Outpost4

We are now on Patreon. https://lnkd.in/e3vamXNM Games are the greatest form of expression and entertainment that we've ever created. There’s a common saying in games development that it's a miracle that any games are made, let alone good ones. Now, it’s even more brutal. Over the past two years, the industry has rapidly changed, flipped around and turned upside down. Funding for new projects is sparse, even for successful devs. Everything is far more expensive to make. Paths we used to be able to take to create projects no longer exist. You’ve likely heard about this on some front. It’s grim. 30% of all games developers have either been laid off or had their roles significantly reduced or affected over the past year alone. Studios have closed. Many have left. We at Heart Machine are not immune, having gone through layoffs in November of this year. Since the old models are not enough, we have to adapt. So we're asking for support to help us continue to not just survive, but adapt and thrive. To help us prototype and build new projects, to help support us when the state of the industry has made it so much harder to exist. We've always been big on talking directly to our audience. We think this Patreon is an opportunity for us to do more on this front while also benefiting. There are a few key goals we have in mind for this Patreon: 1. To give a more thorough and deep insight into our process and what it takes to make games. Sharing exclusive write-ups, videos, concept art, design documents and prototype gifs from all of our projects past and present. 2. To share more about the issues in the industry driving this state of turmoil. E.g. corporate consolidation, overspending, accelerating costs, and a changing market. 3. To reach a bigger audience with more transparency in an otherwise notoriously opaque industry in the hope we can share and do our part to help others to better navigate and survive. We all love games. We’re here because it’s an industry driven by passion. But it’s never been easy. We've been making titles we are extremely proud of for 10 years now, and we want to make sure we can stick around another 10. Approaches like this Patreon are part of what it takes to make sure of that, to get through the toughest times and come out ultimately better. We hope that you enjoy the content and inside access that we’ll be providing here. Thank you so much for your support. https://lnkd.in/eeTPZamH Our Patreon: https://lnkd.in/e3vamXNM

Hyper Light Breaker early access coming at you Jan 14, 2025!!! https://lnkd.in/e9WrxhKn Thanks to our partners at Arc Games for being with us every step of the way.

This week, we present five reasons to play The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, a highly influential title which does not always get its due. ?? Deja Vu ?? Tasked with creating an expanded edition of Ocarina of Time, director Eiji Aonuma proposed a more interesting project. Instead of building upon Ocarina Of Time, he deconstructed it to create a new adventure with limited time and resources. Majora’s Mask was developed in two years by reusing textures and character models from its predecessor. This thrifty approach enabled developers to get creative with new, genre-defining mechanics. The Original Time Loop ? Like the film Groundhog’s Day, Majora’s Mask is set in a recursive three-day time loop. The townsfolk follow the same routine until the Moon crashes into Termina, sending Link back in time to stop it. This revolutionary approach to temporal game design was later explored further by titles such as Outer Wilds and The Forgotten City. A Sense Of Community ???????? In Majora’s Mask, the NPCs have their own eventful lives and desires. You’ll often find yourself putting Link’s quest on hold to assist them. These side quests reward the player with little more than the feeling of having helped someone. That and a cool new mask to wear. Transformation ?? Link can transform into fallen heroes of various races, including a Deku, Goron, and Zora, by wearing corresponding masks. Transforming introduces new ways of moving and being for Link, making it fun to hover through the air as a Deku, become a rolling fireball as a Goron, or swim at great speeds as a Zora. A Game About Grief ?? Majora’s Mask features tender, melancholy writing. A pall of sadness and fear hangs over Termina as its inhabitants face their imminent demise. Link meets many people grappling with loss and grief and must carry out the final wishes of dead heroes. This theme of confronting death and its consequences fosters a newfound appreciation for life. #Zelda #MajorasMask #Nintendo #ResonsWhy #TimeLoop #Transformation #Community #N64 #Classic #Retro #UnderratedGames

A couple (slightly cursed) slides from my Pixelles talk today "...And you're also a mom??" There are a lot of parallels and transferrable skills between making a game and raising a child: high stakes, expensive, and if it turns out crappy you feel real real bad. #worklifebalance #gamedev #productivity #workingmom #workingparent #gamesindustry #workingames #culture

