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JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time News

Superbrothers: from #sworcery to JETT - a catch-up post



Hi there, this is Craig D. Adams of Superbrothers AV, co-creator of #sworcery and JETT.



So, this month I've published a coupla things for #sworcery folks over at the Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP Steam page's news feed.

Specifically, this post about the overlaps between #sworcery and JETT...

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/204060/view/3433458944730393702
...and another post that offers a snapshot of #sworcery creators for fall 2022, before digging into how JETT's interstellar demo came about.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/204060/view/3498763263571476691
Perhaps you caught'em, but It occurred to me I ought to get some of that material on this here JETT Steam page, so we are.

Feel free to go read the original posts, or just settle in here and I'll get you caught up.

. . .




LONG AGO...

I should perhaps explain that #sworcery refers to the 2011 videogame Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, originally an iOS release, that then arrived on PC and Steam in 2012.

Back in those olden days towards the end of the early indie years, #sworcery emerged and immediately resonated with a broad audience. The experience of making it, and the positive response it received, was a life-changer for me. I'm glad to say the project seems to be pretty warmly remembered even now as a fresh experience with some new concepts, strong audiovisual and aesthetic elements, a unique sensibility, with a narrative rendered in a tone that oscillates between the mythic bombast of Robert E. Howard's Conan and the inane patter of early Twitter. It's funny to think the plot hinged on 'detonating The Megatome' a cursed book that allowed everyone to see everyone else's thoughts, a non-subtle Twitter stand-in that the protagonist, the Scythian, had sworn to destroy.

Anyways, that project was built by me at Superbrothers leading the charge on A/V, narrative and concepts, with my old pal maestro Jim Guthrie getting a shot at scoring his first videogame, and the project was made possible by the folks at the studio Capy (Grindstone, Below) who got the project started, kept it going, built it out, made it good, and did a lot else besides.

It's a cool videogame, and if you missed it you might want to give it a whirl. I recommend it on iPhone, where the design began, but it's totally fine elsewhere.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/204060/Superbrothers_Sword__Sworcery_EP/

THE ROAD TO JETT

Right after #sworcery went out in 2011 I started to shift gears professionally and personally, setting out on a path that led to JETT in 2021/2023. In 2011 I pulled up stakes in Toronto, where #sworcery happened and where I had been living for nearly a decade, and soon after I moved to the woods of Quebec, my wife and I began to raise a family, while myself and my pal Patrick at Pine Scented, who lives in Japan, got to work chipping away at JETT, starting in around 2013.

JETT kept us busy for long years as it was just the two of us and composer scntfc, and then in the last coupla years we had to spin up a large squad of collaborators and contributors working remotely from across Earth's troubled surface to get JETT done.




https://store.steampowered.com/app/1761600/JETT_The_Far_Shore__Given_Time/




#SWORCERY X JETT OVERLAPS

JETT's actually a lot like sworcery, despite the surface differences (polygons vs pixels, science fiction vs fantasy, stoic vs irreverent, complex controls vs simple controls). JETT's another unorthodox DIY-feeling effort from a tiny team, with some great music, some deep vibes, plus a smattering of bold choices and distinct ideas that'll sit with you for forever and a day.

Here are some specific ways that JETT resonates with sworcery:
  • an experience with style, soul and heart
    • because I was on deck on both projects defining narrative, characters, tone, music cues and art direction, as well as co-creating design, you'll find a lot of resonance between the two projects -- they're cut from the same cloth
    • just like in sworcery, in JETT you'll find yourself moving through a lush world in a vibes-heavy adventure, where great music is often front and center
    • in terms of pacing, as you play, occasionally a threat'll pop up and you'll have some action to take care of, and often you'll encounter scenarios that involve a bit of puzzling
    • alongside the bombast, spectacle and puzzling, there are a plenty of quiet intimate moments, as well as a few strange dreams... and even a familiar-feeling nightmare apparition haunting dark corners
  • story-wise, some echoes
    • there are some rich themes that are going to resonate with some of you out there
    • gently radical
    • a silent woman with a spooky destiny finds herself on a cosmic adventure and eventually goes up a weird mountain, then, much later on, she goes up the mountain again and di--
  • coupla composers in common
    • composer scntfc created the moon grotto music in sworcery, which is a neat cameo in a great Jim Guthrie score
    • composer Jim Guthrie created the interstellar trip song Out Of Our Hands for JETT, a neat cameo in a great scntfc score
  • also, a bit of intentional sfx overlap
    • you might notice the 'adventure lead-in' sound is used in both
    • sworcery's 'trigons' make something of an appearance inside JETT's 'phosfiends'
    • sworcery's 'sylvan sprites' aka space babies and JETT's 'brine wisp' sounds are the same - why, you might ask?

