We are left with so many impressions to digest.  For us this means back to intensive work on the project, and there is nothing we would like better. The last 30 days have passed by in a delightful blur. It feels like it was only yesterday that we pressed the green button on Kickstarter, not knowing what to expect at all! Since then, a lot has happened.

For those who missed the Kickstarter, you can still support the continued development by preordering the game.

• First of all, generous people from all over the world have contributed over $248.000 (!) to the remaining production of Among the Sleep! That still blows our minds…
• We published a Playable Alpha, so everyone can get an impression of what they are supporting. It can still be downloaded from the Kickstarter page. The feedback has been truly amazing…
• We posted the game to Greenlight, where it’s currently at 24th place in the whole world, and still climbing!
• We announced our dialogues with Sony, regarding a possible PS4 release!
• We’ve had tasty Ice Cream, and even reached both Oculus Rift implementation, Commentary Track and Supersecret DLC stretch goals!
• We have established an official Forum, where people are invited to discuss anything Krillbite-related with us! We’ll show this forum much love in the time to come.
• We’ve been nominated to the Nordic Indie Sensation Award, with our small creative side-project The Plan.
• And of course, we’ve published tons of news on the project in general, including both fresh screenshots and concept art.

All in all it’s been a magnificent month, incredibly inspiring for the team, and we are more pumped than ever to continue work intensively on finishing our dream project (both metaphorically and literally) Among the Sleep!

If you would like to follow us more closely in the months to come, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and join the discussions over at the Forum!

To conclude, in all seriousness: thank you all. You have no idea how much this means to us. We love you.

- The Krillbite Team

Oh my, the Kickstarter campaign for the last phase of Among the Sleep development is live at last! This is an incredibly exciting time for us, and we’ve got tons of news from the project to share in the coming month. In addition, we just launched a Greenlight for the project as well, for those of you interested in seeing the project arrive on Steam

Already, you’ll be able to find find plenty of new content on the Kickstarter and  Greenlight page, including new gameplay clips, behind the scenes video, concept art and screenshots.

If you’d like to help us out, it would mean the world if you shared our campaigns, and even more so should you choose to pledge or vote!

We’re hoping to finish Among the Sleep already towards the end of this year, and we hope that this Kickstarter will let us quit our part time jobs to focus fully on making this possible.  We’re now in the point in development where we have the whole base laid out, but there is still a lot of production, testing and polishing left.

Thanks so much to all our loyal followers for helping us reach this point!

- The Krillbite team.

The Plan has now been out for a week, and the positive feedback has been amazing! Over 25.000 people have already downloaded it officially (yes, we’re humbled to be a hit on various torrent-sites as well), and the game is currently 73% on the way to Steam Greenlights top #100 list.

Here is a a little snippet of the game’s reception around the web:

“In order, here are the emotions I experienced during the three minutes it took me to play The Plan, the new free morsel from the Norweigan indie developer Krillbite: confusion, frustration, boredom, fear, amusement, delight, joy, enchantment, and regret. One of the things independent games ask us to do is accept that a three-minute game can be as valid as a thirty-hour one. Games like these make it hard to disagree.”
Buzzfeed

“Hey, You Should Play This”
Giantbomb

“Some may argue that The Plan isn’t really a game and it definitely occupies the same terrain as Journey, Passage, and Dear Esther, but it’s shorter than Journey, prettier than Passage, and less overwrought than Dear Esther, making it well worth taking a punt on for the low price of free.”
Eurogamer

“It’s that space in the mechanics for thought and interpretation that I appreciate most here. The Plan won’t break your brain, but it’s a nicely contemplative journey.”
RockPaperShotgun

“Sit back, and BRACE FOR SOOTHING AMBIENCE”
PCgamer

“Krillbite Studio, the developers behind Among The Sleep, have gone on and released a most polished, visually stunning and freeware new game”
Indiegames.com

“It’s a side scroller… I see… Pass.”
Youtube comment

In addition, the gameplay teaser is climbing towards 100.000 views on youtube, and it has been entertaining to watch the countless “lets-plays” that have popped up.

If you’d like to play it again, we’ve rolled out an update to fix a few minor bugs that people have been having. And if you’d like others to play it (or maybe have it in your very own Steam library), please continue to share the game and vote for it on the Greenlight campaign!

