The House of Tesla Dev Log #7
Hello everyone!
Today I will be talking (writing?) about Gamescom. So, what is it? In case you don’t know, Gamescom is a large trade fair for video games. It is currently the largest fair of its kind and it is held every year in Cologne, Germany. If you are going, you can find us in hall 10 (Hall 10.2 | F010 E019), so feel free to drop by, chat with us a little, try our demo, and get some cool merch. Wait a minute. Did I say demo? As in a playable demo? Yes, I did! And that’s a big part of what I want to talk about.
Attending Gamescom is certainly an undertaking and during the week we are there our progress will definitely slow down - but the hardest part about our preparations is making a demo version of our game. We talked about some of our processes before, the ideas, design, concept art, prototyping, creation of 3d assets, and making animatics. But there is more - like programming, testing, and polishing. These are all phases that our game has to go through to be in a playable state. To make a demo we need to choose a part of the game and prioritize it going through all the phases, which requires great effort from all of our departments and can be quite complex logistically.
On the other hand, it allows us to try all the ideas we had on a practical level and make adjustments based on feedback from real players, so it definitely has its bright side. In the last few months, we had to shift our focus from the big picture (making designs for all the chapters and slowly building up our progress game-wide) to fully polishing the first, tutorial chapter. Designers needed to shift their focus from brainstorming to testing and polishing, 3d artists from making prototypes to finishing assets and making textures, and concept artists from making concepts to creating various documents and paintings that you’ll be able to see in-game.
Of course, some parts of the demo are not the same as you’ll be able to experience in the final game. Visual effects for one are only an approximation of our final vision and will require a lot more work before the final release.
And it has another bright side I haven’t mentioned! You might be wondering what to do if you wanna try The House of Tesla, but do not plan to attend Gamescom. Well, you’ll need to wait a bit (boo, I know). But maybe not that long. A demo for Steam is in the works. It needs some polishing, some magic work with lighting, finalizing assets for the main menu, and some work on the aforementioned visual effects and after that, it's going straight to our Steam page.
I look forward to seeing you at Gamescom and/or later in the comment section and collecting all your feedback and notes!
Viktor
Lead Designer of The House of Tesla
Blue Brain Games
Today I will be talking (writing?) about Gamescom. So, what is it? In case you don’t know, Gamescom is a large trade fair for video games. It is currently the largest fair of its kind and it is held every year in Cologne, Germany. If you are going, you can find us in hall 10 (Hall 10.2 | F010 E019), so feel free to drop by, chat with us a little, try our demo, and get some cool merch. Wait a minute. Did I say demo? As in a playable demo? Yes, I did! And that’s a big part of what I want to talk about.
Attending Gamescom is certainly an undertaking and during the week we are there our progress will definitely slow down - but the hardest part about our preparations is making a demo version of our game. We talked about some of our processes before, the ideas, design, concept art, prototyping, creation of 3d assets, and making animatics. But there is more - like programming, testing, and polishing. These are all phases that our game has to go through to be in a playable state. To make a demo we need to choose a part of the game and prioritize it going through all the phases, which requires great effort from all of our departments and can be quite complex logistically.
On the other hand, it allows us to try all the ideas we had on a practical level and make adjustments based on feedback from real players, so it definitely has its bright side. In the last few months, we had to shift our focus from the big picture (making designs for all the chapters and slowly building up our progress game-wide) to fully polishing the first, tutorial chapter. Designers needed to shift their focus from brainstorming to testing and polishing, 3d artists from making prototypes to finishing assets and making textures, and concept artists from making concepts to creating various documents and paintings that you’ll be able to see in-game.
Of course, some parts of the demo are not the same as you’ll be able to experience in the final game. Visual effects for one are only an approximation of our final vision and will require a lot more work before the final release.
And it has another bright side I haven’t mentioned! You might be wondering what to do if you wanna try The House of Tesla, but do not plan to attend Gamescom. Well, you’ll need to wait a bit (boo, I know). But maybe not that long. A demo for Steam is in the works. It needs some polishing, some magic work with lighting, finalizing assets for the main menu, and some work on the aforementioned visual effects and after that, it's going straight to our Steam page.
I look forward to seeing you at Gamescom and/or later in the comment section and collecting all your feedback and notes!
Viktor
Lead Designer of The House of Tesla
Blue Brain Games