Welcome to State Of The Art, February 2018 edition! This monthly* progress report is written by Frank DiCola and is focused entirely on how the game’s visuals have improved in the past month. If you are one of our beta testers, you’ve probably already seen this artwork firsthand. (Looking to sign up? Email me at contact@GameRevenant.com if you’re on iOS, or just go here to download if you’re on Android)
(*It’s been a while since I did one of these! We got so caught up in a bunch of year-end stuff with MAGFest 2018, I decided to wait until February to discuss the state of the game’s aesthetics. The good news is, this is a double helping of art updates!)
Without further excuses, let’s explore the major leaps forward we took since December!
The Forest is Now Polished
Polish is a strange thing. You’re never really finished – you just keep making smaller and smaller increments towards perfection, never quite reaching it. Eventually you hit a point where the small changes aren’t worth it because they take too long and have very little payoff.
Check out this video of me walking through the game’s prologue:
The Forest is polished to the point where it’s worth polishing it! I only say that because there is an entire game still left to finish, so we can’t spend forever on the first few Levels. I will say though, I paid particular attention to these Levels because they are the first morsels of gameplay people will experience with Where Shadows Slumber. Leaving a bad impression here can permanently color people’s mental model of the game in a negative way, so it’s important to get it right.
The Jail is Now Really Different
The next World in our “first time user experience” is a scary, lava filled jail where Obe has been taken prisoner. As he makes his escape, we teach the player about lights and the way they interact with shadows.
This World was quite difficult to get right. I still think some of it needs to be changed, but here’s where it’s at right now:
If you remember the blog post where I showed off the Jail World last time, you might be shocked to see that a lot has changed. I never liked the boxy, protruding walls I created for this World. It made it impossible to define complex shapes, and it cost a lot of polygons. As we polish the game, we also seek to optimize it, and that means giving your phones less information to compute each frame. Now the walls are much simpler, but still have a brutal “government building” quality to them.
Hopefully you support this drastic change! It’s the only World that’s undergoing such a dramatic shift, but I think it’s for the best.
The City is Still Unfinished
To my great shame, the City World is still not polished. Some Levels (one in particular) don’t even look passable. That’s a problem I’ll try to rectify immediately, as the World is already late, even by our newly revised schedule.
What I can show you are two Levels still in polish-development, because I would like feedback from the general Game Revenant fanbase! Here’s the first City Level, called “Slum”, which got a big overhaul:
And below is Level four in the City, called “Fountain”, which I don’t think I ever showed because it wasn’t in great shape. It’s still missing two key components that require very specific artwork: plants and statues for the fountain. Right now it looks very sterile, but this is supposed to be a luxury fountain / garden fit for a king! Check it out:
This red color is a deep callback only diehard WSS fans will recognize [ ^_^]!
Comment below this post about these changes, please! This World needed a lot removed from it in order to look good. It had way too many colors before, as well as misleading stuff on the screen. It’s not done just yet, as I said, but it’s in way better shape.
Spoilers Ahead
As we near the completion of the final game, I’m going to get a bit more secretive with these updates. I realize now that although some sections of the game look awesome, players may want to experience them for the first time inside the game instead of in a blog post. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop posting, but it does mean you can expect to see spoiler tags in these art posts from now on. I’m waiving that this time around since most of the updates are in the first 10 minutes of gameplay, but be warned!
We hope you enjoyed this update about the game’s artwork. Have a question about aesthetics that wasn’t mentioned here? You can find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, or Twitch, 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.
This article will be constantly kept up to date with the most relevant information you need to become a mobile BETA tester. (Last updated February 2nd, 2018)
Hello, and thank you for taking part in our beta testing program. This is the period of the development cycle where we are sharing our video game with the general public. This public test is intended to get feedback about our product in the months leading up to its final release.
