Game Worlds Weekly
Welcome to our pilot issue
Hello, I am Tony Warriner, and this is issue one of Game Worlds Weekly!
What the hell is this, you may be asking? Listen, these days I am very much an indie dev, which is where I started out in the mid 1980’s, of course. In the 1990’s, at Revolution, we had quite a bit of success with our adventure games and, although we worked with publishers, our attitude to game development was always indie. Our team was small and chaotic, and out of the madness, somehow, came a few great games. Beyond this, as the industry grew, it became harder and harder to maintain any kind of creative integrity as the publishing side enforced its growing power. Many small to mid-sized developers, and their creative spirit, were crushed.
Today, on the one hand, we see the so-called AAA industry in a slow motion death spiral. I don’t even want to think about that side of our once great industry - but you can see it unfolding with your own eyes, right in-front of you. There is always a polar opposite, and that is the retro and indie game dev scenes. Here, once again, small teams have taken the baton and spawn great and worthy works.
These teams do not need corporate money to succeed. Players do not require hundreds of millions of dollars worth of 3D art to consider a game worthy of their attention. Instead, they look for games with soul, born of artistry and craftsmanship. And we can make and publish those games, unmolested.
Our problem is that of discoverability. My idea with this newsletter is to try and help with this problem, in whatever modest way I can. As an indie dev, that is something I need. And as someone interested in games, I want a place where I can see regular updates of games in development and hear a little about how the developer was progressing - to keep in-touch. This information is all out there, of course - in a million different tweets that scroll out of sight in an instant, or on websites that search engines ignore and you have to remember to re-visit. Spread around, in other words. Newsletters work, because they arrive in inboxes to be read at leisure. At least that’s the theory.
If you have an indie game in development and want to show regular progress, then drop me a line at tony@gameworldsweekly.com Or, if you know of a game out there that you want to follow more consistently, then reach out and suggest this newsletter. Perhaps we can all help each other to get our games noticed and continue to do what we do. We can inspire each other, too, knowing we are part of a community with shared goals and problems to overcome. Games are important. Let’s see how it goes!
Issue #1 Featured Games
The Silly Knight
Blobbit Push
Foolish Mortals
Whisper in the Mirror
UrbX Warriors
The Silly Knight
Alexander Preymak, a sole developer for now
Windows, MacOS, Linux
Hi Alexander, give us a one sentence project overview!
A point-and-click comedy mystery adventure inspired by Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and various Medieval myths and legends.
What have you done in the last week?
Designed locations for the expanded demo/prologue.
What’s the plan for the coming week?
Implement the locations in Visionaire Studio 5 and work on the puzzles.
Listening to anything good while you work?
The Green Knight OST by Daniel Hart, Starman by David Bowie
Blobbit Push
Stoo Cambridge - Co-Creator/Story/Designer/Graphics/Content creator
Mark Ripley - Co-Creator/Designer/Programmer/Biz Dev
Hi Stoo, give us a one sentence project overview!
Sokoban with Baddies and Blobbit Babies!
What have you done in the last week?
Thought about doing something on the game…
What’s the plan for the coming week?
Thinking about what I didn't do last week… (Ed: slow progress then?)
Listening to anything good while you work?
The Richie Allen Show / Ambient Chill / Berlin Synth (Tangerine Dream/Software/WaveStar/Andy Pickford)
Foolish Mortals
David Younger (writer, director, producer)
Sophie Younger (programmer)
Windows, Mac, Switch, iOS
Hi David, give us a one sentence project overview!
A merry & macabre point & click adventure game in which you search for the lost treasure of Bellemore Manor in 1930s Louisiana, where thirty years ago an entire wedding suddenly and mysteriously vanished.
What have you done in the last week?
We're honing in on voice production at the moment, so for me the last week has been spent gathering auditions (with the help of Francisco González, our voice producer, but also an accomplished adventure game creator in his own right) and getting closer and closer to script lock - particularly writing out hundreds of custom responses to "reasonable but unsuccessful" hotspot interactions. Sophie's been busy putting all this new dialogue into the game, as well as gradually working her way through our big list of bugs and edits (which currently stands at 263 entries to be fixed).
What’s the plan for the coming week?
I need to finish this dialogue writing today, then I'll start going through the audio files we've been sent by the voice actors to provide feedback for retakes. I also need to review three newly-coloured backgrounds we've been sent (the final three for the game!), and put together a last batch of background edits to be done (such as separating out the foreground for a vertically-scrolling background so it can have parallax). Sophie will be continuing on with bug fixing, and once that's done she'll be turning her attention to our in-game hint system.
Listening to anything good while you work?
Sophie's been listening to Yungblud, but as I've been writing I can't listen to anything with lyrics! Instead, I've been listening to a lot of 'ambience' tracks for different adventure games on YouTube, particularly ones for Monkey Island and Broken Sword. Currently I'm listening to the music heard inside Woodtick's Swamp Rot Inn from Monkey Island 2.
Whisper in the Mirror
Ruslan Kudriachenko, coder.
Masha Yurkevych, art.
PC, steam deck, consoles God willing!
Hi Ruslan, give us a one sentence project overview!
It's a story about war veteran in search of her missing daughter in a mysterious mansion.
What have you done in the last week?
At this point we are working on polishing visuals and general mansion layout. We are hoping to make it comfortable but uncanny for the player.
What’s the plan for the coming week?
We plan to start making actual gameplay in this environments and see how it all works together. We are sure there's gonna be a lot of changes coming during this process.
Listening to anything good while you work?
For this exact project I mostly listen to Portishead. Gives me a mood for the game.
UrbX Warriors
Tony Warriner, code (yes, me!)
Stoo Cambridge, art
Spectrum Next, Amiga, Dreamcast, MegaDrive, Steam/PC
Itch page really soon…
Hi Tony, give us a one sentence project overview!
A pair of modern day urban explorers spot a jungle archaeological site on google satellite, but once there they’re dragged deep into a hellhole that they must fight to escape from alive.
What have you done in the last week?
I’ve been coding up the inventory system. This is collectable objects in the game world and the HUD to display them when collected. I prototype on the PC using Lua and Love2D and then when that works I implement it in Z80 for the Next.
What’s the plan for the coming week?
Now the player can collect keys, I guess there needs to be some doors to unlock! Also, we hope to show the game at Zapp! Live so the whole thing needs to be more or less playable. We’ll see!
Listening to anything good while you work?
Mostly Underworld and Faithless. Nothing new there! Not sure about Stoo, but I’m sure he has excellent taste in synth pop, like myself :)
This is an excellent first newsletter. I enjoy the format and the idea of connecting with other indie devs, spreading word of their games and how they are progressing. I agree with you on the idea of newsletters being read at our leisure. You make a very good point when comparing this to 'scroll out of sight' social media. A lot of great stuff can simply disappear.
I've heard of some of the featured games, and I'll be looking into the ones I have not. Thanks for taking the time to write this.