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KickStarter STASIS - An Indie Space Adventure Game - now with CAYNE DLC

Pyke

The Brotherhood
Developer
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
1,196
Location
South Africa
Ive got a few of these books. Even the original story documents when it was about a salvager who came across the ship. You had an AI companion called Hawking who captained your ship. The Groomlake wasnt a research ship, but a crew transport that was stuck on the edge of a black hole where thousands of years had passed and the crew had gone mad and killed each other. Then I watched PANDORUM...
 

Pyke

The Brotherhood
Developer
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
1,196
Location
South Africa
Pyke I know you're knee-deep in the shit right now, but still, have you given some thought yet as to what may be coming after Stasis provided it does well for you guys? (and it fucking should)

Oh definitely! There are a few games I really want to try out, with a lot of the time 'post stasis' probably dedicated to prototyping/playing around.
Nic and I have already written the Stasis sequel (at least in very broad outline form), but I think I'd want to wait a bit before going directly into it. It does have a really cool mechanic that it would be built around (still being a 'classic' adventure game) which would be a LOT of fun to design for.

Otherwise, there is the 1KL project which I want to explore (heavily mirroring FALLOUT in setting and gameplay), and another which we have code named 'Brothers' which is more along the lines of an open world Adventure Game (similar to Blade Runners style of characters moving around and living while the game continues). There is another one called 'Federation' which is a sort of 'Mass Effect meets Firefly' type of story (ensemble cast, multiple characters, big scifi world, spaceships and space stations etc). All of these would still be a 2D Isometric style of graphics.

I also want to try my hand at platformers. The ABE series has ALWAYS been an inspiration, and I would love trying my hand at something similar in style (well, gameplay style, so a 2D pre rendered platformer).

Nic is working on an awesome game which we will announce later this year (his pet project) which Ill be doing some of the graphics work for.

It all really depends on what type of game I think I could execute best, while still providing a challenge. If Stasis does well enough for both Nic and I to move into full time game production the scope of the games will alter. Regardless of Stasis's success Ill be doing more games. I cant 'not' make stuff. It will just take a bit longer. :D

I was watching the Broken Age doc, and if we sell the same amount of copies TOTAL as Broken Age got preorders before their big ACT 1 release, we can move into full time development.

For anyone in this thread - the game that eventually became BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION was our design for 1KL and BROTHERS mixed together. :D
 

Pyke

The Brotherhood
Developer
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
1,196
Location
South Africa
there's only one death scene and is actually optional, unlike STASIS' many, many deaths. Where's my gender equality here? :decline:

You should see the suicide animations I started doing...and then thought 'fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck' and stopped.

Desolation will bring back the gruesome and numerous deaths!

Im trying to logistically work out how best to do dialogue...honestly I dont really enjoy dialogue trees (and they increase the amount of dialogue massively leading to a huge bump in translation costs)- although the way they did them in Oxenfree was amazing, so if we did go with a more freeflow system it would be closer to that.

Lol.
 

Spukrian

Savant
Joined
May 28, 2016
Messages
667
Location
Lost Continent of Mu
I got Stasis and Cayne about a month ago and finished them in a few days. I did get stuck a couple of times, but after taking a break and looking at it with fresh eyes I could figure it out (never looked at a walkthrough or hints). Nowaday I don't play many adventure games but Stasis drew me in beacuse of the atmosphere, the horror, the story and of course the isometric viewpoint. I enjoyed the story very much, it really gave me a feeling for John's determination to continue despite the hopeless situation. Not to forget, the graphics, sound and music is great. I'd love to see a new game in the same world, perhaps a prequel?

I got Beautiful Desolation as well but I'll write about that in its thread.

Thank you Pyke for a great game!
 

Pyke

The Brotherhood
Developer
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
1,196
Location
South Africa
Gotta be honest here bro's - I almost didn't post the video because I think I look like a potato - so I appreciate the thirsty comments. It's actually why I've been put off doing any sort of DevBlog.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
Was a KickStarter Backer, finally got around to playing it.

