Shifting Red

Hello all. It's certainly been a hot space-minute since we've updated this devblog, that's plain to see. But the gears are still turning here at Fam HQ, even if it's just one piece of a great big puzzle at a time. The core team is still meeting every weekend to touch base and do what we can, when we can. 

Part of the reason there haven't been many posts is that art is both the thing best suited to flashy PR stuff and the hardest, most time-intensive thing to do for a small volunteer project like ours. Still, the talented, venerable and long-suffering LordFryingPan has brought our steampunk-in-space world to life better than I ever could with words alone, and you can see some examples of life aboard the Familiarity yourself below.

Now that I've grabbed those fantastic photo-receptors of yours, I'd also like tell you about a shift in focus that we've decided to undertake.

Here's the space-skinny: originally, way back in the day, the plan was to have four routes, with four different heroines, written by four different writers. As time went on, the plans for the game solidified and the core team shrunk. Today, I (Lunch, hi) am the last writer standing, and while I have a rough plan for the other routes, I was intending to finish Sam's storyline first before trying to give the characters of Morial and Diane the stories they deserved. And the script for Sam's route is almost done, and I adore it, I really do. But it's taken me a long time to get this far. Longer than anyone had intended, longer than we could have asked for. If it comes down to finishing the game with one route or trying to do three and never finishing at all, we've chosen the former. 

So what does that mean? It means that Sam's story is now the main story of Familiarity. It's still a branching story with choice points, diverging paths and consequences for actions, and the other heroines will still be along for the ride. But we've made the difficult decision to restructure the game from a common first act and then three different routes to a single path. I know that's not what we originally promised, and I'm sorry if that's a disappointment. I'd say you could have your money back, but we've never asked for it and never will, we're still aiming for an eventual free release on Steam someday. So yeah. The work continues. We plan on eventually releasing all of Act One as a standalone demo, we're mostly just behind on sprite assets for that. Until next time. Be well. 

Moon Pulls

It's been a hot minute since the last time we updated this dev blog, there's no point in denying it. A lot of things, in our lives and in the world at large, have changed for better or for worse. Is it fair to say that these are trying times? I think so. Unprecedented ones, in some ways. That's not an excuse or really even an explanation, it just is what it is. 

The bottom line is that we're still here. Still doing what we can, when we can, to inch this project further towards becoming a reality. I personally have so many moments in the script that I dream of one day sharing with anyone willing to give them a try. I hope that some day I'll be able to make you laugh, make you smile and look forward to whatever's coming next. Maybe I'll even find a chord to resonate with you, or a heart string or two to tug on. I hope so. That's what makes it all worth it, in my admittedly limited experience. 

Creativity is an outlet. It's an act of expression, and personally, for me it's often a satisfying and even joyful one. But it's a lot of work, too. It takes time and effort, and life weighs on me heavily these days. It weighs on my team mates too, in its own way for each of them. But we're trying to hang in there, and I truly hope that you're doing the same, too. Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for reading.

Keeping The Lights On

 The galaxy is a big place, and it can take a long time for a message to get from one point to another. That could be why we haven't said much in the last 9-ish months! It isn't, but it could be!

Real talk though, I'm just dropping by to let anyone listening know that yes, work is still continuing on Familiarity. The team still meets every week to work on scripts, forge new art, fetch and master SFX, etc. Currently we're focusing on improving the game engine, reviewing and editing writing material and slowly but surely cranking out more amazing background art.

Rome wasn't built in a day, just imagine how long Space Rome (in space) will take! Actually, I'd rather not think about it.

As always, thank you for checking in. Be well, stay safe, and may we all emerge from this hell that is 2020 as unharmed as possible. The consequences will never be the same.

Titles Are Hard

I'm going to be honest (and if it was hard to tell, in terms of blog posts we're usually not much of anything at all), I don't want it to be Christmas yet.

It's not that I don't like the holiday. I love it! It's one of my favorite times of the entire year. The lights, the opportunity to make the people around you happy with a thoughtful or silly gift. The weather not so much, unless you don't have to go anywhere. But personally, I rarely go anywhere, and here we are, T-minus just over six hours from the big day (here on the west coast, at least) and I haven't laid eyes on a snowflake since probably our last blog post. So that's not what has me dreading the passage of time.

See, the downside to Christmas finally getting here is that the buildup to the big day lasts so much longer than the main event itself. That there's such a crescendo during Christmas The Season, and once Christmas The Day gets here, before you even know it it's already over. And then everything, the lights, the cheer and whatever goodwill towards men that man was able to scrounge up this year, all of that is on its way out.

But that's just the way things are. And I know, I know, if Christmas never left, then it would never be able to arrive, either. But it's just so hard to feel the spirit of it all these days. Does anyone else feel like it's getting harder and harder to feel very much of anything at all? Wait, don't answer that. That was a rhetorical question. And you didn't come here for rambling, you here for a check of a pulse, if I had to make a guess.

It's to that end that I'm here to say that yes, we are still making progress towards completing the game that we set out to make, what feels like an unsettlingly long time ago. Do I wish we could go faster? That everyone had more free time and energy and less of just life getting in the way? Sure. But I enjoy what we're doing. And we do it in the hope that some day, you might enjoy it too.

From all of us at Airheart Interactive, we wish you a merry Christmas, a happy new year, and the best for every and any other opportunity you might take to celebrate. I'll leave you with just a few little things to hopefully tide you over, until next time.

Never Too Late