ON REPEAT: 01 Hello there. My name is Kyle Brown-Watson. I co-founded OUTPOST4 and write fiction and poetry whenever I can (haha) get any spare time. Before I failed upward into the game industry, I had every odd job you could imagine. Managed a bookstore. Ran a bar. Spent a couple of years in fashion and television, snuck in some graphic design and photography work to keep the lights on, and came out the other end relatively sane. Most of the useful things to share here are going to be far afield from the industry. So, if you’re looking for methods for optimizing your SCRUM velocity or tips on how to waste another perfectly good hour of your life convincing yourself that some throwback platformer in the crackhouse-end of the STEAM store is really a radical piece of postmodern art, this will probably not be for you. ON REPEAT is going to be my weekly platform to promote, interrogate, and think out loud about anything except for games. You may get a block of recommendations like today. You might get an essay. Or an interview. Essentially, whatever I’m doing at my desk when I’m not crying into an Excel sheet will be here. On we go... PHARMAKON // CONTACT Link: https://shorturl.at/JUW15 Never realized there was a use-case for nihilistic experimental industrial music until I had to update our domain settings over the weekend. Pharmakon’s CONTACT is exactly the mercurial drone needed to slog through the more tedious parts of the day. Unlike the oppositional shrieking of her earlier albums, CONTACT aims for a more unstained and richer interrogation of the darker frequencies of experience. IBIBIO SOUND MACHINE // PULL THE ROPE Link: https://shorturl.at/rtCGM My neck is sore from all the desk grooving I’ve been doing to the new Ibibio Sound Machine record. It’s a mad, beautiful, shaking black pearl anchored in a sea of polyrhythmic grooves and crisp live electronics. Eno Williams’ sustained discipline across a range of vocal and linguistic (Seriously, someone needs to do a count of how many languages are shifted song by song.) performances alone justifies an immediate listen. Put time aside and make PULL THE ROPE a priority in your life—you won’t regret it. BROADCAST // SPELL BLANKET Link: https://shorturl.at/hoqBX After last month’s release of DISTANT CALL, a collection of demos, BROADCAST has released another collection of b-sides and demos that were to become the spine of their final album. Like the recent collection of LOU REED demos last year, this collection avoids the morbid tropes associated with releasing a catalog of unreleased music posthumously and becomes something of a celebration of the archive. If you’re a fan of BROADCAST’s music or are looking for an introduction to their world, SPELL BLANKET is an excellent place to start. -KBW

Before the Metal Gear series broke into the mainstream, Hideo Kojima made his name in the industry with SNATCHER and POLICENAUTS. These games were built for the Japanese home computer console market and gave their team a chance to experiment and expand on the visual novel format. Anytime I’m looking for inspiration or a guiding example of innovation, SNATCHER is on my shortlist of games that continue to inspire and challenge. Here are five reasons you should take a weekend (a week really) and put this slice of Deep Weird into your brain… It’s a Hideo Joint??? Like Stanley Kubrick’s first film, The Killing, SNATCHER is a platform for an auteur to develop their voice within the constraints of a genre piece. The obsessive, metatextual stylistic touches that would become Hideo Kojima's trademark get their first stress test here. These tendencies are balanced with a gentle humanism and anti-capitalist sentiment, leaving you with a healthy contempt for authority that is refined in MGS and Death Stranding. NEO-KOBE??? Yes, he does the BLADE RUNNER opening shot homage in the game’s opening. Yes, the SNATCHER antagonists look like carbon copies of the original TERMINATOR. Yes, we’re treated to the indulgent AKIRA hyper-detailed Tokyo stand-in. And yet, this is a world all its own, suffused with genuine horror and moments of grace. NEO-KOBE explores middle-class anxieties and quotidian details often overlooked in the cyberpunk genre. The Soundtrack??? While the art direction is beautiful, the real key to SNATCHER’s immersion is its seductive soundtrack. There are a lot of classic game soundtracks from SNATCHER’s era, but few match the technical ambition and originality here. The cool jazz progressions and ice-cold techno beats eschew the syncopated chiptune that was the industry standard. The Plot??? An attempt at summarizing SNATCHER’s plot will put me in one of the softer beds in the asylum. Suffice to say, its bog-standard The Robots Look Like Us plot trappings are nowhere close to where the story ends. Conspiracies within plots within schemes pile on each other in a Chandleresque dogpile. This is where SNATCHER’s true freak flag flies, with a conclusion that still counts as one of the only true spoilers left in gaming. Hybrid Gameplay??? SNATCHER combines point-and-click adventure mechanics, visual novel-style storytelling, and shooting segments into a single strange experience. It’s not so much a gameplay loop as it is a weird skateboard park of every game the creators liked. It’s clumsy and at times frustrating to navigate, but don’t let that turn you away from its madcap immersion. --- Talk to us! What are your thoughts on SNATCHER and its impact on gaming? Share your thoughts below and let's discuss how Hideo Kojima's early work influenced the industry. ?? #GamingHistory #HideoKojima #Cyberpunk #RetroGaming #GameDesign

Immerse yourself with the sounds of Mars and get a taste of what's to come in our next videogame, Marina. ?? Our new EPs, Marina: Red and Marina: Blue, are now available on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal & more! ?? However, listeners who purchase the EPs on BandCamp will have access to two exclusive bonus tracks! ?? Apple: https://rb.gy/is21qr | https://rb.gy/n55gwg Spotify: https://rb.gy/hztsv3 | https://rb.gy/5dj7gs BandCamp: https://rb.gy/gaap3y | https://shorturl.at/bdsvK #marina #red #blue #spotify #applemusic #bandcamp

At midnight EST tonight, we will be releasing Marina: Red and Marina: Blue, two singles from the soundtrack of our upcoming mystery video game. Marina: Red was artfully crafted by composer Ryan Shello. It expresses the ecstasy of exploration and the awe of discovering what once was unknown. Marina: Blue was magically manifested by the band Marigold Shade. Put simply, it is the stuff of dreams.? We hope that you will all enjoy these tracks as much as we do, and we look forward to the day that you will encounter this music in our next game.? Both releases will be available wherever music is streamable or purchasable. By purchasing Marina: Red and Marina: Blue on Bandcamp, you will gain access to two exclusive bonus tracks available only on Bandcamp! We hope you enjoy. #Marina #OST #MidnightRelease

Calling all narrative designers! Which tools do you use when telling your stories? Tell us one of your stories in the comments below! ?? #Narrative #NarrativeDesign #ink #Twine #YarnSpinner #ChoiceOfGames #Articy