First thing I noticed is that I really wished it was possible to have rendered it at a higher resolution initially. The art and mood is great, but 720p looks rather... limited on a 4K screen.
- Great mood/atmosphere from the very beginning, especially if you end up playing alone at night
- Drags you in and you want to know more from the very beginning
- Love the flavor text on objects and the logs you find so far, it's refreshing to see logs actually properly used for Hints and as a storytelling device regarding what will expect you soon etc. instead of as a vehicle to give "narrative consultants" something to write (nvm I just stumbled upon the crew quarters and Medical and am reading about people's relationship problems, personal crushes and sexual orientations now...)
- Like how the inventory UI and the Menu has been embedded within the game
- Puzzles are largely logical and comprehensive. Due to the limited size of the inventory, items disappearing when they're used/have become useless often throughout and limited rooms accessible at one time till you've progressed to the next section, it seems obvious when you've missed something.
- The least clear puzzle was the one about waking up the guy from the Stasis pod, since it isn't obvious that the scribblings on the pads have anything to do with it and they're easy to overlook and be stumped, also it isn't clear which hint is for which body part aside from the head one. I also had a bit of a problem finding the metal plate in Hydroponics and kept running from room to room trying things since the sap alone for some reason wouldn't work on the tank
- Animations could use some work, especially those you see all the time and not just once or twice
- Horry shit, that surgery scene.
- The Visitor's Center looking like a cathedral was a nice change of pace near the end of the game, that entire part tears one out of the Space horror atmosphere though
- Seemed a bit lazy that the villain had to go ahead and reveal the plans at the end when it didn't make any sense to do so, especially after witnessing everything John did to get there that day and his mental state given the fate of his daughter and wife. Also not sure why they would've kept his daughter in a giant-ass cell as one of the few people still remaining alive on the Groomlake, it presupposes they knew that he would be woken up and go through all that and that he was someone "special" as opposed to just some guy among hundreds in a tank. Would have made more sense to find her deceased as part of some horrible experiment at the hands of Malan and John having a nervous breakdown.
- Also why does a giant spaceship need dozens of rooms with vats full of people remains in acid or other gunk if they could just float them out an airlock into the bowels of Neptune or whatever to the same effect, never to be seen again? Seems like a bit of a waste of space.
- A surprisingly small amount of people worked on it for the end result

Cayne Corporation did nothing wrong, if it wasn't for Malan's acquisition methods for experiment subjects and some of his recommendations like Dr. Gray or Backman even less. Figures that mad scientists have to ruin a good thing.

Up to playing CAYNE next.
 
Last edited:
Unwanted
Dumbfuck
Joined
Oct 29, 2020
Messages
999
Location
Free Market Paradise
(nvm I just stumbled upon the crew quarters and Medical and am reading about people's relationship problems, personal crushes and sexual orientations now
I actually liked that part. In these modern game you would expect to find these logs going, "lalala, I'm a brown tranny working for an evil megacorp and my straight white male boss is oppressing me so much and I'm so gay. I have to remember that my suitcase CODE IS 12345. Oh no what was that sound? Arrrghghghghghghg~" But the way the crew quarter logs were put together and formed a whole that was so misanthropic that I loved it.
I also had a bit of a problem finding the metal plate in Hydroponics
Kek, I found that right away and couldn't figure out that you were supposed to interact with that bug-horror. Thawing that guy out from stasis was also pretty clear cut to me, the only thing that fucked me over was that you had to guess on one part and I kept looking for that last one.
Up to playing CAYNE next.
CAYNE is actually much harder in terms of puzzles and is stylistically different from STASIS. I'm surprised that they released that as a free game because it makes the most sense for someone that have already finished STASIS to play. If you came in without that previous experience then it would feel pretty hard and I'm not sure how much of the story you would get. The tone is different too.
 

Pyke

The Brotherhood
Developer
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
1,196
Location
South Africa
The tone is different too.

It's quite interesting. Tonaly Nic took the lead on Cayne, because honestly I was just so burned out on Stasis. He has a much more 'twisted' sense of humor - its almost an extreme heightened version of 70's horror. Nic loves his big slashers and crime procedurals - whereas I like my horror to be more 'thriller'ish. If you have played Beautiful Desolation - we shared a lot of the narrative design between us. Nic very much took the lead on things like the Fley and the Moss, where I did the Chiznyama, Hanasi, Caecus story. It's always an interesting experiment to blend the two styles, and see how they come out.

I'm taking back in the narrative side on Bone Totem, so it will be closer to Stasis than Cayne.

I do love some of the more absurd ideas in Cayne that I never would have actually come up with. Grubelina (which came from Tarryn, the writer - and we worked it into the story), and the awesome 'head in a vat'. :D
 

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