Messages

Today's the day, we've launched on Steam and GOG!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466390/Kathy_Rain_2_Soothsayer/
https://www.gog.com/en/game/kathy_rain_2_soothsayer

I hope you'll all enjoy Kathy's second adventure!

Beautiful artwork!

Thanks a lot!

In other news, I'm excited to announce that we've got a release date, May 20! 

Holy shit, didn't see this announcement coming! Can't describe how incredibly excited I am for this.

You did such a good job with the Kathy Rain remaster/remake, essentially fixing all the small issues I had with the original version, so I can't wait to get back into the same world with a new story. Wishlisting and feeling the hype!

(Ser så sjukt bra ut, hörni! )

Oh, thank you so much for the kind words! Stort tack

Very cool, and best of luck!

Whenever former AGS devs choose another engine I think it's worthwhile to use the opportunity to reflect on the state of the engine and what can be improved to make it more competitive, so I hope you don't mind if I link your response to that question from a few years back.

Thanks! I don't mind at all, sounds indeed like an appropriate time for some reflection

I think this game's going to be cool 

Looks great, Joel!

It's looking great. Best of luck.

This looks beautiful. Can't wait to play it.

Thanks a lot, guys! Appreciate the support

Hello lovely AGSers!

Eight long years after the original release, I am happy to announce:

Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer

In this point-and-click urban thriller, down-and-out private eye Kathy Rain will embark on her most dangerous case yet — the pursuit of the notorious serial killer known as the Soothsayer. Find clues, gather evidence, connect the dots, and confront the murderer before the hunter becomes the hunted...

Steam Page (Demo Available!)

 
 

📢 Pixel artist(s) needed for our next project! 🎨

🔹 Characters 👨👩👧👦
🔹 Environments 🖼
🔹 Animation 💃

480x270 low res pixel art style similar to the image below. Primarily looking for remote freelancers but open to other options!



Please send your portfolio to: jobs [at] clifftopgames . com

*Edit position has now been filled! Until next time

Aaand, it's OUT! 

Get the game on your preferred platform below:
🔹 Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/.../Kathy_Rain_Directors_Cut/
🔹 GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/kathy_rain_directors_cut
🔹 iOS: https://apps.apple.com/.../kathy-rain.../id1529574744
🔹 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rawfury.kathyrainse
🔹 Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/kathy-rain-directors-cut-switch/

If you own the original game on Steam, make sure to select the "Loyal Detective Bundle" to use your -50% discount!

You can also get it DRM-free on GOG, for 50% off, if you own the original.
That's where I bought it.   

True that! It's automatic on GOG though so you don't have to select a special purchase option. I updated my post to clarify

Aaand, it's OUT! 

Get the game on your preferred platform below:
🔹 Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/.../Kathy_Rain_Directors_Cut/
🔹 GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/kathy_rain_directors_cut
🔹 iOS: https://apps.apple.com/.../kathy-rain.../id1529574744
🔹 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rawfury.kathyrainse
🔹 Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/kathy-rain-directors-cut-switch/

If you own the original game on Steam or GOG, you are also eligible for a -50% discount! On GOG this is automatic but on Steam, make sure to select the "Loyal Detective Bundle"

Enjoy our new release trailer:

That’s very cool of you. It’s looking great.

Thanks a lot Stupot!

Really looking forward to this! I'll admit that I thought the original had its flaws, but on the whole I really liked it. Will definately buy the Director's cut when it's out on steam! 

Glad to hear that, thanks for the support!

In other news, we have a little costume event going from now until launch! Anyone who posts a picture of themselves dressed up as a Kathy Rain character (any character in the game) will get a free key to Kathy Rain: Director's Cut.

If you like to dress up for Halloween, why not take the opportunity to pick a Kathy Rain character this time around?

Details here! https://twitter.com/RawFury/status/1450082065093902342

Happy to announce that we will release on October 26!

Check out our new trailer:

We just launched a new and improved version of the demo on Steam!

Unlike the previous version, this demo contains extra story and gameplay segments that are unique to the Director’s Cut, including new VO with the original actors that we recorded this summer This time, you can also play with a controller and in seven different languages.

Most of the content is still placed at the later parts of the game, but hopefully this demo will give you a taste of the improvements in the Director’s Cut:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1395030/Kathy_Rain_Directors_Cut/

Hello again, everyone!

I thought I'd let you all know that after much deliberation, we have decided to give a loyalty discount of -50% to all owners of the original Kathy Rain when purchasing the Director's Cut. This discount is permanent and will combine with any other offers on the Director's Cut, including a likely launch discount.

We also released a new teaser trailer where you can catch a brief little peek of some of the new content:

Kathy Rain is 5 years old today! To celebrate the occassion, we put together this little cross-over video:

I'm working with these guys for the animations! https://twitter.com/tulevikEU

I'm helping out with the animations (in case some people don't make the connection  ).
Applied for the job right here in the Recruitment section, so huge thanks to the AGS forums for providing awesome opportunities.