Thanks again for playing, and for all the great feedback

Even though we’re focusing heavily on developing Among the Sleep, we also find the time to toy with small side projects from time to time. We think it’s vital to always keep our minds fresh, by exploring new ideas. The Plan, a short experimental self-discovery videogame, is one of those projects. We are releasing it for free to PC, Mac and Linux users on the 10th of February!

Please have a look at the project website for some art, or here for a few screens. You can also support the project on it’s fresh Greenlight page.

Here are a few fresh screenshots and concepts from Among the Sleep. What do you think? It is in any case very rewarding for us to see the progress we’ve had the last months! Keep in mind it’s all a work in progress, so things will change.

Screenshots

Concepts

Generally, our project Among the Sleep has received exclusively positive feedback over the web in the months since we published the projects first in-game teaser. But a few people have also expressed concerns about the supposedly fine line that we risk crossing. Understandably, the words horror, game and child in the same sentence seem to have raised a few eyebrows. We take our project seriously, and want to address these concerns in this post.

In addition, I want to discuss the role of videogames in general, and explain why I think our preconceptions are partly responsible for said concerns, not only the content of our project. Through a closer examination of the concerns and their consequences, I will explain why I find them somewhat problematic. As the role of videogames continue to increase in importance, we should reflect on these issues to make sure the medium becomes what we ultimately want it to be.

I guess it’s worth adding that this has not been (and we don’t expect it to become) a big issue for us. It’s just something worth discussing, to encourage substantial criticism. But first, to get them out of the way, I’ll start by sharing the specific reasons why I don’t think Among the Sleep should be considered controversial:

1. You are the child. At no point in the game is the goal to harm a child. Your goal is naturally quite the opposite: to avoid harm. Our goal as developers is to put adult players in the mind of the child, and let them experience the resulting perspective in a creative way.
2. Events are not literal. The game mixes an undeveloped sense of reality, with imagination and dreams. Hence, many elements are not necessarily meant to be taken literally. It might seem like metaphors are not yet expected in games.
3. It’s a game for adults. Our target audience is adults, not because Among the Sleep will feature grotesque violence, but because we expect a certain level of intellect from our players.
4. Before I reveal the 4th reason I’d like to discuss a few things, so please read on!

Why do people react so strongly to videogames in the first place?
Children are central characters in lots of horror movies and books that are not considered controversial. Does this imply that specific aspects of AtS are responsible for the concerns? Or does it simply mean that the same content is viewed differently when presented in a videogame? The three points above attempted to deal with the first question and specific aspects why I think we have not shared anything controversial. To reach my 4th point, I will be discussing the second question, of why we treat the same content differently when presented in a videogame, as compared to film and literature for example.

I will focus on the two causes I find most important. The direct cause of interactivity and freedom, and the indirect cause of bad examples defining the publics’ perception of what videogames are. Contextually, the concerns make complete sense, but I will go through why I think they fall apart (or will have to be rephrased) when we take a few steps backwards.

Interactivity and freedom
The added element of interactivity and freedom is what makes video games unique, and provides the audience with direct influence over an experience. Freedom is quite different from interactivity, considering how linear videogames often are rich with interaction, but have no real freedom of actions or morals unless you stop playing. Hence, freedom is also very interesting, either to perform experiments, or to let the audience’s own actions and morals define their experience.

Being the unique features of the medium, interactivity and freedom have become the dartboard of most concerns. The assumption is that when reading a book or watching a movie, you are only a passive observant and have no say in the matters unfolding, but while playing you are participatory and responsible for actions. Another concern arise when a contingent of people use their freedom to do the absolute worst thing possible, and publish that online with no artistic justification possible. If noticed by the media, the developer might for example seem to have made a sadism simulator at first glance. As a result, publishers, developers and ratings boards are reluctant to allow some types of content in games, regardless of intents. Hence, concerns regarding interactivity and freedom boil down to how the audience are considered participatory, and thus responsible for actions performed in the experience.

First off, if research ever provide evidence that the element of interactivity has negative consequences, we should take it very seriously indeed. But even if such evidence were provided, I expect the findings would not target interactivity (we interact all the time!), but instead how it was used and presented in specific games. This means that the hypothetical future ‘evidence against videogames’ would only be relevant for game criticism and what we perceive as acceptable, not the videogame medium as a whole.

