When a Game Developer Looks for a Composer...
An unsolicited advice on the best ways an artist can contact a studio looking for a composer.
We like the idea of a studio being 100% responsible for their creation. Just a couple of guys and their ideas brought to life. But – we also know that gamers, especially of the hardcore kind, are knowledgeable. So one day we just sent out a tweet asking if there’s a track that people feel […]
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What It Takes to Make a Reload Animation in Witchfire
It's certainly more than we anticipated.
One day, during the late stage of the development of Bulletstorm, I wanted to add a small new feature to the game. The Epic’s producer, Tanya, rolled her eyes and told me it’s not possible, we’re out of time. I felt it was a really important feature and pushed for it. “I only need one […]
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Damage Numbers and Health Bars ….Why?!
An in-depth look at the way damage numbers and health bars help with decision making.
Until we got this work-in-progress video out, I had no idea there’s a group of people who truly despise damage numbers and health bars. I kind of get it. These are external, non-diegetic elements of a game. They must ruin the immersion, right? But …so should, say, game music. It’s also external and non-diegetic. It’s […]
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Snapshot: January 2020
Monsters, weapons, animal skulls, mood pieces and mocap.
Updates have become irregular, meaning we’re busy making the game. So that’s a good thing, I guess. On the other hand, we don’t want to work in a vacuum, so let me share some of the work we did in January. I mean “some”, because the rest is either nothing really that presentable – tools, […]
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The Controversy of Looter Shooters, and is Witchfire One?
A short talk on what's good and what's bad about the looters shooters, and addressing the elephant in the room.
I asked a few people how they define a looter shooter and each gave me a different answer. “A game about amassing loot”, “A power-up/levelling grind”, “a shooter with RPG elements”. They’re all right. You can find such a definition on Wikipedia: Loot shooters are shooter games where the player’s overarching goal is the accumulation […]
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Internal Demo 2
It's done. What's next?
Previously on „Witchfire Development Diaries”… Right now, some of us work on new features needed for “Demo 2” (e.g. we only had one melee and one spell ability in “Demo 1”), some work on bringing what we already have to final quality, and some work on the AI. It’s clear that “Demo 2” will take […]
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Stormball, or the lesson on original gameplay ideas...
What to do when your unique gameplay idea turns out not to be so fresh after all?
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and someone else already working on that gameplay idea you thought was oh so original and fresh. Of course, there’s always the story of Knight Lore… It was a 1984 game for ZX Spectrum that was actually made in 1983 and sit […]
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Breaking Out of the Development Lull: The Results
We did it. Let's talk what we've learned.
A month ago, I said we’re in a “development lull” hell: despite everyone putting in the hours, we didn’t feel like the game was progressing. Our proposed solution was: Instead of keeping on building the game, we’re dedicating August to building a demo. An internal one, focused on the flow of action, and the minute-to-minute, […]
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A few personal words on The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Nintendo Switch
First, there was the PC version. Then, a year later – it took us this long to switch from UE3 to UE4, we’ve basically redone the game from scratch – we published the game on PS4, and re-released it on PC as The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux. Then we got the Xbox One version […]
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