KickStarter STASIS 2: BONE TOTEM - new isometric adventure in Stasis universe set in deep sea installation

[ERYFKRAD]

It's nice that you're exploring very different environments in each of your releases. It would be easy to get pigeonholed in the "space horror" genre, for example. Granted there's a lot of crossover between deep space / deep ocean (claustrophobia, "out there" can kill you in an instant), but there's also a lot of unique themes and visuals. BD in-between is a total palette cleanser.

Any thoughts for environment on the *next* game?

Waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many ideas for the next game. :D I've always wanted to do something Cyberpunk'y - but it seems that that genre is a little saturated now. Harder to stand out. I would be interested in seeing if we could do something high fantasy - cos its not really a genre I 'enjoy' - so I'm not married to any of the tropes.
I've been on a bit of a Dieselpunk kick lately - more the asthetic than anything narrative. Yeah man... just so many things I'd love to explore. Ultimately I do think our games take too long to make. I'd love to get it down to 18 months!

How about barbarians?

 

[agris]

It's nice that you're exploring very different environments in each of your releases. It would be easy to get pigeonholed in the "space horror" genre, for example. Granted there's a lot of crossover between deep space / deep ocean (claustrophobia, "out there" can kill you in an instant), but there's also a lot of unique themes and visuals. BD in-between is a total palette cleanser.

Any thoughts for environment on the *next* game?

Waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many ideas for the next game. :D I've always wanted to do something Cyberpunk'y - but it seems that that genre is a little saturated now. Harder to stand out. I would be interested in seeing if we could do something high fantasy - cos its not really a genre I 'enjoy' - so I'm not married to any of the tropes.
I've been on a bit of a Dieselpunk kick lately - more the asthetic than anything narrative. Yeah man... just so many things I'd love to explore. Ultimately I do think our games take too long to make. I'd love to get it down to 18 months!

True cyberpunk in the noir tradition of OG Bladerunner, Gibson or even something more pulp like Miller's Hard Boiled would be a pretty stand-out look; toss in a heavy dose of Kowloon city vibes and I think you'd have a winner.

Cyberpunk as it exists in the mainstream consciousness is just a saturated neon palette combined with futurism (i.e. modern Bladerunner, Cyberdong 2077, etc). I think the big outfits worry that a more depressing, truly cyberpunk aesthetic would not sell well so it gets cartoon-ified.

Similarly, a brutal take on fantasy could be refreshing. Where life has no meaning because death is omnipresent. I don't know if you envision magic in that kind of setting, but magic being anything short of extremely rare would have profound societal impact, you could lean into the dystopian or life-devaluing impact. Exceedingly rare magic used by a cabal to maintain a grip on power is probably more threadbare at this point.

 

[Pyke]

It's nice that you're exploring very different environments in each of your releases. It would be easy to get pigeonholed in the "space horror" genre, for example. Granted there's a lot of crossover between deep space / deep ocean (claustrophobia, "out there" can kill you in an instant), but there's also a lot of unique themes and visuals. BD in-between is a total palette cleanser.

Any thoughts for environment on the *next* game?

Waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many ideas for the next game. :D I've always wanted to do something Cyberpunk'y - but it seems that that genre is a little saturated now. Harder to stand out. I would be interested in seeing if we could do something high fantasy - cos its not really a genre I 'enjoy' - so I'm not married to any of the tropes.
I've been on a bit of a Dieselpunk kick lately - more the asthetic than anything narrative. Yeah man... just so many things I'd love to explore. Ultimately I do think our games take too long to make. I'd love to get it down to 18 months!

How about barbarians?

It would be really fun and challenging to mix some sort of cosmic horror with Barbarians/Romans.

There is a series of books called No Man's World about a Brigade of World War 1 soldiers who get transported to an alien planet. Essentually they are humans with this 'high technolofy' Sopwith Camel, gun powder, and an tank. I love that sort of genre bending mashup. (Its an excellent series as well - highly recomended if you can find a copy!)

Similarly, a brutal take on fantasy could be refreshing. Where life has no meaning because death is omnipresent. I don't know if you envision magic in that kind of setting, but magic being anything short of extremely rare would have profound societal impact, you could lean into the dystopian or life-devaluing impact. Exceedingly rare magic used by a cabal to maintain a grip on power is probably more threadbare at this point.

Yeah - a high fantasy 'hard' take would be really fun to explore.