The flaw of responsibility reveals itself when we consider how audiences of all media process their experiences. Because what are we accountable for in the first place? While experiencing something, all of us reflect upon what we’re presented with, to form our own opinions about it rooted in our own morals. It’s this mental process that ultimately defines who you are, how the experience affects you, and what you should be held responsible for. In a violent movie or book, the audience might be thinking either “the heros’ violent measures are justified” or “the apparent hero, is actually a sociopath”. As such, all media are ‘interactive’ in the sense that what happens is in itself only an empty shell, until the audience process their experience, and become responsible for their interpretations. So when a despicable action is perceived as something worth imitating, this is where we find the problematic interactions taking place, but it’s got nothing to do with pressing buttons, and the interaction is the same across all media. In other words, for the same reason that I will not hold the movie audience responsible for actions performed in a movie, but instead for how they reflect on them – I will only hold the player responsible for how they process the videogame, not what happens.

This is not the same as saying developers should not be held accountable for what they produce. The power of interactivity and freedom can naturally be used for both good and bad, and how people perceive an experience greatly depend on the authors intent. But this is no different from how a book or movie can be didactic or deceptive, so if videogames should be treated differently in general, we need a more convincing argument for not being consistent. Unfortunately, the usage of the medium for bad brings me neatly to the next major cause of concerns towards the medium.

Bad examples defining the publics’ perception of what videogames are
Currently, the industry is one speculative circus in which many performances deserve cancellation. The ones screaming the loudest often have a mechanic focus on revenues (literally). Others continue using cheap provocation and bad taste to earn more money. Another unfortunate aspect is the almost exclusive focus on videogames as fun and easy entertainment.

These are all tendencies that influence and obscure public opinions on what videogames are and can be. With so many actors struggling to keep their integrity, it’s sometimes even hard to defend the medium. How the industry almost exclusively treat videogames as easy entertainment also creates an assumption that videogames can only be easy entertainment. This often makes serious issues raised in a videogame seem trivialized. In general, bad examples greatly influence how we define the medium and it’s role in our societies.

It is still not hard to disarm the concern itself though, because it basically disarms itself. If we take the medium seriously, and define it for what it is and not for what some people use it for, the assumption loses its meaning, as it would only target specific games. The videogame medium, like film and literature, has obvious easy entertainment values. That is great, and I have no wish to get rid of that, but let’s stop shaping our attitudes after the worst examples, and expand our expectations to it’s role in our culture. To explain why I think this is important, I’ll try to define the videogame medium with a few lessons from history:

• Writing was first introduced as a practical tool for accounting, but today’s diverse usages are truly countless.
• After the printing press was invented, it didn’t take long until someone saw the commercial potential of erotic novels. It took us another 150 years before the same technology was used to make the scientific journal, making modern science possible.
• One of the first usages of film was to check if horses had all 4 feet off the ground at the same time while galloping – interesting, although rather trivial. It took us decades to develop more diversity, and over a century to reach the diverse usage film has today.

The same pattern can be seen across historical introductions of all media, and new usages still appear regularly for most of them. What these historical lessons teach us, is that even though a new medium seems like a big new thing that suddenly one day is there in all it’s glory, the significant developments take time. Often a lot of time. When someone in the future is looking back at the history of videogames, is it not plausible that they will see a similar history? So let’s not define the medium for what it is mostly used for today, but for what it actually is and it’s potential. Videogames are basically moving images that one or more actors can influence in any way. In other words it could be anything, and it’s usages endless (one fascinating alternative, is the potential of this hybrid technology).

Conclusions
In theory, the concerns discussed are well intended. But as I have briefly mentioned, they are largely caused by our assumptions as to what defines videogames. One result is that a wide range of people are becoming afraid of interactivity and freedom in itself, instead of discussing the quality of specific projects. Another result is that we define new videogames based on old bad examples, and it’s only usage as easy entertainment. This not only influences the discourse we’re having, but also have huge effects on what games are produced.

For example, if Krillbite Studio were dependant on a publisher and pitched the idea of AtS, the game might not have been made - simply for the fact that we depict a child in discomfort. In that situation, our general assumptions would have become a ruleset. To continue our focus on children; there are lots of cases where depicting children in discomfort can be considered a necessity. The City of Lost Children is an incredible movie, and what makes the awfully powerful Tears of Gaza a masterpiece, is it’s honest depiction of children in war.

