Still need to however do some work on it and try to bring forth the things that matter the most.

I think I still need to add some more of the game areas there. The windy city and the lava world.
It's coming a long. Maybe on the next post I will already have a Steam page ready so people can start wishlisting it and testing it through Steam :)

That's it for today.

Cheers!
-Johannes

Unintended and Chinese stuff

Hi all.
It's been a while. I skipped last week's post since I didn't really have anything interesting to say. This week however, I felt I had to mention a few things.

So here we go..

Unintended has been progressing a bit. I've finally started the "Windy City". I posted this picture last week in twitter. It's an initial tilemap test and overall style sketchup.

I like the volumetric light and I feel like the clouds are also shaping up nicely. This week I continued to work on some of the buildings in the area. I played around with some different building perspectives for this level, but after some consultation I decided to go with simple high rising buildings.

Here's the current progress with them:

I will probably continue on these a little more to flesh out some stuff around it, but I still feel pretty happy with it.

My rib seems to be finally fully healed and so I'm back in the gym :) That's nice. Does eat some unintended time, but I think it will be worth it.

We've been working on some patches for the Lucius games. We released a Simplified chinese patch for Lucius 1 and saw a significant jump on the sales during the Halloween sale. The figures did quiet down after the sale but the percentage seems very high still. Definitely worth it and paid itself probably in the first day. So that's nice. We also released a patch for Lucius demake (Pc/Android). It has some improvements in the overall game and also the simplified Chinese. Let's see how that goes.
Ryan Clarke mentioned in his twitch video about the crazy numbers that (I think) PUBG brought in.

So this is what has been the talk lately:

So this is from the Steam hardware survey and it says that already 56% of the total steam users speak simplified Chinese. It's quite crazy. Anyway this means that probably all my games in the future will have Chinese on launch day. I will try to collect some more numbers for our results in and post about them, once I have at least a month or two of sales to draw from.

So. Can't think of anything else now, so maybe next time!

Later!
-Johannes

Let there be light.

Hi.
So. Still working on the misty forest. Adding some new elements to the whole light reflecting puzzles. I've added a darkened area to the map that you will have to illuminate. This darkened area is infested with wolves but luckily they will steer away from fire.

Hopefully that gives a clear enough idea of the situation. I'm liking the forest now a lot more. Maybe I'll add some rats until getting to the clouds.


Lucius Demake is out now for Android. 
It's not really doing much sales yet, but we'll hope for the best around halloween.

It costs 2.99$
All the support would be appreciated :)


Our office move has not been the best ever experience. A lot of the construction were still underway when we got there with our truck. They are now saying that they will be ready in a month or so.

The roof is leaking :(

This is how it looked when we got there:

Well. That's about it for today.
Until next time.
-Johannes

Itsy bitsy spider..

Pheeew..
I've been so lazy lately. Never do sports. Had to take some x-rays and it turns out, I have a broken rib! I would love to say that this is the reason why I haven't been updating much, but it's not really the case. I've just been lazy. Next friday we are going to be moving our office to a new location. It's exciting. The office is slightly smaller, much cheaper, and probably much nicer. It's still being renovated. The old building is going be renovated too, so that's why we had to move. Anyway all good! We are cutting down some expenses and hopefully that will translate to some good stuff for Lucius III. 

Speaking of Lucius. We are almost done with the Android version of Demake and will be soon releasing it. Maybe slightly before Halloween in hopes of Halloween featuring. It will be available in the Play store and the Amazon store. (hopefully).

Other big Lucius news: We also released Demake in the new Jump platform. It's a subscription based service that doesn't use any streaming. It has mostly small, but highly curated bunch of games.
I like it!

You can check it out here:  https://playonjump.com/

It has a nice 14 day trial, so what's there to lose. Try it!


About Unintended...
I've been still working on the Misty Forest parts. Mainly I want to add another sort of boss type of fight. So I'm just adding some creatures and stuff before we get to the Windy City.
Here's an example of a spider I've been working on. It has been quite a challenge to get it working. So far I have no ideas how to add a puzzle to this. Perhaps it will be enough to just avoid it. I don't know yet. I'm hoping to eventually combine all the forest parts to one large combination of things.

So here's the spider:

I like it so far. Just needs some more stuff to really stand out. I figure I need quite a few of these more interesting parts to the game, so It's easier to market it.

Well.. That's about it for now.
I'll update some more in a week or two.

-Johannes

Midsummer and unintended break.

Hi.
I'm back. I went to Vehniä for a few days. It was around 3 hour train ride. Some friends, beer, lake, sauna and etc. Basic Finnish things. It was pretty fun. So what has happened in the game?

Bunch of things. You finally get to cross the eternal pit and meet some bats again.

There's two options on the bats. Just dodge and avoid them or there's also a way to get them to leave you alone. Like so.

I've also created some new "sand monsters" for the desert area and started working on the ridge. I will show you guys some more next week.

