State of the Hunt, week 22/2020: Dreaming of Islands

Hey everyone, seeing how the blog has been quiet for longer than usual, I thought it would be a good idea to give you a bit of an update on what´s been happening over on my end:

I am still alive and kicking, obviously. The truth is simply that I have recently been dropping pretty much all of my hobby time (as well as quite a bit of my non-hobby time, alarmingly enough) into a completely different creative endeavour. You could call it a lifelong dream, really.

Because, deep down, I have always wanted to be…a LUMBERJACK!

…

Nah, but seriously: As some of you may remember, video games have always been another big hobby of mine (why choose one nerdy pasttime when you can have ALL of them, eh?) And one thing I have always wanted to do was to make a real video game myself. But while there are many tools available for doing that today (ranging from the stupendously easy to grasp text adventure tool Twine to game-engine behemoth Unity), the scope of what I was able to create had previously always been limited by my inability (and/or unwillingness) to properly get into programming. So it looked like my dream would have to remain just that. And then „Dreams“ happened.

I have already talked about Media Molecule‘s mind-boggling game engine/machinima Studio/3D modeling software cornucopia in my previous post about creating a character bust of Gregor Eisenhorn, but that didn‘t really seem to elicit that much of a response. For today, suffice it to say that Dreams, with its very intuitive interface, has enabled me to create something I would have considered impossible before.

So, TL;DR: This blog has been quiet because I have been spending all of my recent hobby time on creating a video game.

If you come here mainly for the modeling, painting and 40k content, which I suspect goes for pretty much all of you, then rest assured that this isn‘t a permanent state of affairs: I will definitely be back to cutting up little plastic men (and women. And everything in between and beyond) sooner rather than later — not least of all because my buddy Augustus b‘Raass sent me an amazing little supply drop recently — anyway, don‘t fret: I‘ll be back in a bit!

Now, if anyone‘s still reading, or if some of you are maybe interested in finding out more about that game I was talking about, I would be happy to share a few details:

The game is called „Islands“, and it‘s an exploration-centered third person adventure/platformer with a slightly cinematic bent. You are playing as a mysterious wanderer on their quest to travel the eponymous islands. My main inspirations were thatgamecompany‘s Journey, Team Ico‘s/Fumito Ueda‘s games (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian) and Us Two Games‘ Momument Valley series (from a visual design standpoint). And while Islands is very obviously not nearly as good or polished as any of those titles, if you like any or all of the aforementioned games, well, my little project may just be for you… Just be advised that it has absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with the grimdark world of the 41st millennium 😉

So anyway, sorry for rambling away. But while I don‘t want to sound overly dramatic, it‘s no hyperbole to say that this feels like one of the most thrilling creative endeavours I have tackled yet. Sure, the game is pretty dodgy in a hundred places, and probably quite derivative to boot — but it‘s my baby, for what it‘s worth… 😉

So if, by any chance, you should find yourself in the possession of both a PlayStation 4 and a copy of Dreams (because both things are needed to get to access my project, unfortunately), then I cordially invite you to check out Islands — in fact, that would make me very happy indeed! Its title in the Dreamiverse is „Islands Prototype“, and here‘s a thumbnail that should help you identify the right game:

Oh, it‘s also listed here..

You could also leave some feedback, of course, which would make me even happier still 😉

In closing, I will be leaving you with a few impressions of the game. While Dreams also works as a fantastic repository of already available assets, I have decided to up the ante for this project and create all of my own graphic assets, so as to max out my learning curve. So everything you see in those pictures has been completely „scratchbuilt“, as we would say in tabletop hobbyist parlance 😉

Anyway, on to the pretty pictures:

Update, May 28th: I had to spend an hour in the car, waiting, earlier today, so I threw together a quick trailer for the game as well:

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more! And please stay safe and healthy!