With the discussed assumptions widespread, we will keep tiptoeing in circles on the safe paths explored a thousand times over. And where will it take us, except nowhere? We should instead encourage a climate where we punish bad taste in specific projects. Not based on assumptions regarding interactivity, freedom or a specific content category (like children or sex). This should make the discourse more interesting, and provide fertile soil for new usages of the medium. If a developer screws integrity and make something incredibly stupid, we should naturally bash it with (substantive) force, but let’s not develop patterns where the project is not accepted, ignoring the project itself. (We neither fear nor expect this destiny for Among the Sleep, but on behalf of all awesomeness currently restrained in general.)

I’ve arrived at the 4th point on the list of reasons why Among the Sleep should not be considered controversial.

• 4. Content categories are not controversial in itself, the way it’s presented is. Yes, some unfortunate souls keep insisting that videogames can only be easy entertainment. Others keep using cheap provocation to earn more money. Even though these tendencies are reprehensible, we should not let them obscure the fact that provoking a reaction in the audience is very often a noble goal. Games are no different. The way it’s presented should be our gauge of quality and integrity, not just the category of the content alone.

(No children were harmed in the writing of this article… Or, maybe indirectly if some of this is true…)

It’s time to unveil a small side project we have been toying with for some time! The Plan is an experimental self-discovery videogame exploring issues of death and meaning. Don’t worry, we’re still hard at work with Among the Sleep, but we think it is vital to always keep our minds fresh by exploring new ideas.

We are hoping to release The Plan for free on both PC, MAC and Linux this autumn. Please have a look at the project website for some more art.

Wow! It’s barely been a day since we published the first ever gameplay video from Among the Sleep, and its reception has already blown us away. With all-over positive feedback and articles on amongst others Edge, Destroctoid, Jostiq, PCgamer, IngieGames, Gameinformer, RockPaperShotgun, Kotaku, Gamespy and Eurogamer (and the list goes on) – this is an incredible motivational boost for us! Even Cliff Bleszinski and Jim Sterling has been hyping the project on their twitter.

I guess we should use this moment to clarify a few misconceptions that’s been forming though. Firstly, you will not be crawling 100% of the time; this is mostly something you choose to do (to reach places and hide from dangers etc.). Also, it is not going to be released during 2012 – we are working towards a release in 2013. And finally, to some of you silly people, it’s not a first person shooter. There will be no guns, we are untruly sorry.

Here is a selection of todays quotes:

“So AmongtheSleep is the new horror game to keep an eye on. I love where this is going”
Jim Sterling – Destroctoid

“the two-year-old makes for an extremely refreshing avatar.”
Ben Maxwell – Edge

More, please!
Stephen Totilo – Kotaku

We seriously can’t remember another survival horror (or adventure game) looking this good, so kudos to Krillbite.
John Papadopoulos – dsogaming.com

“It could be the most interesting horror game of next year”
Adam Smith – RockPaperShotgun

“A horror game in which you play as 2 year old child? WANT”
Cliff Bleszinski – Twitter

“…Among the Sleep looks like an amazing, extremely well done atmospheric title and already I can say that it must be a must try.”
Calin Ciabai – Unigamesity.com

“Meh”
Westsalvation0052 – youtube comment

The gameplay video:

So, thanks to all those of you who have shared the game and given us awesome feedback! We are really humbled. And for those of you who want to follow the ongoing development of Among the Sleep, you can sign up for our newsletter, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to this blog.

Statement: The procedural, interactive and (potential) non-linear nature of games allows for them to address the human mind in ways none of the more static and linear media of the past can. But very often, because games are locked up in a cage of conventions and expectations to their design, they don’t cover even a fraction of the emotions or narrative of their artistic counterparts.

I am both a gamer and game developer, but I still look at the vast majority of games today as merely “fun” gimmicks. With only a few notable exceptions, games are still structured around juvenile stories and rigid, competitive gameplay. As a result, to quote Scott Brodie, “the industry as a whole looks uninspired and adolescent by comparison to other popular art forms”. I completely agree with Scott, and I think it’s such a pity, such a waste.

In that regard, here are a few questions I think is important to discuss. Can one make incentives to play video games that are not driven by progress bars or high scores? These are mechanics that go well with an emotion like fun, but do they blend well with other complex or serious emotions? And might the fanatic pursuit of extrinsic rewards be the reason we don’t have game equivalents to the contrast between a romantic comedy and a documentary film?

After waiting for what felt like an eternity, the gameosphere recently got to play Journey and the remake of Dear Esther. I found a number of similarities in their approach to game design. Similarities that seem to follow a few growing trends, though mostly in the indie scene. On a personal level, games like these bring me much hope for the future of our medium, and I find them to be perfect examples from which to vent some thoughts I’ve been having for some time, about games in general.

