Author Archives: Yoshgunn

See You At PAX East 2019!

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Hello everyone! The days are getting busier and busier and it’s getting harder to get these blogs out in time. I ought to start working on them days in advance, honestly. We’re also working on a bunch of stuff with different groups that have us under NDA, so sometimes we just can’t share what’s going on! Sorry about that.

This is just a quick post to let you know we are alive, and that we’ll be at PAX East 2019 later this month! You can come to PREGAMER (PAX East Edition), visit us on the show floor, attend our panel, or do all three if you’re a true fan. Info below…

PREGAMER PAX East Edition

When: Wednesday, 3/27 from 6pm – 11pm

Where: Laugh Boston, 425 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02210

This event is free, but you need to register here!

Kick off PAX East in style with the 3rd annual PREGAMER party!

Game developers will be showing off their latest games one-on-one to a crowd of 1,000 people. For developers, this is a great opportunity to show off their games (finished or unfinished) and get direct feedback from players. For everyone else, it’s a unique opportunity to try out the biggest collection of games outside the show floor itself. Each game gets its own section as players meet the developers and try out their games. Throw finger food into the mix and let’s start “pregaming” for PAX East!

All ages welcome. ID required.

The Booth

When: All Weekend

Where: Booth Number #19135

The kind folks over at Playcrafting have generously invited us to showcase NYC’s most awesome games! We’ll be representing Where Shadows Slumber and helping our fellow New Yorkers demo their stuff. Come play the full game (until we kick you off) or interview us! You can schedule an interview by emailing me here: contact@GameRevenant.com

The Panel

When: Saturday, 3/30 from 1:30pm – 2:30pm

Where: The Arachnid Theatre, but I have no idea where that is

We’re doing a panel on “How Much Do Premium Games Really Make” which is combination of our personal stories of game development + research into others who have made their financials public. We could use your support in the crowd! Don’t throw things at us, please. To aid in our quest to rid the world of devastation, we invited some awesome NYC friends to join us. Come to our panel to see me (Frank DiCola), Jack Kelly, Dan Butchko of Playcrafting, Kati Nawrocki of ComputerLunch, and Adriano Valle of OrcPunk talk all about the state of premium mobile games!

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store!

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.

Patch 1.0.9 Notes

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Even though Where Shadows Slumber launched on iOS nearly six months ago, we’re still making slight improvements and catching small bugs. Did you notice that your game got updated over the past week? Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the important changes we made. Jack did all the work here, so this is mostly me just copying things over from GitHub commits…

Level 1-3, “Lock” – Removed Rotatable Casing

This Level caused a lot of players to stop in their tracks, because they didn’t realize the two draggables at the bottom-left of the screen were actually draggable. Those are super weird because they rotate like big airplane propellers – plus, they were encased in rock because I was too lazy to make them come in and out of the lava with a cool effect.

Now you can see them more clearly! I’m still not in love with the look, mostly because of the weird way the shadows interact with the lava. I have some ideas of how to change this Level, but we’ll see if this works for now.

Level 1-4, “Ascent” – Visible Shadowy Doors

Players have always struggled to figure out what’s going on in this Level. I think we even got some bad reviews of the game because of this one! In particular, what’s confusing people here is that we’re using a mechanic for this puzzle that isn’t reintroduced for 21 more Levels! It was too cool to pass up, though. And it’s not exactly the same mechanic.

Anyway, as you can see in the before and after above, the doors in this Level will now glow in shadow to show off that they’ve changed. This fix really improves the Level while still maintaining what we love about it.

Level 2-1, “Docks” – Raft Draggable Size

Players were having trouble recognizing the raft at the bottom of the screen as a draggable, so Jack added a second drag-square to it.

Under The Hood

Here’s some non-visual changes you wouldn’t notice unless you have a keen eye for bugs:

  • Click Detection – Fixed a bug where if you click on a space, but your movement is interrupted, clicking on that same space will not cause Obe to start walking there.
  • Disappearing Draggables – If a draggable disappears (due to a shadow) while you are dragging it, it never “stops dragging”. This means that the player’s input would be disabled, if you dragged another draggable, the first one would continue to move, etc.
  • Walker Pause Time – Walkers will pause for a bit longer on buttons to make puzzle solving easier in select Levels. (2-1, 2-2, 2-5, and 3-2)
  • And more…

As always, let us know if you encounter issues with the game! We’ve got cool news about new platforms coming up in the next few weeks, so stay tuned…

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store!

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.

Where Shadows Slumber, Nominated for IMGA 2019!