Given all of the above resonances and linkages, you may find yourself wondering: do sworcery and JETT take place in the same universe? Are the two projects connected, and if so, how directly are they connected?

Devoted JETT-heads may have discerned the truth, but now isn't the time to just spell things out.







DEEP DIVE ON JETT'S INTERSTELLAR DEMO

JETT co-creator Patrick at Pine Scented and I had a JETT prototype in 2011, but it wasn't until 2013 that we started chipping away at the full concept, just the two of us. That's when the characters, the narrative and JETT's unorthodox gameplay came into focus. Note: If you'd like to see a glimpse of baby JETT from this time, here's Patrick's #jettdev thread on Twitter.

By 2015, we had The Far Shore and Given Time campaigns roughly mapped out, but at that time the experience began with Mei and Isao deploying from The Mother Structure to the unfamiliar planet of the far shore. An epic science fiction moment, for sure, but as time went on it began to feel too abrupt. Who are Mei and Isao? Why are they deploying to this planet? What is a jett and how do I fly it?

It occurred to me that, before immersing people in this complex unorthodox videogame, we really oughta consider cooking up and bolting on a kickass prologue.

The spec was to 1) intrigue and interest the player right from the get-go with an intricate and distinct storyworld 2) put the player on the hook personally and emotionally, and get them to be curious about and care for the people in this society 3) give players a sense of the gee whiz thrill of how it feels at the helm of a jett...then 4) give the player an opportunity to get familiar with the ensemble cast all before 4) melting some minds and taking players across space and 1000 years into the future.

Ideally we'd get all that done in a smooth 30 minutes. It was a tall order, particularly for two people, but a few months into 2016 we had it roughly in place and playable.

When people played it in mid 2016 we could see it was delivering pretty well, and that was before Jim's Out Of Our Hands song showed up in 2017.

Since those olden days the prologue and everything else got a metric ton of production effort, shaping and polish from dozens of people in the JETT Squad era from 2019 to 2021. I'm real proud of how it came together, and I hope it resonates with you.









At cosmodrome z-13 you'll meet the characters who make up your scout unit, from the leadership -- Misha, Pasha -- to Jones, jett ace and commander.

In the JETT demo you'll get a sense of who they are and what kind of headspace they're in, as they leave everything and everyone behind and embark on a one-way trip across space and 1000 years in the future, in the hope of carving out a future on some faraway world.

Here are a couple character drawings I had made back in 2013, including Mei's co-pilot Isao (a young George Takei) and jett ace Jones (what if Grace Jones was Captain Kirk).

In the olden times of 2014 to 2016, when it was just Patrick and I, it was up to me to create all the 3D models and pretty much anything else visual. It was a relief when we were able to bring in help, with my old pal Chris Beintema on deck for models and rigs for the characters and creatures in the shipping game.







Eventually, the time comes for Mei to lapse into torpor -- JETT's version of cryosleep -- and for her and her fellow scouts to be put aboard a rocket.

As the rocket ignites, we drop the needle on Jim's song "Out Of Our Hands"... and off we go, to dock with The Mother Structure in orbit above, and then set off across the sea of stars, to the far shore.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Here's a possibly interesting aside, about the tone of 0.Embark:

At TCAF 2015 I crossed paths with Dan Berry and I bought his comic Carry Me, a book about parenting, life and death that stuck with me. Related to Carry Me, in 2015 I was a new parent, my daughter having been born in 2014, and I got to thinking about who I most identified with in JETT's emerging story.


