Notgames Forum

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Hi everybody

My name is Sherida and I've been a silent member of this forum for the last 3 years, all this time without posting a single thread. Time to change that.
Quick introduction: I develop games under the name tiger & squid by myself and have been doing that for the past 3 years. Originally I was supposed to be a game designer/ 3d artist hybrid but for some strange reason most of the programmers at my school prefered to work on more generic projects so I ended up learning myself how to code and occasionally cheat by using Playmaker.

I just launched a Indiegogo campaign for my game Beyond eyes. It's an exploration game where you guide a blind girl through an unfamiliar white space, slowly revealing your surroundings by exploring through touch, sound and scent.

Beyond eyes tells the story of Rae, a girl who lost her eyesight in an fireworks accident when she was just a toddler. The event left her emotionally scarred to the point that she no longer dares to leave the house by herself. Instead she spends her time tending her precious garden and playing with a fat cat she named Nani.

When Nani goes missing Rae gathers all her courage and decides to leave the safety of home in search for the cat. Although frightened at first she starts to explore and experience the world around, revealing their purpose and form by touching, smelling and listening to them.

As you guide Rae through this unfamiliar world your behavior as player influences the way she feels and behaves.  A player who forces her into dangerous situations finds himself with a scared, distrustful girl who will refuse to do his bidding until he regains her trust. Of course if a player respects Rae's wishes and is careful to keep her from harm, she will open up to him and will trust him in difficult situations.

If you like you can check the campaign out here: http://igg.me/at/beyondeyes (http://igg.me/at/beyondeyes)

Please let me know what you think,

Sherida

Sounds interesting. I like treating the player character as not just an empty vessel for the player but an actual character with her own motivations and goals.

Sounds like our Girl in White from The Path and 8. Originally we considered her deaf mute. And she still doesn't talk. She also wears a white dress. And of course she's always been very autonomous. We developed a pseudo-AI engine called Drama Princess for her.

Good luck withe the development!
When do you plan to release?

Here she is! :-)

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I love the girl in white, she is adorable!

The research blog you had for Drama Princess was a big source of inspiration when I started on Beyond eyes a few years ago! I think a still have the demo on my old pc. Creating autonomous and dramatic characters in games has always been a very important subject for me and as far as I know you are the only developers who've ever delved into the matter. Your work was very important for my decision to take the poor independent route instead of working for a generic studio.

The white dress was actually designed for feature that will not be in the game anymore. Because she originally didn't speak I wanted to use the dress as a canvas to convey her emotional state. I still miss that feature :(

If I get all the funding I seek the game will be released at the end of next summer!

I really like the concept and glad to see more exploration-y games on the way, yay! :D Adding to my "to back" list. ;)

This looks very interesting - I hope you manage to complete the project despite not receiving the funding hoped for.

I'm assuming it's Unity?

If you do read this, here is a C++ programmer interested in designs that aren't generic. Beyond Eyes really hit a note with me - I've played around with ideas of how to make a video game with only sounds and a black screen, possibly with scent trails, but I like your design a lot better.

I'm in a low-output mode (as in, quit real-life work), heavily investing my time in developing a strong foundation for an engine (that includes an AI system built around emotional responses to player actions). I'm not ordinarily a very forward person, but please consider me if you need programmer support in the future. I'm bogged down in my own things right now, so I'm really not soliciting for work (see, I'm so backwards I'm awkward).

Out of curiosity, why did you scrap the dress-as-canvas idea?

Ah  yes, it's made in Unity, I love working with it! Glad you like it :)

Eventhough I didn't receive all my funding it is enough to keep me alive for a while so I'm still devoting all my time to this game.

I scrapped the dress because of time constraints but I decided last week to put it back in the game ^^

I love your aesthetic. Great job :)

I just wanted to encourage you to keep going. Please keep going.