Hopefully, my grave portrayal of current affairs is about to change. A lot of recent games’ approach to form, pace, playtime and focus are well worth discussing and possible to learn from.

Gameplay focus

All too often, it seems as though games are made with an exclusive focus on fun. They are designed to be fun, and most people expect them to be fun. This is not necessarily bad per se, but if all developers succumb to this focus I believe it gravely hinder the mediums potential diversity, and excludes a lot of people with interests other than the traditional gamer. Both Dear Esther and Journey are bold enough to change this approach.

One example is that they don’t hesitate to put the player in uncomfortable situations. Such as the part in Journey where you walk for minutes against the freezing snow, slower and slower, until you drop from exhaustion. This part is not included to be fun or entertaining, but is still an essential part of the struggle and experience. The same goes for the entirety of Dear Esther, where the gameplay will only let you walk slowly through an environment.

This type of gameplay forces the player to start interacting with games through exploration and analysis, and not only through mastery of rigid systems and extrinsic awards (a shift in focus at least I find very appealing). It is not hard to see how hordes of enemies or a progress bar would ruin this accomplishment completely.

Many game enthusiasts criticize gameplay like that of Dear Esther and Journey as having no challenges at all. Apparently, the only acceptable challenge for a game is fear of punishment, like losing fictitious points when failing. Have we become so accustomed to games as meaningless, unforgiving, cold-blooded and rigid goal-based systems that we miss the point so easily? Or maybe we just don’t appreciate the point, while narcissistically expecting (and demanding) all games to fit us specifically?

It’s refreshing to see how thatgamecompany and thechineseroom are bold enough to take their visions seriously, even while designing gameplay. This is an obvious contrast to a lot of huge blockbusters like, say, the Uncharted games, that in my opinion do not follow their own visions at all. Beyond all the brilliant details, the core gameplay (and what one actually does during 70% of the games) ultimately makes me feel like a sociopath committing genocide. I would be surprised if this didn’t directly contradict Naughtydog’s main design goals, even though it might have supported some immediate wallet goals.

Rewards

Related to the last section, but more specifically – might the current shift towards more extrinsic rewards ultimately limit the game designer’s palette of emotions? Might this be one of the reasons games end up exploring the same narrow emotions again and again?

Through examining what the player are thinking about and striving for while playing, we can find out what the games are really about. And in the end, the subtitle of most games could just as well be ‘The Epic Adventure of Numbers and Progress bars’. In other words, most games’ core goal is to satisfy its player by letting him or her master the manipulation of mechanical rules and maximizing the right numbers. This is a description of sports (which of course has its place) but it is not necessarily art, or something good at provoking new emotions. For instance, one would have to change the gameplay of chess dramatically if you wanted the player to feel remorse when killing an enemy pawn.

A recent trend, and obvious example of extrinsic rewards, is the achievement systems integrated in almost every digital distribution platform. While they indeed work for some game types, these rigid systems are ruthlessly imposed on all games regardless of whether it fits, thus compromising their communicative integrity. Just imagine if book publishers demanded 10-word sentences every 20 pages, or movie publishers required specific dialogue every 10-minute during a movie! Most people would, and rightfully so, find these scenarios absurd, and we shouldn’t accept it in our medium.

Eventually most games might end up looking so much like everything that they start looking like nothing. To be blunt, this is not intelligent design. Actually it feels more like publishers are designing our games, rather than game designers. It might keep games fun and addictive (as if this was a positive trait), but not much more. And I digress, this is not really unlike the strategies employed by drug dealers to build their customer bases, and we might just as well defend the “value” they provide to their customers.

Pace and imagination

Journey and Dear Esther include a lot of spaces where the player is allowed time to dwell, explore and let his or her imagination roam freely. When games dare to linger and to leave the space needed for thought, something really special happens and you are free to “fill in the gaps”.

“We build all this detail into the world, and in many cases the player whizzes through it at a breakneck pace. Puzzles and ‘down time’ are like a sorbet in a multi-course meal, in that they allow the player to better appreciate whatever comes next. Without those pacing contrasts, everything becomes a numbing blur of relentless action[…]” – Josh Weier (Valve)

It’s not about making incoherent and cryptic experiences, but that spoon-feeding the player every last detail often removes a lot of the intended impact. Remember how the simple “graphics” of letters in a book can create whole worlds and emotions. I think one would reach a deeper level of thought, if gamers were encouraged to interact more by imagination and analysis.

