Friday diaries: What inspires the writer

 

Hello people of the internet! 

I decided to give Harri a day off from these and ramble for a while about what inspired the writing and atmosphere of Kalaban and what I aim to show you in the game.

A small introduction. A Finn born and raised, I was told my name is Tuukka, but I adopted "Kaarlo" as my handle ages ago and tend to most go by it. It's a Finnish name still, I just like the ring of it better. I've been writing as a hobby for what feels like forever. My only published works are some handfuls of lyrics for a band called Syncfactory (Finnish electronic industrial band).

So what inspires me to write? Mostly games, actually! Them and Terry Pratchett. I'm not big on watching movies or series, I take my entertainment from books and games. Biggest influences in my writing for Kalaban would be older PC games. Story does have some Evil Dead in it, with all the  twinkle in the eye stuff and all, but my biggest inspiration is an older PC/Amiga game called DreamWeb (1994).

Sure we are not creating a cyberpunk world filled with corruption and mystery, but there you have it! Looks I definitely directed Harri to create in the way of Finnish games close to my heart (all of which are worlds apart from each other, naturally) called Notrium (2003), Tapan Kaikki (1995) and Driftmoon (2013). I highly encourage everyone enjoying survival games to check out Notrium and all that like Pratchett style writing and lighthearted humor in RPG games to check out Driftmoon.

I'd say "try Tapan Kaikki series" but... it may have not stood the test of time that well. But it's still worth a look. Other inspirations are too many to idly list here, but there is still one thing I shall shamelessly plug here! Gone with the Blastwave! http://www.blastwave-comic.com/  An awesome webcomic about life after apocalypse that does not take itself too seriously. Its style of writing and art direction have seeped into our little game thanks to me and that is no accident!

Most of the atmosphere is created in tandem with the rest of the team, with some ideas thrown in by our friends, the best of which we've implemented. Most important thing I wanna portray personally, is a world that is in a way believable, but also alien. I want to toy around with the Finnish tropes but not make the game too entrenched in Finnish culture, I want everyone to be able to enjoy the game as it is! I want it to be a dark, grim world you see, but with a healthy sense of "not taking itself TOO seriously"

 

 

And how I write? I write whenever, while having a late night walk, wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, I'll just jot it down or actually get up and blast a full dialogue for a new character, why not! Since when inspiration strikes, you will have to write write write and get it out of your system, otherwise it'll be gone forever since I lead a busy life with many distractions. So the next time you'll pick up our game, you can be sure the dialogue came from heart, written when inspiration strikes and not just readymade fluff...

Even though the prose might not win any awards ;)


Written by: Tuukka K.

New and very tasty

Howdy y'all!

It's been busy here at Rayhouse with the Kalaban's development heating into full gear again. We've had some lengthy discussions with our four guy power team, and from our creative director's initiative we've decided to put our focus on the first act of the game. Kalaban was originally meant to span over the course of three acts, with a total playtime of over 5 hours. Now we've decided to put the environments to a better use, and flesh out the scenes more. This way we will not (maybe) work ourselves to death, and will be able to deliver a finished game, maybe during this year even!



So yeah, the original plan was pretty suicidal from the start, but it became even more evident during the development. We've been working on Kalaban for over a year now, and a couple of things have become very clear to us. First of all, gamedev is friggin hard, which should come as no surprise. Secondly, the environments take a load of time to make. The optimal time to make one scene is one month, but for example the Scene 3 took us three months to build. There were some heavy iterations, yes, and the game was still in very early stage back then. Even the plan for Act I includes a total of 13 scenes. We currently have six of them under construction, so there is still A LOT of work to be done.

Bob fighting against a Spitter in scene 7.

Of course this new arrangement won't mean that the game will be an hour-long experience. We're aiming for the core gameplay to be a total of four hours, plus bonus content and side quests. The most interesting thing about Kalaban is the setting and how it affects the art direction. The story is set in an alternate past of Finland, so we're constantly making sure that the elements in the game match that. The gameplay will be more like a detailed and unique adventure game, in the style of DreamWeb (1994), than just a top-down shooter like Alien Shooter (2003) or Crimsonland (2003).

A check-list of things Bob must collect in order to complete his quest.

In favor of making the game more engaging, we've re-written the main quest for the game. Originally, the Act I served as an introduction to the story, and told the very first steps of the outbreak. Now, the objective is to find a car and escape to the city, and hopefully reach safety there. Of course we still have a general plan for the future events of what happens when Bob reaches the city. If this game does really well, and there is a serious demand for it, we will continue with part 2 and part 3 of the story.

Bob has reached the momentary safety of the local pub and its beer storage.

The original plan for the whole game was to have maybe one or two brief NPC encounters, but to keep the game otherwise a desperate one man battle against the mutant horde. This was largely inspired by the way System Shock (1994) and its successors handled the story. Now, the locations will feature a number of other survivors, fighting for their life. One of them is Keijo, your former boss and owner of a sawmill. He has seen better days, but is still sane and has been able to fight off the invasion. Some of the NPCs you will be able to save, and maybe even take with you to the city.

That's it for today, thanks a bunch for tuning in! To stay updated on the development progress, either follow us on IndieDB, or keep reading our blog and add it to your bookmarks. See ya!

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Heading towards a playable alpha demo

Hello there!

We've held a meeting with our band of four dedicated indie developers. We've decided to give the UI a bit of a rehaul. Currently all the inventory slots and other elements are on the screen at once. Next version will include a separate inventory screen, with adjustable weapon slots and quick item slots. This way the player can pause the game to hassle with the inventory items and doesn't have to drag them realtime.

This will be made especially with the later combat scenes in mind, though the game starts with some slow exploration and horror parts. The game also needs a separate map screen, which will have the Scene map and the Act map, which show the local map and the whole gameworld.

One month from now, the end of May 2015, is our target for a playable demo version of the game. It is not yet decided if it's going to be public or not. We are itching to get the players in on the Early Access, but this will not be that version. We're aiming to produce a coherent demo with four scenes in it, which will feature all the important mechanics of the finished game.

Right now we're knee-deep at work with the third scene, writing scripts and putting the assets in place. As you probably know, the background art does not consist of a few dozen readymade tiles. Instead, all of the scenes will be hand-made to feature an individual look. This is not a new idea in itself, since few games have had it before. One example being the Sanitarium game, which is a huge inspiration for us.

That's all for now, cheers!