The short comic Carry Me by Dan Berry can be read in a handful of minutes at the following internet website. http://www.thingsbydan.co.uk/2017/04/read-carry-me/


Upon reflection, I became aware that the character with whom I resonated most in JETT was the protagonist's father. We meet him once, he apologizes, then wishes Mei well. He is to remain behind, while she sets off to the stars. There's a very specific agony and heartbreak at work here, because a parent knows that, if all goes well, their child will outlive them, and that there will someday be a tearful parting. What's more, parents here on Earth in the 21st century feel an additional weight, a heavy brew of regret and helplessness at the thought of the troubled future our children have been born into. I felt compelled to reckon with these feelings, and bottle some of them up in JETT.

Fast forwarding a few years, and Dan Berry found himself in JETT's orbit, climbing aboard the squad that delivered the Given Time expansion. Small world! You can read all about this in our recent JETT squad profile featuring Dan and Richard Flanagan.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/3404184263846060375
Speaking of Dan, him and I are starting to broadcast dev commentary streams on the JETT Steam page. Keep an eye out for when our streams are live if you'd like to tune in.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1761600/JETT_The_Far_Shore__Given_Time/




I hope you enjoyed the above!

To stay in the loop with Superbrothers and all things JETT, please like and subscribe and so forth.

Wishlist JETT on Steam and Download Demo - it helps!
  • Play the prologue to get warmed up, and ensure your PC rig works.
  • Note: We recommend playing on a controller, with headphones!

If you're a streamer or press, and if you'd like to play JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time and help us get the word out, please get in touch!

Hop on the Superbrothers A/V - Enthusiasts newsletter via jett.fyi

Give us a follow:

Poke around our websites:

Thanks for your time and attention, cosmic friends!









* Oh, are you still reading?

Looking for more?

Well now, let's see.

Ah, there is this one thing.

Here:

What's this? Well, it's a little slice of a playable something special related to sworcery that will surface at the appointed time, a few moons hence.

JETT: The Far Shore Demo play through with commentary

A play through the JETT: The Far Shore demo with Craig D Adams of Superbrothers A/V and Jettsquad copilot Dan Berry.



The stream is now archived over on YouTube;
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

JETT: The Far Shore Demo play through with commentary

A play through the JETT: The Far Shore demo with Craig D Adams of Superbrothers A/V and Jettsquad copilot Dan Berry.



This is a prerecorded stream for the sake of convenience, but we've got some live ones planned for the near future.

JETT Squad Profile // Richard Flanagan + Dan Berry

Hello there. Tsagas scrivener Dustin Harbin here, with a fresh #squadprofile this week, focusing on two all-star JETT contributors.

Now that the JETT demo is out in the wyld here on Steam, and with the new Given Time campaign coming in early 2023, it's a great time to talk about "JETT Squad", the people who’ve contributed to this game over the last near-decade of work. They hail from all over the world, syncing up (sometimes groggily) across numerous time zones, via a mix of video calls, Slack threads, and once in a while, even a good ol’ email.



Two of the newest additions to the squad climbed aboard specifically for the Given Time campaign: Richard Flanagan and Dan Berry. One a decorated veteran of the indie games scene in Montreal, and the other a decorated veteran of the indie comics scene in the UK. I would say more, and in fact I do say more, below:



Richard Flanagan has collaborated on a number of games across the indie and AAA games landscape, but he’s probably best known for his game FRACT OSC (2014), which he not only created and designed, but handled all the sound, music systems, animation, UI, typefaces… Yeah, he’s one of those guys.

---
[h3]"If you’re in ownership of functioning eyes and ears, then you owe it to yourself to play this game."
9/10 FRACT OSC review on Game Revolution[/h3]
---

FRACT OSC is a first person musical exploration game where the player is dropped into a forgotten and broken down world built on sound. As the player brings the machinery of the world back on line, they solve musical puzzles that contribute to the rich synthwave soundtrack of the world. The game stealthily teaches players how synthesizers and aspects of electronic music work, and by the end players will have unlocked their own electronic music studio.



