Thanatus - Death from the Stars :: DEMO available!

[Lucid]

I just beated the demo and I loved all those video cutscenes.
Juu ja kiva, että täälläkin on lajitovereita. 

[AJA]

Yes, there are quite a few Finns here. I'm glad you liked the demo.

[AJA]

Well, it's the end of August and the game is, to my astonishment, playable to the end of part two (out of four). However, there's still quite a bit missing from the first half of the game: lots of dialog, some special animations and graphics, small scripting tweaks and the entire intro sequence which we decided to add to the very beginning of the game to make the main character feel a bit more interesting. Well, I'm not sure if 'interesting' is the right word but anyway. Also, the first half of the game is probably the easy part. As were getting closer to the AWESOMELY DISAPPOINTING climax of the story, there'll be much more to do, especially on the graphics front. But it'll be worth it.

Nothing new to show you guys, I'm afraid. Wouldn't want to spoil too much. Hopefully, you'll see more when we've managed to shoot the cutscenes. Which might be a while since school's starting again. But I'll try my best to keep this show going forward at least a little bit every week.

Thanks to everybody for their support! I'll post again when there's something even remotely interesting to tell.

[Ishmael]

As I have absolutely nothing to do otherwise I want to get filming more stuff for this

[xenogia]

Hey AJA, have you thought of increasing the frame rate of your animations a bit.  Technically your game is amazing and you've inspired me to do something similar.

[AJA]

Wow, great to hear this little thing has inspired you!

We chose the current frame rate (actually it changes a bit depending on the animation) because of two reasons: less frames equals smaller file size, and more importantly, it feels more classic adventure gamey. If the animation was smoother, it'd feel too much like the characters are actually filmed and not hand animated. That's also the reason why the game is low res. We want the characters to feel like they fit in that world as much as possible, and I think smoother animations (or a higher resolution) would make them seem too realistic.

Well, I might as well let you guys know where the project is heading today: nowhere. As expected, studying (actually mostly not studying) destroyed our nice little fantasy world where the production would never have stopped before the thing was finished. Hopefully, we might be able to kick ourselves back to work soon. No promises though. What I can promise, however, is that there's a 99% chance the game won't be released this year.   (This is my attempt to yet again make myself a liar by actually finishing the game before next year.)

[Darth Mandarb]

Xenogia - please do not dig up threads that haven't been posted in over 90 days.

AJA - thanks for the update.

[MadReizka]

Well, I might as well let you guys know where the project is heading today: nowhere. As expected, studying (actually mostly not studying) destroyed our nice little fantasy world where the production would never have stopped before the thing was finished. Hopefully, we might be able to kick ourselves back to work soon. No promises though. What I can promise, however, is that there's a 99% chance the game won't be released this year.   (This is my attempt to yet again make myself a liar by actually finishing the game before next year.)

Good thing we decided to extend the storyline so much!

[Goldfish]

So it IS still in production? Is anyone working on it?

[AJA]

Well, we haven't given up on it but right now we're too distracted by other shiny things. I've been trying to start working on it again for a couple of weeks now, and luckily this discussion has given me some more inspiration. It's becoming quite clear that what killed the production last autumn is the same thing that's preventing me from starting it up again: dialog. Also, every time I mention writing dialog to MadReizka, he goes silent. So, I guess I'm just going to have to start with the first puzzles in the second half of the game. Ideally, we would be able to finish scripting the puzzles etc. for the first three parts (out of four) of the game before summer, and then we could really start to think how we're going to pull off these damn video cutscenes.

[Goldfish]

well if you need any help just say amigo.

[AJA]

Thanks for the offer, we'll keep it in mind!

[MadReizka]

It's becoming quite clear that what killed the production last autumn is the same thing that's preventing me from starting it up again: dialog. Also, every time I mention writing dialog to MadReizka, he goes silent.

Well I always thought that since you are the mastermind behind the second half you could do it
That's so true, we need to schedule this project again and start working!

CUT TO: ½ year later:

No progress...