My Burden to Keep - An Interactive Short Story

Started by RiotEsper, Sat 28/04/2018 23:59:11

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RiotEsper



Now available on itch.io:
Click here!

It is May 3rd, 1941.
Just as the sun peeks over the horizon on that cold spring morning, a harrowing report comes in to the sheriff's department. The mayor has been murdered in his home.

Solve the murder/Clear your father's name. Two wills struggle on separate paths towards the same goal, to find out what really happened. Who killed mayor James Scott?

Play as detective Francis Dale and as the murder suspect's son Gabriel Heinrich in this short point and click adventure game.  Featuring rich, detailed pixel artwork and animation and an old-school inspired soundtrack, with a few modern design conveniences. (No incessant saving-dying-loading!)

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLMP7vMtlMQ

Screenshots:




My Burden to Keep is slated for a June 1st launch for this year (2018) out now! Forum veterans might recognize the game from an ancient thread in this very board. Since it was quite a while ago, I decided to give the game a fresh thread and even registered a fresh account. Fresh starts all around! I hope the mods don't mind. ;-D
The background artwork has since received a major overhaul and more dialogue and special case animations have been added, along with a full soundtrack. More or less the only thing remaining before launch is some testing to ensure that no serious bugs are still lurking in the code.

My Burden to Keep will be launching first on itch.io, for $3.90. It's not just a short story-game in name, the game will take around 40-60 minutes to complete. Perfectly bite-sized for a lunch break or maybe a break from developing your own adventure game title?

Thanks for stopping by! :)

HanaIndiana

This looks great! Look forward to playing it.

Slasher

I like the look of this one and hope the game play sinks me into the game (nod)

Jojo_the_monkey

I like the 'Simon the sorcerer" graphics aesthetic. It looks very promising!! Can I ask you, why you chose the form of an interactive story and not a classic point and click adventure with puzzles? Thnx!!
I should have listened to my mother---I should have practised.

RiotEsper

Quote from: HanaIndiana on Sun 29/04/2018 05:53:28
This looks great! Look forward to playing it.
Quote from: Slasher on Sun 29/04/2018 05:58:17
I like the look of this one and hope the game play sinks me into the game (nod)
Thank you both for the comments! It never stops being exciting to know that people are looking forward to your game. :)

Quote from: Jojo_the_monkey on Sun 29/04/2018 10:16:05
I like the 'Simon the sorcerer" graphics aesthetic. It looks very promising!! Can I ask you, why you chose the form of an interactive story and not a classic point and click adventure with puzzles? Thnx!!
Thank you! The "interactive short story" subtitle was the result of the game being mostly heavy in dialogue and cutscenes. There are three interactive scenes that more resemble classic point-and-click adventure gameplay, so the game still has some of that. I wanted to be honest about the fact that it's a short game, focused on story mostly. ;-D

ManicMatt

Looking great! Nice use of lighting. Are those shelfs in the foreground? Took a little while to work it out. Keep up the good work!

RiotEsper

Quote from: ManicMatt on Sun 29/04/2018 19:10:50
Looking great! Nice use of lighting. Are those shelfs in the foreground? Took a little while to work it out. Keep up the good work!
Thank you, Matt! The remade background art was inspired a lot by Mark Ferrari's GDC talk on "8-bit and 8-bitish Art". Really great video, if you've got about an hour and a half to spare. ;-D
A couple of them are! I agree that it's a bit hard to tell there, it looks better in motion though.

RiotEsper

Sorry about bumping the thread so soon, but I have good news! The gameplay trailer is live now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChDA6V1P5i8
Along with the trailer, the release date has been announced: June 1st 2018.
As mentioned before, the game will be available for $3.90 on itch.io. A soundtrack download is included, in case you find the game's music catchy. ;-D

selmiak

This game looks interesting. quite the moody atmosphere.

The photograph between the pixelated images looks a bit out of place though.

RiotEsper

Quote from: selmiak on Wed 02/05/2018 09:34:51
This game looks interesting. quite the moody atmosphere.

The photograph between the pixelated images looks a bit out of place though.
Thank you!
Are you referring to the close-up with the hand? That's originally a 3D-render, but painted over to look more pixellated.

RiotEsper

Hey everyone!

Everything's looking good with the game, no serious issues that'll set back the release date. Fingers crossed!
I've been fixing little things here and there with the dialogue and one of the backgrounds. I thought I'd share a time lapse video that gives a rough idea on how I made the new backgrounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sfcNQnX9C8
Most of the bg art has been remade this way, based on the old 3D renders. I was always quite fond of the original renders and how clean and crisp they turned out at the fairly low resolution. But along with the character sprites, they always gave a bit of a dollhouse like effect. Since I'd been working a lot on pixel art asset packs and had been improving my workflow over the last few years, I decided to remake all the bg art for My Burden to Keep late last spring. I think the end result fits the game a bit better. :-D

For reference, here's the old church render:

RiotEsper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLMP7vMtlMQ
My Burden to Keep is now available on itch.io! Get the game + soundtrack for $3.90!
Itch.io link - Click Me!

I think the fact that I've finally released a game is starting to sink in. Kind of. I'm assuming the first post-release-panic will come when someone reports a game breaking bug that I somehow managed to miss. :-D
Hope that everyone who decides to give the game a try will enjoy it! Many thanks to everyone who stopped by, just a view in the thread means a lot to me.

If it's possible, any moderator is free to move this to completed games. :)

ManicMatt

Make a completed games thread, they won't move an in production thread to there, it wouldn't make any sense when people read the comments.

I think it would do better for you to make a fresh completed game post anyway. :)

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