DUSTIN HARBIN: So Richard, how did you end up working on JETT?

RICHARD FLANAGAN: Craig and I had been in each other's gamedev orbits for a while, but it wasn't until 2016-ish that we noticed some common inspirations. I think it was around that time that my wife Quynh and I played an early version of JETT, akin to a vertical slice, that captured a lot of what would come to be released eventually.

I was immediately smitten by the feeling of the game, as it captures something that (I think) both Craig and I find ourselves craving in locomotion based games; a feeling that captures the vibe of snowboarding. There are plenty of games that try to emulate actual snowboarding, but capturing that mindset of momentum, choice, risk and reward is rare.



DH: Where does the snowboarding thing come from? Are you a snowboarder yourself? Or do you just find that motion dynamic interesting in games?

RF: Snowboarding is a big deal for me and is easily the closest thing to a spiritual practice in my weird little life. For over 25 years it has given me an ever-mutable balance of freedom, escape and focus that I honestly have trouble putting into words; hence why I’ve been on the lookout for examples that capture that same feeling in games, or otherwise.

Snowboarding videogames try to simulate aspects of the snowboarding experience in a very literal way, but rarely capture the emotional context of carving a perfect line or threading the needle through a pair of (probably too narrow) snow covered spruce trees.

JETT does, and in my (ahem, expert) opinion, is one of the absolute best examples of games that capture that vibe.

DH: What was the nature of your work on the new game campaign?

RF: I joined the team in December 2021 and was lucky to serve as a sort of design-backstop on the already cohesive and impressive design achievement that was the Given Time campaign. I helped them turn a few screws, provide some external sanity checks, and help shape and tune the systems into something just a bit tighter and more inviting for folks to play within.

Aside from design stuff I also got a chance to collaborate on some mograph for the pretty dang cool opening titles of the Given Time campaign with the lovely Dan Berry. Dan is also one of those folks that wears a lot of hats and our skill sets really lined up on the opening of the game while also giving us opportunities to meddle together on a lot of other areas of Given Time.



DH: The Dan that Richard is referring to is Dan Berry, a cartoonist, educator and podcaster, among numerous other things. Rivers, a book he co-created with David Gaffney, was recently optioned to be adapted into an HBO series. Unlike Richard, who I’ve only met this year (great, would recommend), I’ve known Dan for years, as we’re both cartoonists.

DH: Dan, how in the world did you end up working, somewhat centrally, on a giant expansion to an existing game?

DB: I first met Craig back in (I think?) 2014, in a bar in Toronto. There’s a long-ish chain of events that stack up to get me there. I’d played and loved Sword & Sworcery when it came out, and was charmed, as we all were, by Jim Guthrie’s soundtrack. When I started the Make It Then Tell Everybody podcast in 2012, I wanted to use one of Jim’s songs as a theme tune and got in touch with him. He kindly said yes, and I eventually ended up making a music video for his song The Rest Is Yet To Come the following year. I was in Toronto in 2014 to exhibit at TCAF, an excellent comics festival and Jim and I arranged to meet up, and it turned out that Superbrothers guy was going to be there too! Anyway, fast forward to 2021 where Craig and I reconnected to chat on the podcast about JETT. It’s a good chat, you should take a listen. After we’d finished recording, we carried on talking and the existence of Given Time was alluded to, and I basically pitched the idea of me helping out and we went from there.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JqHXsZ4L1QU

DH: What was the nature of your work? I was honestly surprised to find out how indispensable you quickly became to the project.

DB: I’m not sure there’s a short answer to that question. It has been really varied. On the practical side of things, I’ve been cutting trailers, editing audio, contributing some design work, and generally being a spare pair of hands. On the creative side, I’ve been working on narrative pitches, writing and editing dialogue, with some environment work and a little gameplay tuning here and there. I think as well, generally being around as a spare brain to add capacity and a second opinion to maintain focus has been pretty useful.