In other news:
Steam summer sale has begun and all our games are on sale again. Seems to be generating some income. I've bought several games already from the sale.

Let's see when I have time to test them out properly. Actually I already played some Hidden folks and it was pretty cool.

Okay that's it for now. Later!

Working on mud.

Hi.
Two weeks went by. I think I'm finally "mostly" done with the mud city.  Since last update I've added several new houses with new puzzle in them. It's a quest for the four keys made from blocks.

I also added some health for the mud walkers. They are scattered around the town. I still need to work on few things with them, but overall they feel much better now.

There's a few of these keystones, you need to hunt around the town. Most are somehow hidden.

I also changed some of the mud castle floors due to some feedback that I got while people were testing it. I think It's pretty fun now. Still wondering if I should add health to the player or some sort of life system. I hesitate, for it might suddenly look too much like some of its peers and that would not be ideal. I'm not too keen on adding any hearts on the top or anything like that. Then again if it works, then it works.

I'll probably be still polishing some of these features around the mud buildings and adding some secret stuff here or there. So no... We did not get away from the mud yet, but we are close. New features should be right around the corner. Stick that can create land and some shopping mechanics. I've settled on the dynamite. Also adding a stamina or mana of some sort, would create more opportunities for the shop.

Lucius is also coming along nicely. Our statistics show that we are around 50% mark now on content though there's not much of actual gameplay yet. No real puzzles yet. But soon.. It's even got a secret web page already: http://Lucius3.com

But don't tell anyone I told you. ;)
There's also a possibility to add yourself to our mailing list.

Okays that's it for today. Thanks for reading.

-Johannes

The unintended break.

Hello again.
My break went a little bit long. I was suppose to take only a week off, but things and life kinda took their toll. Anyways I'm back again and hopefully will be staying on a schedule. I have been slacking off a bit on Unintended, but not entirely.
I've still been working on the Boss encounter of the Mud King and I think it might be pretty close to being ready. Maybe some polish and aftermath is still needed. I decided to record the whole encounter and show it for you. The video is considerably long this time. So some spoilers ahead, but hopefully you will forget those before the game is actually out.



Maybe the changes in the phases also need some transition music sometimes. I'm not sure. But I would like to move on soon from this encounter so that I won't get stuck doing this forever.



One other interesting thing was that Lucius was a part of Gamer Block M. It's interesting to watch those unboxing videos. Hopefully I'm getting one too. I'll be sure to take a picture of the box and put it here.

Okays..
Maybe next week?
Who knows. Bye!
-Johannes

Unintended Puzzle Rooms

So. Next week is moving-day for me. Yay! That means that there probably will be a small gap on the blog and Unintended progress.

This week I continued on the Mud Tower and its main tower puzzle rooms. I've managed to create some fairly fun ones, I think.

Here are some examples:
One where you run through a room with spikes and try to keep ahead of the ones that are raising back up. It was very exciting for my tester. It probably should have a music also that keeps getting faster during the run. Have to think about how to achieve that.

Another room I did was this magnetic apparatus room. It basically has a magnetic connection thingy that will remotely control few of these blocks.

I think the tower has seven floors altogether, so maybe the next stop might be the boss man himself.

On another note: We did have our first outside tester for Lucius III and it seems we have something like 45 minutes of content "somewhat-done". It played fairly smoothly and did not have much problems on the progress. Overall feedback was also fairly positive so we shall see. I'm pretty hopeful on our current progress. It is pretty straight forward in the beginning. It remains to be seen how well it goes after that.

Well that's about it for today. I'll return in a week or two provided that I have an internet of some sort.


-Johannes

A small Unintended title screen.

Hia!

Today I'm gonna share some work in progress stuff again. I've been working on the mud city and some catacombs beneath it. Currently I'm at the point where the player is actually able to enter the Castle. I did some investigating and I did find some examples from the 8 bit era that used perspective backgrounds at some points, and I was looking to give the player a special feeling before entering this place. It still needs some work and fine detail, but I really like the direction this is heading.

I'm probably gonna change the music for this part. This is a new tune that somehow is stuck in my head so I had to record it and now it's in game. I'll probably end up using it somewhere else tho. This part would require some more delegate piano sombre moment thingy. I'm not sure.

Also Lucius has been having a good week. I was afraid that the changes in the Steam store would have a negative effect of the sales, but it seems that it's selling still somewhat in a regular or even better pace. The Lucius Bundle is currently -85%.

We'll that's that. Next time I'll take you inside the castle.

The Unintended player two

Hello hello! Another week has gone by.  I've finally have my first iteration of a co-op mode. Two players working on the same screen. One is controlled with a Gamepad and the other with a keyboard.

There are still a lot of issues that need to be fixed on the whole ordeal. These are just the very first steps of the overall process. It currently supports four different players at the same time. There are still some issues with showing the players moving on the screen to their own directions.