Our testers come from all walks of life. We have people testing our game of many different career paths, ages, and backgrounds. We understand that not everyone is a super nerd! Some of this stuff is difficult if you’ve never done it before. Please follow this step-by-step guide to downloading our game. Thank you for your patience!
Send Frank an email at contact@GameRevenant.com if you need any help! You can also tweet @GameRevenant, or contact us on Facebook at fb.com/GameRevenant.
First, what kind of phone do you have? Scroll down to the section below that describes your device: we support Apple and Android.
Apple (iPhone or iPad)
Apple’s policies require that everyone receives a direct email invitation to test the game. That means you must have already been on our email list in order to test the Apple version. If you were not already on our list, reach out to Frank at contact@GameRevenant.com and you’ll be added.
Otherwise, proceed to these steps:
An email will appear in your Inbox that says “Game Revenant has invited you to test “Where Shadows Slumber” – open it on your mobile device.
Press the large blue button that says “View in TestFlight.”
An invitation will appear that tells you to get TestFlight from the App Store and gives you a code to redeem. Follow those steps. Don’t worry, TestFlight is free.
Now that you have the TestFlight app on your device, and the code has been redeemed, open TestFlight. Press the green Install button.
The game will now take a few minutes to install.
Once installed, the button will now be blue and say Open. Press it.
Thank you for your patience. We hope you enjoyed playing the game! Now, the most important part: open this Google Survey in your Internet browser and answer all of the questions there. We won’t ask for anything incredibly personal, so just give us your candid feedback about the game.
Your feedback will change the outcome of the final game. Thanks for taking part in our beta test!
On this date one year ago, Where Shadows Slumber didn’t even exist.
Hard to believe, right? There was a Demo on the store called Where Shadows Slumber Demo, but the official game project had not even been started yet! We’ve come so far in just one year. Everything you’ve seen online of the final game was started in 2017, from the level design, to the environment, to our new character models.
To ring in the new year, let’s take a look at the big milestones we hit in 2017 while working on Where Shadows Slumber.
January 2017 – Rocked MAGFest!
I had to mention this one first because the timing is hilarious. Tomorrow, we’re heading out to Maryland again for MAGFest 2018! That was exactly how we kicked off 2017, too. This year, just like last year, the organizers of MIVS (the MAGFest Indie Videogame Showcase) saw something special in our game. So we’re going to be there for all four days of MAGFest in their massive indie game section, showing people a few Levels from Where Shadows Slumber and getting their feedback. Getting into MIVS every year is not a guarantee, so we were glad to be invited back. This year, we even get to stay in the official hotel!
But to be honest, MAGFest is a tough show. It’s the very first thing of the year, which makes it a bit stressful. I’d love to catch my breath and plan out how I’m going to finish a big pile of art, artistic polish, effects, cutscenes, and aesthetic optimizations. Instead, we’re going to be showing the game off to people for 7 hours straight, four days in a row. I remember last year’s show – it was fun, but exhausting. Even so, that’s a good problem to have. We’ll let you know how this year’s MAGFest goes next week, after our return!
March 2017 – The Game Developers Conference
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March was an incredible show. I’ll be bummed if we can’t go again this year. I really enjoyed scoping it out in 2017, and I’d love to pay for Jack to come with me. (And hey, why not Caroline, Alba and Noah while we’re at it?) It may not be in the cards this year because we’ll still be in heads-down production mode by the time the show rolls around. But while I was there, I attended the Independent Games Festival and made a note to submit our Demo to the contest when it opened again. Sometime in the fall of 2017, we sent in our application. We haven’t heard back yet, so cross your fingers!
The big surprise of my trip to GDC was attending the Big Indie Pitch and scoring third place! It was a totally impromptu thing where I had basically no time to prepare my quick pitch of the game, and deliver it perfectly before five teams of judges. This is where having a polished Demo really came in handy. There’s just no time to fiddle with a development build when you’re under the gun like that. Want to read about that experience? Well, my blog post about GDC 2017 was so good, PocketGamer put it on their website!
