Solstice - a mystery from the makers of Cinders [done!]

[TeeGee]

Don't get me wrong. BigFish can earn you whole orders of magnitude more than even the most successful visual novel. But you really need to know what you are doing and have the necessary budget and resources. Also, forget about creativity or innovation .

[trooper6]

Small side note: I'd never heard of Big Fish Ganes until this very moment...so I checked them out. I don't quite understand why they are calling their games casual. I was poking around, I saw that Syberia is on there. That is a classic adventure game that I had for Xbox...no one would have called adventure games like that casual back then...why are they doing it now? Has "casual" just become code for "has a strong female fan base?" Because, if so, that is really sketchy.

[TeeGee]

It happened gradually. BigFish was initially a casual portal, but then they started dealing mostly in Hidden Object games. In time, their audience got bored of just searching for items with no context (or a throwaway one), so these games naturally evolved into this weird mix of Where's Waldo and oldschool point and click adventure.

So yeah, you are right. BigFish isn't really a casual portal. It's a portal for a very specific niche of adventure games, which are often impenetrable to anyone outside of their core audience. It just happens to be a huge and profitable niche with roots in casual.

[ktalkimist]

I don't think Big Fish cares too much about innovation... their top hits are basically clones of each other.

I thought Big Fish games are $19.99 except for first purchases?

[TeeGee]

Nope. Only Collector's Editions costs that much, and only if you are not member of their club. Standard prices are $13.99 for CE, $6.99 for standard edition. Less in case of sales or special deals.

But enough about BigFish. Let's have some of them pretty moving pictures:



The game's city panorama backdrop. Hope you like it .

[MaiMai]

I am so jealous of whoever is your artist for backgrounds and characters. Everything is so beautiful!

[TeeGee]

Same wonderful woman who started MoaCube with me and did all the art for Cinders . Here's her site: http://vinegaria.com/

[trooper6]

The next time you speak with your artist/co-founder, tell her that her work is amazing!

[cladinpink]

I remember reading something about this around the time I bought Cinders, but never really looked into it. Now, a couple of months later, I've stumbled upon this again, and now that I'm familiar with your stunning graphics and writing style, I find myself RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED!

I realize a whole bunch of people have probably already asked you the exact same question a thousand times over, but... are you any closer to being able to tell us a release date? Because this is going to be an instant buy for me!

For some reason, I don't play the male player option in most games. But when I see Galen I know I HAVE to play his side of story.

My thoughts exactly!

[TeeGee]

Thanks . Pre-orders (along with access to a playable preview build) will start within two weeks. The full game should come out a few months later, but I'm not ready to give an exact release date yet.

[ktalkimist]

The site is showing me $19.99...

[Jason]

Let's have some of them pretty moving pictures:

The game's city panorama backdrop. Hope you like it .

Her(his?) matte paintings are awesome, very well blended pictures and textures!
I'm a bit familiar with the process and all since my friends from Boomzap showed me how they do it, and I say it's really cool process to get backgrounds done at a fast rate and insane quality!

[ktalkimist]

Care to share this process?

[TeeGee]

Her(his?) matte paintings are awesome, very well blended pictures and textures!
I'm a bit familiar with the process and all since my friends from Boomzap showed me how they do it, and I say it's really cool process to get backgrounds done at a fast rate and insane quality!

Haha. Actually, it's just all hand drawn in photoshop. There's no secret process or trick to it.

Sometimes she keeps her works in progress to make gifs from the drawing process. I'll ask her if she could produce one for this backdrop.

[Jason]

Haha. Actually, it's just all hand drawn in photoshop. There's no secret process or trick to it.

Sometimes she keeps her works in progress to make gifs from the drawing process. I'll ask her if she could produce one for this backdrop.

Wow, she handpainted all of the artworks and textures I've seen for the game so far?! That's some awesome artist you got alright. I've always thought games like these always uses the same kind of trick, my apologies if that came out as rude. But then I believe it's gonna take her a lot of time per artwork? How long does she take then for a background of that quality?

Care to share this process?

From the seminar I've attended last time from IGDA(Internation Game Developers Association), they showed about making use of offset filter in photoshop to generate repeating textures, then there's also objects blended into the scene then they just color balance or adjust hue/saturation. The girl even said, don't be afraid of cheating because it's the final result that matters. My other friend who's also working there (Socrates Gucor) said that most of them are using the particular process especially if there's a deadline.