Playtime

Both Journey and Dear Esther have been criticized for their short length. I can see why this supposed “value for money” is a logical preference for some hardcore players, but why on earth is a longer playtime still considered a mark of quality? Are we making easy entertainment and not experiences? Or maybe it’s about time we start judging literature by how long it takes us to read it and not by its content?

If the real goal of your project can be achieved in one hour of playtime, I cant imagine why you would want to waste your player’s time for 7 hours extra. It is indeed unnecessary, and does not respect your player at all.

The solution: design a vision and not a hit!

It is obvious that thechineseroom and thatgamecompany kept their visions as a basis for all design choices during the development of Dear Esther and Journey respectively. And I mean for every single design decision. If an aspect of a game compromises the project’s intent and vision, it should of course be discarded – even though some people might find the feature to be fun. This comes quite naturally to all other forms of expression, isn’t it about time it becomes the norm in games? Just imagine what Guernica would have become if Picasso decided to include some slapstick for broader appeal.

Braid isn’t about trying to appeal to the maximum number of people — it’s about appealing to exactly the right people. – Jonathan Blow

This approach became the solution for Frictional Games, and part of what makes Amnesia so disturbingly successful. They decided to remove things like combat, death penalties and competitive gameplay (watch this great talk) because these seemingly natural aspects of their game conflicted with Frictional Games core immersion goal. And thus, they replaced plain action (mastering a system), with real emotion (making it so scary on its own that it doesn’t matter if your death has no in-game penalties) — to great success.

The audience in a movie theater is not exposed to any real threats or punishment, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be engaged in the experience. If emotional immersion is one of your goals, please remove superfluous mechanics that ultimately hinder this!

Also, gameplay and narrative often seem to be held separate, when they in fact should be a result of the same vision. We say things like “I’m making a game about [insert narrative] and its going to be a [insert genre]”. And just like that, gameplay is plastered on top like wallpaper, when it in fact should be designed from the ground up in relation to the projects vision. This is not easy, but people shouldn’t be playing a vastly different story from what they are being told.

In other words, I would like more designers to approach narrative and gameplay inextricably. I strongly believe core goals and visions should come first, always, and a lack of doing this is gravely limiting our medium from reaching its full potential. It’s not about hard-to-grasp cryptic meanings — the vision could both be extracted from the deepest chasm or a shallow stream, and be both hard to grasp and obvious. What’s important is that this intended vision is kept at the center of every single design choice during the whole process. Quite unlike the Uncharted series, that naively expects you to feel like a hero while slaughtering a country. I mean, how can we sacrifice the most basic of expressions and expect to keep our integrity as a serious expressive medium?

Does high score, multiplayer or even death penalties support your visions? No? Scrap it. Make the game about experiencing it, not beating it! It’s after all an interactive medium, so instead of punishing players with rigid systems I would love to see more games role-playing along with me.

As we have seen, intrinsic rewards can also be a strong motivator to continue playing, and gameplay that is not designed exclusively to be fun can actually enhance the experience greatly. Also, if superfluous content is removed, people are given the space to experience what you really want them to. I think that remembering these facts will result in more awesome games, as well as give games the potential to appeal to a much broader audience. (Publishers, that was for you!).

Concluding thoughts

Today it seems as though game enthusiasts almost blindly defend their medium if someone as much as hints towards critique. This is a tendency I find very destructive, and I think we have the responsibility to take most critique seriously (as well as a lot to learn from it).

The fact that the industry is structured around commercial profit makes it quite conservative and hard to change, but as many recent games have demonstrated — maybe one does not need to follow yesterday’s principles that slavishly to be successful today?

As mentioned, points made do not apply as strongly to all kinds of games, like those aiming simply to be competitive. But I wholeheartedly think all games, regardless of genre, has a lot to gain from studying some of these growing trends.

With the increasing average age of players (not surprisingly by one year, every year), the audience’s preferences shift. Big publishers often seem to be swayed by economic arguments, and there is both the audience and demand for more of these kinds of experiences today!

Do you want to help us by testing our projects? Please visit this page and sign up!

For the time being we are only testing the project Among the Sleep, but you can choose to be included for future projects as well. We will be testing both specific aspects (such as sound, controls, physics, story and visuals) as well as the game as a whole. We will contact testers continuously when we need you, so it might take some time before you are contacted. Thanks a lot!