Or mix the idea of a cyberpunk world with a post apocalyptic one - what happens when most of humanity are augmented to survive, and there is no electricity or way to maintain those augmentations. Having your body falling apart because you can't plug yourself in, or being stuck inside a brain that will always be 'alive', but unable to move. Lots of 'a fate worse than death' scenarios to come up with.

Honestly at the end of the day it all comes down to the type of game we make. If Bone Totem is super successful, it would give us a little wiggle room to explore other genres and settings that are further removed from our core stuff. I can't see us moving away from 2D as a base to work from - and I just love isometric art. But expanding out of the niche of adventure games could be exciting.
I think that we will always make very 'world' centered games. I love world building - so no matter what we did, that would be a BIG part of it!

 

[agris]

Cosmic horror / the unknown mixed with Egyptian symbolism and archaeology would be interesting. Set in WW1 around Egypt and you get a pretty unique mixture of elements.

edit: would love to see you team up with a small group and make a hardcore tactics RPG one day. A man can dream..

 

[ERYFKRAD]

There is a series of books called No Man's World about a Brigade of World War 1 soldiers who get transported to an alien planet. Essentually they are humans with this 'high technolofy' Sopwith Camel, gun powder, and an tank. I love that sort of genre bending mashup. (Its an excellent series as well - highly recomended if you can find a copy!)

Sounds like Poul Anderson's High crusade but with trenchboys rather than Deus Vulters.

 

[lightbane]

The trailer looks awesome! It's me, or did the HUd get a redesign? Hopefully this won't take 2 years or more to release.

Also, make a Crusader-style game already, you know you want to! You even have the ultra-violence aspect taken care of.

 

[Whisper]

Release date?

 

[Pyke]

The trailer looks awesome! It's me, or did the HUd get a redesign? Hopefully this won't take 2 years or more to release.

Also, make a Crusader-style game already, you know you want to! You even have the ultra-violence aspect taken care of.

We are on track for this year - but man... the world just seems so unpredictable at the moment! But it won't be 'much' longer - Promise!

We are always fine tuning the HUD. Originally the UI design was much more 'vector art/AAA'ish' in its design - but we decided to go to something more skeuomorphic. Honestly, skeuomorphic designs are WAY harder to impliment (esspecially when it comes to things like scaling) - but I think it gives things a little more personality. We've also added things that Stasis didn't have - such as a full log system, tracker to check what your objectives are, and a map so you can see where characters are in relation to each other. The log also keeps all the clues you'll find for easy reference when playing.

It's also all been designed to work with gamepads natively - so any 'port' to console will be as faithful to the mouse version as possible.

 

[lightbane]

We've also added things that Stasis didn't have - such as a full log system, tracker to check what your objectives are, and a map so you can see where characters are in relation to each other. The log also keeps all the clues you'll find for easy reference when playing.

Does that include a proper ending that is not grimdark drivel, one that makes the whole game feel pointless?



I would settle with a bittersweet one, it would be an improvement compared to your previous titles.

 

[Pyke]

*Scratches out 'it was all a dream' from his notebook.*

 

[Pyke]

 

[Tom Selleck]

I want to do a long sex to these images.

 

[lightbane]

The gross, bio-horror themed puzzles are back!
Hopefully we won't have our poor protagonists operate themselves stuck into a hellish machine, without anesthetics.
Again.

 

[Daedalos]

Where release, where game.

i need it nao

 

[Pyke]

You and me both man. You and me both.

We will have a Steamfest demo. Its basically the original demo - but with all the new UI stuff and updated puzzles.

 

[mindx2]

Pyke Your games look absolutely GORGEOUS (as always)!! And the music in that trailer really gives off a menacing vibe that sets the tone immediately. Feels very cinematic and hope similar "mood" music is used at the right times throughout the adventure. Well done sir!!

Spoiler

Oh yeah, and please tell me you'll do a physical release... (or I'll have to call up my European friend to make me a box!)

 

[Pyke]

Pyke Your games look absolutely GORGEOUS (as always)!! And the music in that trailer really gives off a menacing vibe that sets the tone immediately. Feels very cinematic and hope similar "mood" music is used at the right times throughout the adventure. Well done sir!!

Spoiler

Oh yeah, and please tell me you'll do a physical release... (or I'll have to call up my European friend to make me a box!)

Mark Morgans score is gonna blow you away then. He did SUCH a good job. Its so wierd and unique and 'off putting'.