That’s probably because it was also a big ad for their contest, but… sometimes you just have to play the game to get noticed, man [ >‿o]
March 2017 – PAX East Indie Showcase (PEIS)
March was busy for us! We didn’t just go to PAX East – Where Shadows Slumber was selected out of a large field of applicants to be a part of their Indie Showcase. This saved us a ton of money, which we really appreciated. It cost $50 to send in our Demo to be reviewed, but considering they gave us a free booth, it’s as if we saved $2,000!
But there’s more to it than that. They gave us a place of honor, along with four other really cool indie teams with awesome games. Being in such a crucial intersection of the main hall meant we got tons of traffic. (We even got a spot on a corner, which meant confused travelers often spotted us and walked over to our table out of sheer interest!)
When I’m feeling down, I worry about what might happen if Where Shadows Slumber isn’t the groundbreaking critical and financial success I know it can be. But then I think of “that time we were in the PAX East Indie Showcase” and I remember that they saw something special in us, long before we even began work on the final project.
Check out the video above and skip to the parts where they recorded Jack talking about our experience, Where Shadows Slumber, and indie development!
June 2017 – AwesomeCon
Because Where Shadows Slumber is so awesome and we went to MAGFest earlier in the year, the organizers of AwesomeCon’s MAGFest room invited us to a show called AwesomeCon. I was very nervous for this show for two big reasons: I was going alone, and I was bringing a build of brand new Levels that had never been tested before. To make things worse, Jack and I agreed that the Levels should not receive an artistic pass until we figured out what everyone thought of them. That was the correct strategic move, but I got sick of telling people “just ignore the art and let me know what you think of the design!”
Customers, gamers, and fans… they don’t see the game as a collection of parts, like we do. It’s one big experience to them. It’s impossible for people not to comment on things you want them to ignore, unless they are also game designers. The good news is that Where Shadows Slumber got a free ride to yet another massive show, and plenty of people gave us super honest feedback about those early Levels.
It may seem weird to ask for all that feedback after having a Demo on the store for so many months, but you can never be too careful. Only one Level from the Demo actually made it over into the final game, so it was necessary to humble ourselves and start from scratch to get everything right.
August 2017 – PLAY NYC
The Playcrafting organization has been nothing but good to us ever since we first darkened their doors for their free game event in the Spring of 2016. When Dan Butchko called to let me know they were working on a bigger show and wanted indies to purchase booth space, I was on board immediately. Normally, Playcrafting events are free. But PLAY NYC was an ambitious step forward for the New York City game industry, so it was worth the money to help make this show happen.
We loved it! We recommend that every tri-state indie reading this seriously considers going to PLAY NYC 2018. Get a booth if you have a game, or just buy a badge and walk the floor on Saturday.
New York City has everything, because it’s a massive metropolis. But if we’re being honest with ourselves, there are better places in the United States to make games. (Texas and California spring to mind) If we want to make Silicon “Alley” a reality, we need to support massive endeavors like PLAY NYC. If the New York City game industry scene actually becomes a “real thing” one day, we’ll have Playcrafting to thank. Plus, the show was packed with awesome people who were super interested in our game. It was probably our best investment of the year. Did I mention it was about 40 minutes from my Hoboken apartment? GO TO THIS SHOW!
September 2017 – Big TechRaptor Interview
New Jersey-based journalist Robert Adams had met us at a few Playcrafting events before I contacted him about an interview. The article, over on TechRaptor, remains one of the best snapshots of our thinking that exists on the Internet.
Because I was on the phone with Robert instead of typing my replies, I got a chance to rant and ramble a lot. This led to us delving into some deep topics, which I appreciated. Give it a read over on their website!
In it, we discuss the origins of Game Revenant, my tragic corporate backstory, the art direction of Where Shadows Slumber, our progress over the past two years, mobile vs Steam, virtual reality’s prospects, release dates, the game’s price, and why Jack is our hero.
