eelstork

In my last blog post, dated November 30 2018, I confirmed that the retelling of Antistar was complete, and the game has been available in early access ever since (with several, significant updates).

re: Antistar is by all measures a much better game than Antistar. Even so, I still feel that this game is incomplete.

Before starting, I'll just quickly point out that, the media budget for this game has been... small. The indie definition of small. Clearly just extending the budget will help us make a prettier/bigger game. Bigger and better is what it is, but that is not what this post is all about.

Let's outline our future plans for this game.

Multigenre gameplay

Antistar is built like a classic action-adventure game. By design it is a by-product of an era where players challenged themselves to beat the game. With that, an action-adventure game primarily addresses eclectic players with a balanced skill set. And that's okay... to a point.

Unfortunately, while action-adventuring is a good approach for story-driven games, what I see with most players is that they fail at the one (surviving encounters, jumping over gaps...), the other (solving puzzles) or both. Which is immersion breaking, damages the pacing of, and eventually spoils, a good story.

With this in mind, in furthering this game, I think about players who are mainly wanting platforming and fast paced action. Then I think about players who'd like to use their wits, solving 'puzzles' and such. Finally I think about newer players - including players who maybe have never played much more than match-three games. And we need to build options into the design, for each type of player.

Narrative density

Another design question that I want to push is narrative density. There is a consensus in the (gaming) community, that games should not be expected to be as intense and expressive as animated features.

I disagree. In 2020 game characters can be a lot more expressive and 'well storied games' are possible without resorting to cut-scenes, environmental story-telling and other nonsense.

To be super clear this is not about making games prettier. Narrative density is just that: whether you read a book or comic, or watch an anime, there's a different action happening between every minute and every 10~15 seconds. Which means doing a different something (be it climbing a ladder, eating soup, crushing skulls and so forth...) with a distinct emotion.

Part of the answer is keeping a short running length. Take a 50 hours experience, make it three or four.

The day we start working on this, game designers will stop dreaming of defecting to the film industry.

Childhood, light, and darkness

Finally, very specific to Antistar itself - it's a game about childhood, light, and darkness.

With childhood as a theme, some of its inspiration can be found in Alice's Wonderland. There is much to be done yet, in how the main character dithers between her own reveries, and the fantasy of the down-below (the world of Antistar).

As to light and darkness, I want to refocus on the original intent behind this game - to contrast the straining, yet peaceful journey of a lost soul, with the dark, dissonant powers of a witch-child summoning elemental wrath.

In the current (and previous) version of the game, these aspects are barely hinted at. I had to push this aside in 2009 - and again in 2017. Essentially, however, the hope of developing this, and fulfilling that vision, is what keeps me going, and wanting more from what may seem like, just another fantasy story.

Thanks for reading.