We've also designed a VERY cool music mixing system that seamlessly blends between each of the 3 characters and their environments. So each character has a 'theme' that blends with the environment they are in, and when you switch characters it mixes into the newer areas seamlessly. Its taken a ton of work, cos each track actually has to be done with 4 separate layers that have to sound 'right' no matter what configuration they are in... but, it means that we can still have each environment have its own unique flavour of music, but it doesnt sound jarring when you switch. Essentially the player is mixing the soundtrack live as they play the game.

Dead Space did a similar thing with their vacinity based 'fear emitters' - which added additional layers of sounds to the music depending on how close you were to a certain area. We are doing a super stripped down version of that.

We don't have plans for a physical release at the moment - sometimes the distributors in areas will do them. If it does happen - it won't happen at release.

 

[lightbane]

IMuse lives again, to some extent.

 

[CyberWhale]

Spoiler

Nice pics, but I would recommend toning down the bloom (or whatever technique you're using) if possible, because the 3rd person pics look a bit too glowey for my taste.
Reminds me of second half of 2000s in a negative way.

 

[Pyke]

We've put the updated DEMO on Steam - if you wanna give it a try. The writing and VO is all unchanged from the earlier demo - but lots of improvements are there. Also has Gamepad support if that tickles ya!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426010/STASIS_BONE_TOTEM/

 

[lightbane]

Tried the demo. Looks like a blatant excuse to make me preorder the game, and I'm almost tempted.
The art style had some changes, now the girl looks almost feminist-tier ugly with these glasses, and I miss some of the images that accompanied the descriptions. The puzzles have been changed, which means I'm stuck again.

I got a clip that I straightened into a bar but... I'm not sure what to do next. Break the mirror? I don't know if I'm clicking on the right spot or what, there's little feedback if I'm doing something right or wrong.
The videos still lack subtitutles and some of the options' description have weird text upon highlighting them.

 

[Pyke]

Tried the demo. Looks like a blatant excuse to make me preorder the game, and I'm almost tempted.
The art style had some changes, now the girl looks almost feminist-tier ugly with these glasses, and I miss some of the images that accompanied the descriptions. The puzzles have been changed, which means I'm stuck again.

I got a clip that I straightened into a bar but... I'm not sure what to do next. Break the mirror? I don't know if I'm clicking on the right spot or what, there's little feedback if I'm doing something right or wrong.
The videos still lack subtitutles and some of the options' description have weird text upon highlighting them.

Spoiler

Use the straightened bar to bend the metal off the lock by Mac to get into the generator room

In terms of feedback - we have a hint system that will come in the final game that is dialog driven (ie - the other characters will give you hints about what to do) - but because we don't have final writing or VO we just stuck with the original recordings for the demo.

Can you post a screenshot about the wierd text highlights? Or (probaby better!) - we have a bug discord channel where people are posting feedback - it would really help!

https://www.thebrotherhoodgames.com/studio/discord

 

[lightbane]

Spoiler

That solution was for the old demo, in this new one there's no lock that I've seen so far, only a junction box where I got the broken thing, and the bar.

I have pics for the bugs, I'll see if I can upload them somehow, I dislike Discord but I'll see what I can do.

 

[Pyke]

Spoiler

Ah - You need to open the garage door.

Pull on the chain to open it. You can then go back to the junction box, and remove the sparking controller. Controlling Charlie now, combine the control unit with the spark plug (taken from the battery charger) - and replace it back into the junction box. This will open the garage door.

You can email any bug stuff to studio@thebrotherhoodgames.com as well!

 

[agris]

You can email any bug stuff to studio@thebrotherhoodgames.com as well!

Hey man, a few oddities with resolution handling. For win10 multi-monitor setup with no DPI scaling (aka scaling is 100%), the game launched in the lowest possible resolution rather than desktop/native. No problem, but FYI. Also the options of "Fullscreen, Windowed, Borderless" seem to a bit off. The Fullscreen option behaves like borderless while Borderless behaves like fullscreen. When set to fullscreen, you can move the mouse to a secondary monitor and interact with it without the game minimizing, while setting the game to borderless and doing the same causes the game to minimize.

The amount of options are good so far, but a few suggestions: give us some granularity in the bloom options between ON/OFF, like OFF/25/50/75/FULL or something. Also, please consider an option to lock the cursor to the game window for those of us playing borderless with multiple monitors. It's easy to pan the mouse out of the game window.