I was really aware that stepping into a project with established systems, style and lore meant that I had to try to work in a way that left as few of my own grubby fingerprints on it as possible. Tuning in to the unique Superbrothers aesthetic and approach and (hopefully) leaving no visible fingerprints has been very satisfying.

DH: What’s it been like collaborating with people that are in completely different time zones?

DB: Really not all that bad. I’ve been a freelancer for a few years now, so the idea of a regular schedule, or a commute, or lunch at midday is now almost entirely a thing that happens to other people. I’m based in the UK, so perhaps the time difference gave me something of an unfair advantage? As if that 5 hour head start on the day before almost anyone else woke up (apart from Patrick, in Japan of course) gave me a little extra brain-space to get myself in order? Who knows. I can’t really give the time difference much credit though, when the people I was working with made it really easy. Genuinely a delight to get to meet and work with the rest of the squad.



DH: The release of Given Time is just a few months away. What can you say about the coming campaign? Is it substantively different? Are there any parts you’re particularly proud of your contribution to?

DB: Given Time is a new campaign that asks for a slightly different style of play than The Far Shore, that’s more open and exploratory. I think that the feeling of being alone and having to be self-reliant on a distant planet is greatly magnified here.

The parts I’m most pleased with are the subtleties that I think could easily be overlooked at first glance. These are elements that we deliberated over at length–dialogue, environment, music, artwork and more–that hint at greater depth in the story and its resolution. Trying to hand the player a jigsaw puzzle instead of a photograph.

DH: It must be hard to build in nuance and subtlety in a game where the player is often having to pull off complicated flying maneuvers while reacting to the environment around them. It seems like the vibe in the new campaign is definitely more solitary and… scary? Is that the right word? How hard was it to balance gameplay and “vibes” while still typing up narrative threads?



DB: Yeah, that was at the forefront of my mind. The game has an in-built sorrow underlying it, the characters are running from their destiny and wrestling with the moral implications of their actions. This was a kind of lens that gave focus and flavor to other emotional elements, like dialogue and music. There’s a particular scene I really like later on in the game, where Caro radios in with a brief status update and she’s like “you know what? I’m actually doing okay, I’m kinda alright, feeling pretty positive overall y’know?”

And it gives this really neat moment where the facade of their training and the mission and their objectives that they’ve given up so much for fall to one side for a second. I love the depth.

Was stuff like that hard? I don’t know about hard work, but it was a lot of work. I remember Craig and I working on that particular bit of dialogue while he was in Canada and I was on a train in the middle of Denmark in the middle of the night with my internet signal dropping in and out. Stuff like that sticks in the mind!

---

Thanks very much to Richard and Dan for taking the time to talk with me. Speaking of further discussion, we're also posting short videos, dev thinking, and general vibes over at @jettxyz on Twitter. And of course you can follow Richard, Dan, and myself there as well if you feel so inclined.

JETT DATACORE SYNC // October 6, 2022



This week, one year ago, JETT lifted off!

Since our 2021 campaign “The Far Shore” deployed last fall, we wound down JETT's primary production, scattering the all-star contributors and vendors known as JETT Squad 1.0 to the winds, to lend their talent to other projects. More on them below!

Then, some of us took a bit of a breather. It had been a long haul!

However, in early 2022, compelled by a new stirring in the hymnwave, production began on the new campaign, “Given Time,” and a coupla new folks climbed aboard to lend a hand.

Now here we are in fall 2022, one solar year since JETT's interstellar trip began -- just a few lunar cycles before the JETT tsaga concludes -- and let me tell you: this is a pretty spicy week JETT-wise.

Here’s a look at what’s been popping off around here!



There's now a JETT demo on Steam!

  • Embark and traverse a sea of stars for absolutely free on your PC in JETT’s very warmly-received interstellar prologue.

  • If you're reading this on Steam itself, chances are you're already aware that there's a playable demo available now. Still for us it's big news-- we’re extremely psyched to be bringing JETT to the vast international audience on Steam in early 2023, alongside Given Time hitting all platforms. It feels as if there are a good number of prospective jett-heads here, and we’re hoping this demo will be a nice little calling card for our project.