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The headline says it all, but you heard it here last: Where Shadows Slumber has been nominated for the coveted People’s Choice Award at the upcoming 15th Annual International Mobile Gaming Awards!

We might also be nominated for other awards? It’s not clear, exactly. I want to say we’re eligible for stuff like “Best Design” or “Best Art” or “Best Audio,” but I don’t know that for sure. Also, with games like Fortnite on the list, we know our shot of winning is pretty steep. Our chances of taking home the big prize are about as good as your chances of being in a cutscene with Obe and not getting murdered.

Rekt!

Anyway, roll that press release!

Where Shadows Slumber Nominated in the 15th INTERNATIONAL MOBILE GAMING AWARDS (IMGA Global)

Fans Can Vote Online to Help Game Revenant win the People’s Choice Award https://www.imgawards.com/winners-nominees/15th-imga/

[Hoboken, NJ] — [2/26] – Game Revenant announced today that it has been nominated in the 15th International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA Global). The IMGA is the longest standing and highest regarded mobile games award program started in 2004.

Where Shadows Slumber is an indie mobile puzzle adventure game based on light and shadow. You guide Obe, an old man lost in the forest, on one last adventure at the end of his life. Use your wits, your lantern, and the shadows it casts to manipulate the world around you and find your way home.

“Nominees like Game Revenant highlight the new standard of creativity and the emerging quality of the productions found in mobile gaming”, said Maarten Noyons, founder of The IMGA.

“We’re honored to be nominated alongside this year’s best and brightest on the mobile platform. Thank you for believing in our little game, IMGA!”, said Frank DiCola, founder of Game Revenant.

As a nominee, Game Revenant is also eligible to win the People’s Choice Award, which is voted online by fans across the globe. From now until March 14th, 2019 Where Shadows Slumber fans and gamers can cast their votes at https://www.imgawards.com/winners-nominees/15th-imga/

Winners will be announced on March 19th, 2019 during the highly anticipated IMGA ceremony, which will take place in the Minna Gallery in San Francisco.

About Game Revenant:

Game Revenant was founded in Hoboken, NJ by Frank DiCola. Where Shadows Slumber was designed and developed by Jack Kelly, with art and animation by Frank DiCola. PHÖZ, the duo of Alba S. Torremocha and Noah Kellman, created the game’s beautiful audio. The official game website was created by Caroline Amaba.

About the International Mobile Gaming Awards:

The IMGA is the longest standing mobile games award program started in 2004. With its long history and unique judging process, it has brought some of the world’s most popular titles into the limelight the likes of Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans. It is the only competition that unites the industry by celebrating excellence and innovation in games.

For full details visit: http://www.imgawards.com or call: +33 491 315 217. You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

Contact: Frank DiCola

Phone: (201) 526-4950

Email: contact@GameRevenant.com

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store!

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.

The Merch Store!

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Exciting news, everyone: your dreams of becoming a walking human billboard for your favorite indie mobile game are coming to fruition soon. This week, the Game Revenant merchandise store on Spreadshirt is launching! As a devoted blog reader, you have the privilege of receiving this news ages before those rubes in the general public. (What rubes!)

Here’s the link to the marketplace.

It looks like we’ll get some money from items if we mark them up a little bit. I don’t think I want to do that right now, because having people wear our stuff is more important than making another $1.50 at this point in the game’s history. That could happen at some point though, so if you’re on the fence about buying something, best to do it before the end of the month!

Currently, there isn’t much there. Which leads me to my next question…

What Would You Actually Buy?

I’m still getting things set up over there, so give me a day or two to get the online store looking nice and pretty. Right now I want to hear from you: what kind of Where Shadows Slumber stuff would you like? Spreadshirt has a whole line of clothing, but also fun stuff like mugs and junk. And it even has a dog bandana! (see above) My dog would rip those off instantly whenever we put them on her, but maybe yours is better trained.

Look, I can just make literally everything available, because there’s no cost. But I’d rather focus on the things fans actually want. For example, Jack furiously demanded zipper hoodies and… voila! There they are.

So what sort of designs would you like to see? It’s easy to just slap our game’s logo on everything, but there’s also a lot of cool art in our game we could use. I’m taking requests, so leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter @GameRevenant with what you’d like to see!

Even better, vote in this open Poal: poal.me/nassfn

I highly encourage you to add answers, that’s why I did this. The starting ones I did are essentially just jokes.

That’s all for now, everyone. Until I get more stuff up there… buy a Where Shadows Slumber Logo hoodie!

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store!

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.