September 2017 – Alba & Noah Join The Team
This is related to PLAY NYC since we met them there, but it’s worth mentioning independently: we hired two awesome audio designers! I had a lot of fun making whistling noises with my mouth as I made the sound effects for the wind in our free Demo… but that wasn’t going to cut it. We needed professionals who love the game, love music, and love adding in detailed sound effects. And we found them!
October 2017 – Crazy Traveling
This month marked the most traveling I’ve ever done in such a short period of time. For some reason, October is designated as “every conference all at once month.” Don’t ask me why…
It seems weird to mention this in our Year In Review because none of these shows were originally intended as “marketing shows.” That means I didn’t go to them expecting to advertise Where Shadows Slumber. Rather, I just wanted to be an anonymous indie developer. That’s why Jack didn’t need to come to these either – we’re trying to minimize the amount of time he takes off from work, so that he can cash those vacation days in for when it really counts. (Or just for actual vacations!)
Anyway, it turns out I suck at being incognito. I won 2nd place at a game pitching contest when I went to Seattle for the last Mobile Games Forum ever, and then got to demo Where Shadows Slumber at IndieCade’s GameTasting event for a few hours in Los Angeles. Whoops! Unite 2017 in Austin, Texas ended up being the best one for networking. I highly recommend that show if you are a Unity developer! Meeting the people who built this game engine is an incredible resource. You can read my recap posts if you’re interested in getting my brutally honest take about what those shows were like.
December 2017 – Ask Me Anything Event
We ended the year by taking your questions on the website AMAfeed. This website simulates the “AMA” threads that are really popular on Reddit. We got way more questions than I expected, and I answered them all – so if you’re dying to know the innermost workings of our hearts, check out our archived post.
This experience was great. It was like a trial run for a Reddit AMA, which I expect would get more traffic, but would be more demanding. We’ve decided to keep a bank of answers to commonly asked questions on hand, to make sure we can answer questions faster next time! We’ll look into setting one of those up on Reddit. If we do, we’ll post any information about it here to this blog.
As you can see, 2017 was a year marked by both hectic travel and silent, unrecognized work. It’s not flashy to talk about the long nights we spent in front of the computer plodding along, or the snippets of time we found in our lives to work on this game. People usually want to hear about the big stuff (when’s your next show?) but the hour-to-hour details are harder to chronicle. Rest assured that every big show we attended was book-ended by hours upon hours of work, as we strive to finish Where Shadows Slumber as soon as possible.
Whether you’ve been following this blog all throughout 2017 or you just joined us, we hope to have your support in 2018. Please continue to share our free Demo, our website, and this blog with people in your life who enjoy indie games. Our goal in 2018 is to finish what we started and offer the world a beautiful experience they’ve never seen before. Knowing that there’s an audience out there waiting to enjoy it is a powerful motivator! Get in touch with us by following us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or just by trolling us in the comments [ ^_^]
Everyone has an opinion on everything. If that’s true, then why is it so hard to get people to talk to us about Where Shadows Slumber?
My name is Frank DiCola, and along with my friend Jack Kelly we’ve been maintaining this blog and developing our game Where Shadows Slumbertogether for a while now. The game is launching soon, but we’re not announcing a specific release date to the public yet. Regardless, now is the perfect time to get feedback on our game. We’re “landing the plane,” so to speak.
It’s too late for broad sweeping changes, but now is the perfect time for you to nitpick all of the tiny details in our game. If you tell us to fix it, we’ll fix it before we launch the game on the App Store – and that might save us from getting a negative review from someone else who notices the same problem!
If you tested the game at any point during the last year, you probably heard us wave away from criticism because we’d “handle it later.” Well, now is later! We appreciate your broad feedback then, and we could really use your specific feedback now.
OK, now that I convinced you to join our fan club, let’s talk about how you can join the conversation! This blog post is dedicated to discussing the various channels we’ve setup for feedback. No matter where you make your home on social media, there’s an avenue for you to use to contact us!
