The whole saga got more and more twisted and then just sat there, stagnating. Eventually, it was solved in the only way it could be solved – Kieron Gillen published his review.
Honestly? Aventurine should be happy. He found gold in the Darkfall hills, but he had to spend a long and tortuous time looking. I imagine the fanbase will at least be placated, if not pleased.
Now the dust has settled, I have to say that I think Ed Zitron shot the sheriff. It seems more plausible to me that he was caught mailing in a review than the server logs were faulty or Aventurine (who deserve this whole mess for that name) concocted this plan to get attention. Having said that, I (a) have no more information on this than you, and (b) don’t think it’s amazingly clear cut. I do think, however, that KG very subtly implies that he also thinks Zitron is probably the felon here.
So we are late guys, but the podcast will be up tomorrow. I you just can’t wait, take a listen to another beta. How do people feel about these? They’re pretty old I know, but hopefully better than nothing.
Hey guys. Paul is at Develop for most of the week, and is (aparently) picking up some good audio content. We’ll most likely do the podcast on friday again. I’ll be posting another “beta” Visiting The Village at the usual time on Thursday.
We take putting out the podcast on-time pretty seriously, and I’m sorry about being delayed twice in a month.
Hey guys. Please follow me on twitter, username IanHardingham. I’ll be tweeting interesting angles on current games stories and games in general and nothing else.
And if you don’t use twitter, be sure to check the Twitter application to the right of this site – I’ll be posting lots of interesting things too small for actual posts.
Been quiet on the blog recently – been very busy with both Synapse single player and TV work with Thom. Productive week though. I have a couple of random notes which aren’t really village related.
- I think I’m going to get a twitter account today. Lots of times I have little gaming thoughts that don’t warrant a full post. Given how often people (Geoff) disagree with what I write, twittering even less-well-thought-out things may be a distaster. But hopefully a fun disaster. I’ll be completely hardcore and only ever post gaming thoughts I think.
- I’ve always had only one vital need in a mobile phone – a full qwerty keyboard. My phone history since age 17 has basically been all Nokia Communicators, all the time (9000, 9110, 9210i, 9500, E90). I was due an upgrade and got an N97 – Nokia’s new top-end flagship phone, which has an iPhone-style touchscreen as well as a keyboard. It’s an incredible piece of hardware with an incredibly clunky OS, and I love it. If you’re looking at one, I do advise having a proper play with it in the store first; and definitely compare it with an iPhone. If however you’re like me – and you have an iTouch and don’t want Apple running your phone – then the N97 is a pretty good contender. If you’re a serious PC gamer I do think either an iTouch or an iPhone is pretty crucial ownership right now.
Episode 18 lands like a sack of flour on a target. This week: narrative, enthusiasm and Chester City Football Club.
Check out links from the show on our official Google Reader page.
Thom, Mode 7 intern extraudinaire, has arrived. He will be working with us for the next four months on mainly tv stuff, but will almost certainly contribute to Synapse and the podcast on some level too. We welcome him.
A very chaotic week this week, as I’ve recently moved house which is always horrifying for anyone working on, well, anything!
Our technical artist implemented the first version of the 3D walls: this is looking great and really adds a lot to the prototype art. The first version of the turn controls is also in now. Here are a couple of grabs:
That doesn’t particularly do them justice (they look great when you scroll around), so I’m sure they’ll feature in a forthcoming video.
I’ve been working on the first actual in-game music this week: it was pretty much all I could do when I didn’t have an internet connection (thanks BT!). This has been quite challenging as I’ve had to set up my studio in a brand new room and the monitoring situation is less than ideal. I’ll be doing some much more in-depth posts on the music soon, and I’m hoping to do some writing in various music tech mags about the project.
The style I’m going for is a mix of stereotypically cyberpunk influences (the electronica / drum and bass of Ghost in the Shell meets some bigger, more euphoric Vangelis-style sounds) with some orchestral stuff, then some dirtier lo-fi 8-bit chip stuff underneath. I wanted to take all the electronic influences I love and then wrap them up into an interesting bundle. Production-wise, this is very challenging: I’m currently experimenting with an overall sound pitched somewhere between a super harsh, over-punchy Noisia type brickwall limit and a more spacious soundtracky feel. I sometimes feel that modern game soundtracks lack the punch and aggression of dance music: they’re more influenced by big film scores, whereas I (in my youthful idiocy) find myself wanting something more in-your-face.
I was quite interested in Sascha Dikiciyan & Cris Velasco’s score for Prototype which uses a lot of found sound and weird string articulations: I need to build a bit more of a library of weird metallic sounds to get that influence in there.
Anyway, here is a quick bit of test concept music I did when we were in pre-production. It’s pretty rough in a lot of ways but might give you an indication of what we’re going for. I played this to legendary game composer Richard Jacques in his hotel room in Germany (long story) and he said, “Really nice production”, so I must be doing something right…Apologies for the shitty Garritan strings – I’ve since upgraded my orchestral libraries to non-shit ones!
Ian is continuing to work hard on the single player – the conclusion we came to after trying loads of different game modes is that we need to have an AI-driven SP with emphasis on broad attack and defence missions. We’ll still try to get some of the cool aesthetic stuff (like assasination etc.) in there if humanly possible, but the game doesn’t work well with heavliy scripted scenarios. It’s more like a fighting game: it’s all about defeating your opponent at close quarters rather than exploring areas etc.
PR is going well as I’ve recently completed our first PR list with around 800 sites and journalists on there. I’m hoping to get our first “announcement” release out soon with some of the concept art to bring people on board with development, following what we’re doing and listening to our podcast.
I should mention that Visiting the Village Episode 17 is out today – here goes…
If you’re enjoying our updates and this preview of the game so far, please tell other people and encourage them to come here. Following me on Twitter is a good way of getting insta-updates through the day if you’re excited about Synapse. Thanks for your ongoing support – it means a lot as it’s so hard to get quality publicity for an indie game these days: there are so many of the blimmin’ things around!
Episode 17 is finally here! This week Ian and I discuss the Nomad, Gamebone, Gearbox and a panoply of other brands and trade names. Enjoy it utterly. Google Reader page