It's been really enjoyable work so far and makes me appreciate ProgZmax's talent even more, it's very educational to see how some of this stuff was made.
We do have some differences in style and approach to animation, but I tried to keep it as close as possible and hopefully it won't stand out too much.

Right, totally slipped my mind that we actually recruited you here on the forum!

Oh, and I'd like to take the opportunity to mention to all of you that we're doing a livestream on the game's Steam page tomorrow Feb 3 at 7PM CET as part of the Steam Games Festival! There will be a live chat if you wanna join the fun! Done!

Oh, very cool!

I had my issues with the original game, but most of them felt fixable, and I see that you're indeed fixing one of the big ones: no more verb coin! Yay!

Since ProgZmax passed away, can I ask who's doing the animation updates? And are you getting the original voice actors back to record new lines? (Man, doing a "director's cut" remaster  like this must be quite a challenge just in terms of logistics!)

Best of luck!

Thanks! Yes, we are doing our best to fix any issues with the game, including your concerns, so I'm hoping that the Director's Cut will get that elusive Snarky Stamp of Approvalâ,,¢ in the end 

I'm working with these guys for the animations! https://twitter.com/tulevikEU

Yup, I reached out to the original cast last year, and with the exception of the little boy who has outgrown his role and may be recast, everyone else is on board! I will probably do the voice direction myself remotely this time around though, since the voice over process is much more straight forward. There's just a fraction of the number of lines and the characters already have established voices with plenty of reference material, so I figured that Dave's talents would be wasted on that!

The Director's Cut seems great.  Can't wait to see it on GOG.   

GOG is a curated store so we can't 100% confirm at this point, but we'd like to have it on there and they've been happy with our games in the past, so I think there shouldn't be any issues with that 

I loved the Kathy Rain game and I really hope it means she will be back for more adventures, she was a great character and the "90's period piece" effect was really brilliant. She needs more good stories!

Thanks a lot, glad to hear that! I can't promise anything right now, but if this new release of Kathy Rain does well and helps us reach a wide audience, we'll certainly have a good foundation for more games with Kathy

Hm, not sure exactly what you mean? Do you want to know how we have replicated a look similar to AGS in Unity or are you wondering about what kind of technical features Unity has allowed us unlike AGS? And if it's the latter, do you mean from a player experience perspective, a developer perspective, or both?

I mean the second, and both! What was the reason you felt you needed to switch to Unity for the remaster?

Well, AGS has been used for a number of commercial games but it is essentially a hobbyist tool, and I believe it will always stay a step behind modern game engines such as Unity or Unreal in terms of features available both for the end user and the developer. These engines have teams of hundreds of developers constantly improving and maintaining them, and huge communities that churns out powerful plugins, frameworks and assets on a regular basis. We believe that we had to make the switch at some point to stay competitive as an indie, and this fairly straight forward project (essentially a port and then expanded and improved) turned out to be an excellent way to learn the ins and outs of the engine while staying in familiar territory. Switching to an engine like Unity for the studio also gives us the option in a longer perspective to work in 3D or make games in other genres than adventure games, should we want to.

But to put things in more concrete terms, these are some of the bigger reasons we made the jump:

• Portability
• Localization
• Better save system
• Shader support
• Controller support
• User friendly and flexible handling of resolutions and graphics settings (although I hear later versions of AGS has improved on this)
• This is likely subjective to some degree and requires the right plugins and tools, but a better development workflow in general and more ways to customize it. Just a basic thing like being able to modify gameplay objects directly in the editor during runtime is quite huge in my opinion.
• More robust tools for build processes. With Unity, we've been able to set up our own build server connected to source control that automatically creates builds on all platforms as we make changes to the game and uploads them to Steam, mobile app stores etc.

Congratulations, I think remastering it is a great idea. Having done an AGS -> Unity switch, I know it's a serious job. Are you using any plugins, like AdventureCreator or PowerQuest?

I liked Kathy Rain, but I thought Whispers of a Machine was really outstanding. So it's nice to see you returning to Kathy Rain with all the experience you've gained.

Thanks, Ali! And yes, we're using Adventure Creator, although we have modified it quite a bit at this point. We also plan to add Rewired when we start looking into the controller support.

Vanilla AC generally works fine for working with dialogue when the majority of it is just copy pasted over like this, but for our next project we'll likely also pick up a more dedicated third party framework for dialogue, like Dialogue System and/or Ink.

Very interesting! If it's ok, would you mind sharing what specifically engine-wise you changed, and why? Because what little I can see of the screenshots seems to communicate a game that "apes" the AGS style very well.

Hm, not sure exactly what you mean? Do you want to know how we have replicated a look similar to AGS in Unity or are you wondering about what kind of technical features Unity has allowed us unlike AGS? And if it's the latter, do you mean from a player experience perspective, a developer perspective, or both?