CONSCRIPT: Director's Cut News

Hello soldiers!

It has been a few months since my last update, so I thought I’d put together a new dev blog for you all.

First, I’d like to step back a bit and give a bit of background about myself and the project! Those who have been around since the start would already be familiar, but I tend to forget that there are of course newcomers every step of the way. And it has been a long journey! So if you’ve only just recently discovered CONSCRIPT, welcome to the trenches!


I originally started this project in 2017 with no prior game development experience. I would have been around 20 years old at the time and studying history at university.

Over the coming years I taught myself coding, art, sound design, marketing and a bunch of other skills to get to where we are today. It has been a very long journey that has spanned the better part of my 20’s, but here we are - with a nearly complete game that I’m very proud of.

I knew from day one that I wanted to make a survival horror game. But early on, the game didn’t have much of a concrete identity - so I decided to hone in on the historical theming.

At the time, WW1 was becoming a bit of a fascination for me. And before Amnesia The Bunker, there weren't really any WW1 themed pure survival horror games on the market. So, I decided on this setting for the full game. And it was a perfect match.

Along the way, I’ve been lucky enough to showcase at Gamescom and Pax AUS, I’ve traveled to Verdun for research material, and been fortunate enough to sign a big publishing deal with Team17.

That’s a very abridged version of the story, but for those who have stuck around since the beginning, thanks for your continued support!

On the production side of things, the past few months have been what I would consider the final push of development. It has been equally grueling and rewarding - as is to be expected at this stage. Seeing 7 years of work come together into something ultimately cohesive has been a surreal experience.

The QA process has been intense, but very worthwhile. I feel like the game is at a level of quality that wouldn’t have been possible if I had decided to go the self-publishing route. Having dedicated bug finders has gone a very long way.

Many of you will be happy to know that the classic survival horror staples are all here. 10+ hour handcrafted and replayable story. Multiple endings. Limited resources. Puzzles. Bonus costumes. Extra weapons. A merchant. Happy to say that most of my original vision is here.

In other good news, localization is nearly complete and we have quite a few languages available (stay tuned for a full list in the future). When you have a multitude of different languages, the QA process basically becomes 10 times more intense, which has been difficult. It’s very easy to design a game purely for just say English, which then really complicates the matter when you try and just replace all English text with the localized equivalent. The silver lining however, is that the lessons learnt here have been invaluable for future projects.

I get asked every day about the release date, and while I can’t reveal the exact day at this very moment - just know that it will be relatively soon! I look forward to being able to announce a concrete time. Appreciate all your patience!

That’s all for now.

Stay safe, soldiers!

Jordan

SOLDIERS! Merry Christmas! It has been a while since the last update so I thought I’d check in and write up an end of year recap like I usually do.

2023 was a difficult but overall very productive year for the project. Here are some of the biggest things that happened over the past 12 months!



[h2]SCREEN AUSTRALIA FUNDING[/h2]

To kick off the year, I was lucky enough to be one of the few studios to recieve development funding from Screen Australia. This ensured I could keep developing the game throughout the year comfortably!



[h2]PUBLISHER SIGNING[/h2]

Biggest news of this year was signing with Team17, renown publisher of indie greats such as Blasphemous, Dredge and Overcooked.



Having some of the weight of being a one man team taken off my back has been a tremendous relief so far, and it has allowed me to purely focus on finishing the game. In the long run, this was the right decision for the game.



Balancing social media, getting Steam wishlists, making trailers, with making a fairly large indie game was becoming unmanageable for me. It was taking too much time away from making the game, but it’s unfortunately all stuff that you must do if you want to be successful and have longevity in this industry.



Knowing that the marketing is in good hands allowed me to focus on the part of the process that is most enjoyable - actually making the game!

[h2]GAMESCOM 2023[/h2]

Was lucky enough to showcase again this year at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany under the Australian pavilion.



Truth be told, the trip was a bit of a nightmare. My luggage was lost at Munich airport (thanks Lufthansa) and I received it 3 weeks after I was back home - so I had to spend quite a few days running around buying everything that was lost.