  • Some of the JETT Squad -- past, present and future -- got together on an internet seance last night, one year since our previous eve-of-JETT seance. We synchronized our datacores, got caught up, communed with the hymnwave, and talked a bit about Given Time. More on squad, seance, and good feelings, below!

  • To mark JETT's first birthday on Twitter at @jettxyz we just aired a lightly refreshed edition of our Launch Trailer. This clip features scntfc's warm, elegaic song ‘Jett to Cosmodrome’. Last year we watched this all together as a squad as we premiered it. The clip contains a lot of warm memories of our time together with the scouts.




squad talk!


It took a village to actually get the complex, sprawling project JETT from where it was in mid-2019 onto consoles and computers worldwide.

That village was a constellation of all-star collaborators, contributors and vendors scattered across Earth's troubled surface, and we refer to it as JETT Squad. They got their shoulders under JETT, helped build it out and sharpen it. Together, we got ‘er done.

In fall 2021, as production on “The Far Shore” campaign wound down, the beloved JETT Squad 1.0 — the 2019 to 2021 era — scattered to the wind, to lend their talents to other projects.

We’ve kept up with folks here and there, but it sure was nice to get people together and see some faces on last night's seance. Lots of talk about current projects, sci-fi tv, regional accents, mummy babies, banjo plucking, and more.

A warm evening with colleagues and friends, and a good refilling of the community cup!



squad snapshot - fall 2022


l-r: Priscilla Snow, Sam Bradley, Gordon McGladdery, Jim Guthrie

Some things JETT Squad 1.0 folks have been up to over the last year!


Meanwhile, a few JETT Squad 1.0 folks are busy cooking up new videogames, like these!


new squad folks for 2022


Richard Flanagan, Dan Berry

Two brand new scouts appearing around the hymnwave at last night’s seance were Richard Flanagan and Dan Berry, two essential additions to the 2022 JETT Squad who saw the new Given Time campaign to the finish line.



squad 1.3 roll-call

Speaking of Given Time, you might be wondering how it come about, and what the squad looked like, this time out.

In January 2022, a new stirring was detected within the hymnwave, and we were compelled to spin up JETT Squad 1.3, in order to deliver on a very specific vision, a vision that we'll be talking about this fall and winter.

This 2022 Squad had a few JETT vets forming the core, with some Squad 1.0 all-stars pitching in.

  • old school
    • Co-creators: c/Superbrothers + Patrick/Pine Scented
    • Composer/collaborator: C Andrew Rohrmann/scntc
  • squad star
    • Dev powerhouse on design and QA: Zack Wheeler @tankooni

  • all-star contributors, 1.0 alum returning:
Zack Wheeler, Maize Longboat

new folks adding capacity to the mix in 2022:

  • Richard Flanagan aka @phosfiend - direction, design, mograph, many other hats
  • Dan Berry aka @thingsbydan - direction, narrative, AV producer, sound

For more about these JETT Squad folks, look out for a limited series of “squad profiles”, on the way this fall/winter season.

  • These are some interesting people with interesting jobs, we hope you’ll enjoy getting to know them a little better!

  • These profiles will be summarized in the Superbrothers A/V Enthusiasts newsletter, which you can subscribe to on jett.fyi, and appearing in a longer form here on JETT’s Steam news feed.

  • These profiles will focus on a few of the people who were key in shaping aspects of this sometimes byzantine, absurdly ambitious and always spicy science fiction videogame project.


autumn in Quebec, Craig Adams (also in Quebec)

If you’re looking to get your ear even closer to the ground on Superbrothers comms this fall/winter, look us up at the locations below.

the Superbrothers A/V - Enthusiasts newsletter, which you can subscribe to via jett.fyi

JETT’s Steam Newsfeed - Wishlist JETT to subscribe

Instagram: @superbrothers @hymnwave

Twitter: @jettxyz @superbrothersHQ @hymnwave