Novruzj
MOR/ANN Games
Hey guys,
The Lead Designer for Revolution: The Spark here. My name is Novruz, and I'm here to provide some more info about the team, answer any questions you might have, and clarify some of the issues raised here. I found about this post through our Youtube analytics, you are in our top5 viewership traffic so far!
First of all, I appreciate, and I'm very grateful for raising awareness about our game! I'm also glad for all the feedback points you have given us, and we'll try to improve as much as possible! We are happy that people are beginning to notice us! We began with a small team of 6 people (hence the name) from Azerbaijan, and since have expanded to a bit more than ten with the new additions being mostly part-time freelancers. None of us on the initial team had English as their native language, so we didn't know about another meaning our team name might have, but I'm going to be honest, we found pretty soon from our writer (she joined us a bit later, and she is native in English). That said, we found it goofy enough and kept it, but the original meaning of MORANN was simply a combination of the first letters of our names (Mehman, Olivia, Rashad, Amil, Novruz, Natiq). We added slash to get away from 'moron' pronunciation, but doesn't look like it's helping much.
As for the game itself, I'm very saddened to find out that you guys don't like our art style. The shaders that we have right now are more of a placeholders, and we know that we need to work a lot to improve the overall looks. Overall, is it just the cel-shaders that make you dislike the art style? What do you think about the third screenshot from our steampage? Do you like the visuals for the houses?
Story-wise we are planning to start with 100k+ words for Early Access covering five different endings of the game. Seeing how some of the people here are frustrated about playing for revolutionaries, there are some options that let you side with the nobles, and even one where you are so selfish you end up betraying everyone who ever trusted you, but I won't go too deep to not spoil it. Overall, I would say that we have developed the story pretty extensively, and there is a relatively deep background for almost all major characters - playable or not. The first thing we did when we started working on the narrative design with our writer is we developed the Lore for the world, so in addition to the 100k+ words from dialogues, there is an extensive backstory for the whole world, and for some specific characters. As for the setting, Infinitron got it right, it's more of a mix between Russian and British Empires, rather than just a tale of 1917. The nobles, and Empire's structure is more close to that of British Empire, while the problems of commoners are more close to the ones that Russian Empire had. The mystical beings hinted at in the trailer also shaped the world to become very different from our own world, so its history has changed (we have been inspired by many real world rebellions, revolts, and uprisings though - focusing mainly on Russian ones). Athough the motives are very similar, this story isn't exactly about communist revolution. I think the heart of our game is the journey of the protagonist (Alex) caught in a world of extremely high income inequality where he has to decide whether to continue to live minding his own business, or to try create a better future for his family, and specifically daughter. When Alex's direct family gets involved, and his brother gets arrested for an attempted coup, Alex will have no choice but to take on a more hands-on approach. There are many ways for Alex to achieve his goal of ensuring his family's safety, and which faction will he end up siding with will depend on no one but you guys.
Finally, as for the DE comparisons, here is a little bit of a backstory on how we got to the idea of making The Spark. In a simplified way this is a game that was inspired by Banner Saga (beautiful art style), Shadowrun Returns (turn-based combat, narrative design), and Dishonored (as you can guess from my profile pic - incredible world-setting with darker tones). When we started out a year ago in June 2019, Disco Elysium wasn’t out yet, and some of us didn’t even know about it, and those that did only knew about a game with great art style called No Truce with the Furies. But since it has been released we’ve been in love with DE, and yes, it has influenced, and inspired us! Right now, we are aspiring to create a product that is similar to Banner Saga with a little bit of Thronebreaker and Disco Elysium thrown in. Now we know we can't expect ourselves to get anywhere close to their levels given how most of us in the team lack experience, but we all try our best.
Hope this helps to answer some of your questions, and if anyone wants to know more, I'll be here to reply back!
The Lead Designer for Revolution: The Spark here. My name is Novruz, and I'm here to provide some more info about the team, answer any questions you might have, and clarify some of the issues raised here. I found about this post through our Youtube analytics, you are in our top5 viewership traffic so far!
First of all, I appreciate, and I'm very grateful for raising awareness about our game! I'm also glad for all the feedback points you have given us, and we'll try to improve as much as possible! We are happy that people are beginning to notice us! We began with a small team of 6 people (hence the name) from Azerbaijan, and since have expanded to a bit more than ten with the new additions being mostly part-time freelancers. None of us on the initial team had English as their native language, so we didn't know about another meaning our team name might have, but I'm going to be honest, we found pretty soon from our writer (she joined us a bit later, and she is native in English). That said, we found it goofy enough and kept it, but the original meaning of MORANN was simply a combination of the first letters of our names (Mehman, Olivia, Rashad, Amil, Novruz, Natiq). We added slash to get away from 'moron' pronunciation, but doesn't look like it's helping much.
As for the game itself, I'm very saddened to find out that you guys don't like our art style. The shaders that we have right now are more of a placeholders, and we know that we need to work a lot to improve the overall looks. Overall, is it just the cel-shaders that make you dislike the art style? What do you think about the third screenshot from our steampage? Do you like the visuals for the houses?
Story-wise we are planning to start with 100k+ words for Early Access covering five different endings of the game. Seeing how some of the people here are frustrated about playing for revolutionaries, there are some options that let you side with the nobles, and even one where you are so selfish you end up betraying everyone who ever trusted you, but I won't go too deep to not spoil it. Overall, I would say that we have developed the story pretty extensively, and there is a relatively deep background for almost all major characters - playable or not. The first thing we did when we started working on the narrative design with our writer is we developed the Lore for the world, so in addition to the 100k+ words from dialogues, there is an extensive backstory for the whole world, and for some specific characters. As for the setting, Infinitron got it right, it's more of a mix between Russian and British Empires, rather than just a tale of 1917. The nobles, and Empire's structure is more close to that of British Empire, while the problems of commoners are more close to the ones that Russian Empire had. The mystical beings hinted at in the trailer also shaped the world to become very different from our own world, so its history has changed (we have been inspired by many real world rebellions, revolts, and uprisings though - focusing mainly on Russian ones). Athough the motives are very similar, this story isn't exactly about communist revolution. I think the heart of our game is the journey of the protagonist (Alex) caught in a world of extremely high income inequality where he has to decide whether to continue to live minding his own business, or to try create a better future for his family, and specifically daughter. When Alex's direct family gets involved, and his brother gets arrested for an attempted coup, Alex will have no choice but to take on a more hands-on approach. There are many ways for Alex to achieve his goal of ensuring his family's safety, and which faction will he end up siding with will depend on no one but you guys.
Finally, as for the DE comparisons, here is a little bit of a backstory on how we got to the idea of making The Spark. In a simplified way this is a game that was inspired by Banner Saga (beautiful art style), Shadowrun Returns (turn-based combat, narrative design), and Dishonored (as you can guess from my profile pic - incredible world-setting with darker tones). When we started out a year ago in June 2019, Disco Elysium wasn’t out yet, and some of us didn’t even know about it, and those that did only knew about a game with great art style called No Truce with the Furies. But since it has been released we’ve been in love with DE, and yes, it has influenced, and inspired us! Right now, we are aspiring to create a product that is similar to Banner Saga with a little bit of Thronebreaker and Disco Elysium thrown in. Now we know we can't expect ourselves to get anywhere close to their levels given how most of us in the team lack experience, but we all try our best.
Hope this helps to answer some of your questions, and if anyone wants to know more, I'll be here to reply back!