Ideal thing would be, that each person will be able to travel freely from area to another without any restrictions. However, that will be much more difficult to implement on the current level change system. I'm also thinking of the possibility that you need to wait for the whole group to a single exit before they change area. I'm probably gonna try that first and see how it feels. If it feels too much, then I'll probably start working on the real system where you can travel freely.

I also made some sticky mud, that will catch the player and traverse them to their doom.

On a side note. I went to the theaters and watched Dr.Strange. I felt it was a great superhero movie. One of the better ones out there. It was very similar to the Matrix and everything was made very well. All the fractals and very clever humor was working for me. Definitely worth the trip.
I'll give it 8 of 10.

I finally released the Lucius Demake soundtrack in Steam.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/538460/


Lucius games are also part of the whole Halloween sale on Steam. If you don't have them already, get them now when they are practically free.

http://store.steampowered.com/bundle/799/

 Until next week.
-Johannes

The Unintended, Mafia III, Lucius and Soundtracks

Hello Folks,
Another busy week. I've been doing quite a few extra hours at the office and Lucius stuff is coming along nicely. We are currently working on Lucius III, but haven't really given any official announcement yet. The script is fully done and most of our design is fully done. It's gonna be tight money wise to make it all happen, but we will try our best. I really like where the story is going and how it's all going to end. Lucius III is going to concentrate much more on the story and hopefully we will be able to give some real depth to the characters this time.

Mafia III was just released on Steam and it looks like it's getting raped with reviews. Currently it's
Mixed (55%) with 5,713 reviews. It's interesting that it's currently lower than Lucius II. After reading the reviews and watching some of the YouTube videos, I feel like it kinda tried to do something similar to Lucius II with a sort of similar result. I know they are not really comparable but it's interesting to see them battling with similar issues.  Basically I think they tried to add more freedom after making  a game that had a focus on the story. I guess they ended up with a lot less stable product with more bugs and also the story seems to have suffered a bit.  Frame rate locked to 30 and major crash issues seem to be the bulk of the problem. I felt like there were going to be some issues with the game when I was looking at the videos near the launch. Steam can be a rough place sometimes. On the other hand I'm glad to see Quantum break doing well on Steam. Congratulations to Remedy, our fellow Finnish colleagues.

There are certainly lessons here we need to also remember when releasing Lucius III.

I've been also working on some more  puzzles for Unintended. I created a complicated tunnel network where you need to solve different types of puzzles to get through. It ended up being pretty complicated overall thing. I had to create system for myself to keep track of all the entrances and exits. Here's a picture of a desert with some tunnel caves.

This is something what most of these caves have inside:

So.. that's something I guess. I would like to be able to use more time for this, but I need to prioritize Lucius overall and it's currently taking quite a big chunk of my time.

That brings me to my last point. We had some emails and messages about the Demake soundtrack and it's availability online. So I decided to release it on some of the major online music distributors.

Here's a spotify and itunes link:
https://open.spotify.com/album/5FySxFUSuCBIJ0YDeCHr2j
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lucius-demake/id1161260852

It should be also available soon in Amazon, Deezer, Google and Tidal.
We are also looking into getting the soundtracks available in Steam. Not sure if people use those, but it doesn't hurt to offer it there too.



It's October and Halloween is coming. The Lucius games are going to be on many sales during the upcoming month and the first one is starting tomorrow on Steam. Hopefully they do well, so we can put more resources on the sequel.

That's enough rambling for one post.
See you in a week or so.

Cheers!
-Johannes

What is this blog about? Reviews, Lucius or Unintended?

Hello,
This would be my first post. In a very Finnish manner, I will start by apologizing. Even though I'm the main person who writes the stories of our games at Shiver Games, I still feel that my written English is not up to par in many ways. This blog is meant to be just my random thoughts and ideas as they come. It's mostly for my own benefit and I do not intend to edit it too much. So for this I apologize.

So what is this blog really about?

I do not really know. In Finland we have this law that everyone needs to have at least 5 weeks of vacation each year and most seem to keep four of them during the summer. This summer I decided to start my own game project separate from my company that does mostly horror games.
If you are not familiar with them then please check out these links:

http://shivergames.com
http://lucius.shivergames.com
http://lucius2.com
http://luciusdemake.com


We mainly publish our games in Steam and that's our main source of income. We also do retail and several other digital distributors.

Shiver Games was founded 2010 and we've been pretty much Lucius oriented the whole time. This year was my first year during that time, that I decided to actually keep this famous Finnish vacation. During this five weeks I decided to start my own side project that I'll work on my free time.
I've named this project Unintended. This project with the combination of buying some recent hardware made me feel like I should share some of the things that encounter from time to time.
For instance: I just went through some years of trying out different types of wireless headsets for gaming and felt like I should write about some problems on some of them and some really good features on some. Also it's an area that I find interesting, since many people do not give a **** about wireless connection on headphones and I actually do. I'll try to write these reviews of these different headphones soon..

I will also try to post some progress of my own project and our next Lucius project.

So anyone interested on the next Lucius might also get some "inside-scoops" every now and then.


Kind Regards,
Johannes Aikio