The Game Revenant Discord Channel
This one is pretty recent. If you have the app Discord on your computer or phone you can join our public channel. We’re still getting in the habit of posting screenshots, videos, and blog posts in the chat. But we’ll use it more if more people join!
Discord’s chat system, as we discuss how best to decorate one of the game’s Levels.
I plan to use this Discord for future projects even after Where Shadows Slumber launches, but it’s safe to say that this will be dedicated to this game for at least the next two years or so. Feel free to join or leave anytime, just be sure to introduce yourself when you jump in the chat! Obviously, I retain the right to kick you out if you’re being rude to the other people in the chat. But I promise not to remove anyone for criticizing our game – that’s the whole point! It’s hard to offend me and Jack, so don’t worry about that.
Although Discord supports voice chat, we usually just use the text chat. A voice consultation in a private channel with Frank is available upon request.
Facebook: The Chamber of Judgment
We’ve had this private Facebook group up and running for a while, but it’s difficult to get in the habit of posting to it. We haven’t quite hit the critical mass of people yet needed for this to work. So, join the conversation!
Link to the Chamber of Judgment Facebook Group: (link)
Similar to Discord, this is a space dedicated purely to discussing the game and giving feedback to developers. Anyone with Facebook can join for free! If you live on Facebook, this is the best way to give us feedback.
Cartrdge, an Artistic Community
Our Cartrdge page is one of the online communities where we have the least control over the conversation, but we’d still appreciate it if you check it out! Yes, I spelled that right. Cartrdge is a super cool website for game artists to post their work. You’ll find everything there from super awesome shaders to physics demos to entire voxel cities.
Link to the Where Shadows Slumber Cartrdge Project Page: (link)
I love scrolling through the home page there just to see what everyone’s working on. It’s one of the best designed portfolio websites I’ve seen, and we’ve been selected by their Editors once or twice so far. You can also leave comments on posts, so make an account with them and be on the lookout for our stuff. Give each one a Like and then share your opinion with us!
Roast My Game
This poor website seems to be on its last legs. But the concept is so genius, I wish it would stick around. It’s a website for indie developers to post their projects, get feedback, and climb the Leaderboard to the top! You should sign up there and give them a morale boost. They explain the concept better than I could:
“One of the biggest problems that a game dev faces as they create a game is gaining a sort of “mothers love” for their game. This prevents them from being able to properly determine its flaws. Friends and family members tend to sugarcoat their feedback to avoid from being discouraging but this actually harms more than it helps. Roast My Game is a site created to help game developers gather ‘sugarfree’ feedback on games they are working on and to inspire other game developers by sharing development progress.“ [emphasis theirs]
A typical comment in response to our Demo, and a reasonable reply in progress.
We posted our Demo to that site last year and got some good feedback. Tragically, there just aren’t enough people using Roast My Game. My suspicion is that everyone on there is like me – they want feedback, but they don’t want to play other people’s indie games. Too bad!
“Ceiling… what are YOU doing here?”
What Did We Miss?
This is super important so I’ll close with this – what have we missed so far? Are you angry that there is no Where Shadows Slumber Subreddit? Perhaps you feel like we’re neglecting TouchArcade, Instagram, Pinterest, or some other online community you love?
I’ll be pretty frank here (ayyy) and just let you know that if there’s a guaranteed community out there, we’ll come to you. I know nothing about Pinterest. But if you know of 1,000 people out there who love indie games and would boost us on Pinterest, I willlearn and become the Pinterest master. We don’t care, we just want to promote the game and get honest feedback from you before our game hits the cruel, unforgiving free market.
Leave a Reply under this post with a community you’d like to see us join. We hope to see you on the interwebs!
Hey! Join the conversation using the links above this. What are you doing reading this blurb? You can find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, or Twitch, 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.
Game Revenant 