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We can't believe we're writing this but... after 6 years of development, our game is finally out! (I'm one of the guys on the development team) We are having a heart attack and would like to ask you, (hoping it's ok to do in this forum) to check it out and if that's something you think you might enjoy (an album made as a video game) give it a try and support us on our first day on Steam. "Of Bird and Cage" is the first rock/metal album produced entirely as a story-driven narrative video game, aspiring to establish a new gaming genre of interactive musicals. The project features an array of well-known musicians like Ron 'Bumblefoot' Thal (ex-Guns N' Roses) Rob van der Loo (Epica), Ruud Jolie (Within Temptation), Casey Grillo (Kamelot), Rocky Grey (ex-Evanescence), Davidavi 'Vidi' Dolev (Subterranean Masquerade), Kobra Paige (Kobra and the Lotus) and others. IF YOU WANT TO HELP AND SUPPORT, PLEASE WISHLIST ON STEAM: https://store.steampowered.com/app/523770/Of_Bird_and_Cage

Well, the results are in... two days early! Weird how that works. But I can successfully say, with an almost overwhelming majority, that the winner of our poll is the title "The Other Eggplant," so, I hope you like eggplants. Without any further ado: The Other Eggplant Another game by the makers of Hamburger Mode. TO BE CLEAR: This is going to be slightly less ridiculous and over the top. That game was a total and unrequited, yet somehow hilariously charming mess. This is not that. This game has a STORY. And PLOT. And maybe even some sort of strange meaning to be found inside of it. Maybe, though. It's not like this is Citizen Kaine or anything. SO: This game takes place in a small tavern at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. You, the player, are a traveller who was just passing through when a sudden psionic thunderstorm came out of nowhere and was extremely threatening. Fortunately, most buildings nowadays are warded against this sort of thing, so you fled to the safety of this tavern, along with basically anyone else who was around at the moment. The Game: Is a story based game, where you, the player, can take a different action every hour, for 9 hours (from noon to 9 PM) inside the tavern. Actions include talking to the different people who are also staying at the tavern, plotting your course, helping out around the tavern, and of course, napping. That’s just like… That’s a thing you can do. Anyways, there is no specific goal of the game, aside from learning more about the characters and trying to figure out what they are doing. However, at some point during this (probably halfway) some sort of big event will trigger that then means you have to solve a mystery, or maybe go looking for someone who's gone missing. I still haven't quite figured that out, but it would probably be pretty boring to just talk to people with no direction. “Now, Technomagie,” you might be thinking, “That doesn’t really have anything to do with your title and prompt for this here game jam!” Well, you’re right. Anyways, this game will be built in the RPG Maker MV engine, which, if you don’t know, is a game engine designed for primarily making old school Final Fantasy clones. I won’t be doing that. In fact, I don’t think this game will have any combat or dungeon crawling in it whatsoever. I would prefer to have a more visual perspective on this, as opposed to a Twine game. However, it will be important to note that it will be built using primarily images from the base engine, which in all honesty look pretty crappy. Characters: In the next couple of days, I will be beginning to post information about the main characters that you will encounter in this story. However, and I want to put this up here right now for this reason, I'm going to be adding extras into the game as essentially other people you can meet who are just hanging around the tavern. I want people who read this to reply below with an idea for one of these extras, and one or two lines of dialogue that you get when they're interacted with. These can be anything from shameless self-inserts, to dumb one-liner jokes, or anything in between. Think of this as your chance to be wild.

Hey everyone, I'm the gameplay designer and engineer on Apartment: A Separated Place. It's an indie game about the relationships we have with the important people in our lives — whether they are romantic, familial, platonic, or otherwise. We're in the final 48 hours of our Kickstarter campaign to polish up the game's art and music, and I thought you all might be interested in what we've made! You can get a demo of our game here! In Apartment you play as Nick Connor, a comic artist whose girlfriend, Madison, has just left him. You get to explore his mental and emotional state in the wake of his break up. Nick mopes around his apartment in an introspective daze, chewing over his thoughts and looking at the things that spark memories of the times they shared together. As an artist, Nick turns to illustration to memorialize these special moments, whether they were good or bad. You also get to step into the lives of Nick's neighbors: a displaced loner, an uncertain newlywed, a lost daughter, a grieving widow. We convey story through mechanics that put players in the shoes of our characters. In the game we experiment with different mechanics through a series of playable vignettes tailored to tell the stories of Nick’s his neighbors. Every neighbor vignette uses a different gameplay style unique to that experience. One of our favorite examples can be seen in the Kinda Funny Games Let's Play below, which shows the first part of Rose's story. I'd love to talk more about the game with you. Let me know what you think and any questions you have! Here's a fun Let’s Play video by Kinda Funny's Greg and Tim. They play a bit of Rose's story. Here's a more serious Let’s Play video by MinerStewy. He plays a bit of Jim's story.

Recently, I've been asking myself how to create a game which allows people who cannot see an equally engrossing experience to what those who can see experience. I want to be able to tell a story that is as interesting to a person who can see and hear to a person who can only hear but not see. This is one of the questions I've recently come up with. How do you tell a person a year has passed without stating precisely, "A year has passed" when the person is blind but can hear well? I've been stumped by this question for a while now, and I wanted to ask everyone here if they had a valid answer. The first thing I thought of was having a sound they associate with a specific time in the year which indicates to them that a year has indeed passed. However, I can't think of a single person who associates a specific sound with the passage of time, whether it be a second, a year, or a millennium. Please let me know if you have any suggestions which may help me think about this. If any of you are blind, I would very much like to talk with you about this subject. I'm not trying to offend anyone if they are; I'm assuming you're reading this with some form of text-to-speech software.