Regardless, I made it work and the actual convention went well. Did some media interviews, got to meet Team17 in person and once again got to represent the Australian games industry on the world stage.



No Verdun visit this year, as much as I love that place - I was low on time and had to get back home to work. I got most of what I needed back when I went in 2022 anyway, and it will be interesting to see if any eagle eyed fans will be able to pick up all the real life Verdun references that made it into the game.

[h2]PAX AUS 2023[/h2]

Running the CONSCRIPT booth at PAX AUS this year was another highlight for me. Had an even bigger booth than last year. I remember in 2017 when my gamedev journey first started I went to PAX AUS as a consumer for the first time and told myself that one day I'd be there with my own booth, so to be able to turn that into reality over the past two years has been surreal!



Once again an amazing opportunity to meet with fans and showcase CONSCRIPT!



Overall, reception to the demo was overwhelmingly positive and everyone was incredibly supportive.

Check out this amazing poilu, who was one of the first to come past the booth:



Seeing people this passionate and dedicated to my project really lights a fire underneath me!



Thanks to everyone who came past and had a chat, always a pleasure meeting everyone at PAX! (Shoutout to Mick Gordon for coming past, too!)

[h2]DEVELOPMENT UPDATE[/h2]

A lot of you will be wondering what the state of the project is going into 2024, and the truth is - things are going very well!



2023 was the hardest year of work I’ve ever done in my life, no doubt about it. Countless 12-14 hour work days especially in the past few months. Many personal sacrifices had to be made for these sort of work hours.



(And to clarify, working these hours was my own choice. Nobody except myself forced me to do anything).



But, the hard work was worth it. I’m happy to say that CONSCRIPT is pretty much content complete. This is a huge milestone.



Now the focus is QA, polishing, localizing, refining and making sure the game is as great as it can be. So it lives up to all of your expectations. I cannot give away any specific dates or windows yet, but the game will be releasing in 2024.



Just want to say, thanks for sticking around for this long! Feels like yesterday I launched the Kickstarter campaign, but that was already more than 3 years ago. Embarrassingly, I genuinely thought I would be able to release the game in 2021! Unfortunately though, this IS my first rodeo and so I was quite naive to the realities of game development. Things take a long time and they cost a lot of money to make, this is just the harsh reality of making a game with the scope of CONSCRIPT.



Personally I’m very happy with the game in its near final state and I’m really proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish for my first ever game. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. No game is. But there comes a time in every game's development cycle where you need to call it a day, and ship it. The majority of my original vision is here, and the game is actually quite a bit longer than I thought it would end up being. I can’t wait for you all to finally be able to play it.



Next year it will be the final stretch, so I won’t have time for any sort of regular devlogs anymore. But, I’ll update you all on the big announcements as they come.

That’s all from me. Have a great holiday break, soldiers.
-Jordan

Hey everyone!

Once again I'll be showcasing CONSCRIPT at PAX AUSTRALIA 2023 in Melbourne! I'll have an even bigger booth this year - so if you're planning on attending, be sure to come past and say hello! I'll be bringing an updated CONSCRIPT demo build.

Date: October 6th - 8th.

It was great meeting so many of you last year, so I look forward to doing it again.

CONSCRIPT will be located at booth PR02, here's a floor plan for reference:



See you there!

Hey everyone!

For Melbourne International Games Week this year I'll be doing a livestream of CONSCRIPT once again! Feel free to drop past and say hello or ask any questions you may have about the game.

Date and time:
Wednesday 27th September 11:00am AEST
Tuesday 26th September 6:00pm PDT

You can catch the stream on the Steam page for CONSCRIPT, or on the official MIGW Steam Event!

I look forward to seeing you all there!

MORE GOOD NEWS SOLDIERS!

CONSCRIPT has been nominated for MOST ANTICIPATED GAME in the 2023 GameMaker awards!

Having come this far from zero gamedev experience before this project, winning this would really be surreal. If you have the time, it'd be really appreciated if you could vote for CONSCRIPT before August 30th.



CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR CONSCRIPT!

Thank you!