Come in...this is Gardener! Can you hear me? Okay, I should be coming through loud and clear now. It's that time of year again - Spring is making its presense known across the Earth's northern hemisphere, and I guess many of you have already said goodbye to your winter jackets. The Babel was been particularly busy this Spring. Allow me to elaborate. Let's start with our two new team members: Taro and Kaino!
Meow-ow-ow...meow-ooh! An ailurophile who likes to paint using kitty paws, Taro is a highly skilled artist who was discovered drifting through space, or maybe she just escaped from a backyard. Kaino, meanwhile, is a senior mechanical engineer hailing from an unknown galaxy, and has been put to work constructing the game's internal systems. Cursed with considerable creative pride, his Kung-fu skills, even more than the "heavy machinery" he carries, have left his peers totally flabbergasted.
Next, we've made some huge strides in terms of optimizing the originial note system. How significant are the changes? Let's just say...we almost completely remade this part of the game! We hope that these logical new designs allow for a more intuitive reasoning experience, while also providing greater visual feedback. As we have highlighted before, our goal is not to create an overly difficult game designed to 'torture' players. Instead, we want to combine puzzles and narrative to surprise and engage them. The aforementioned optimizations have validated our design philosophy in this regard.
The third item on the agenda is something entirely new for our game. Just take a look at this picture: Can you guess what it is? The answer is......it's an all-new rewriting challenge! To put it simply, if you want to rewrite something, you must first pass a fun mini game! Here, players will need to adjust something inside the object so that it ends up in the desired state. However, you must first be absolutely sure of the state you want, as this will end up triggering the butterfly effect! Finally, one last thing before I hang up the communicator...
In addition to everything mentioned above, we're also paying special attention to the fine details of each performance on the stage. After all, I've long harbored dreams of producing movies, so this type of expert direction and performance micromanagement comes naturally to me!
That's it for today's dispatch. Thanks for listening, and I wish you all clear skies and calm seas ahead. Gardener out.
Babel devblog - December
Hi, this is Gardener!
Again, the end of the year is coming soon…In other words, are you guys on Earth getting ready to welcome a new year? Have you picked up the energy and left some unforgettable memories in the past year? Well…please cherish these memories no matter they are good or bad because I am always looking forward to your stories when you get on the Babel in our game~
Back to the game, the best word for describing our game for the past year is… set-sail? But the Babel, this little tattered ship had been sailing in no man’s sky for nearly 3 years, and we had absorbed cosmic rays enough for over three years as well. Ahh, every cloud has a silver lining, which is more accurate for our situation for the past year. At our most desperate, the ship's radar keenly caught an asteroid where we hurriedly landed to resupply. We poured fuel into the engine and repaired the damaged shell. Also, we recruited a new crew. When the engines fired up, I seemed to be watching my space shuttle rising up... We made it(ㄒoㄒ)!
Discussing new game features...
After restarting our journey, we accelerated our work efficiency for rapidly improving the completion of A Guidebook of Babel with our new crews. During the journey, we also experienced the period of gelling with team members and the time of self-examination. Luckily, these obstacles quickly became a steppingstone to our next stop. We made it together. Now the next stop is the completion of A Guidebook of Babel!
Guess it! It would come up in our full version!
Yet a lot of interesting things have indeed happened in the past year. They are not all pleasant, however, I still like to write it down! What I like the most is the designing the game themed gift although it took a lot of time. Of course, I never planned to escape the task of writing the scripts! Although anyone with a discerning eye can see, I did burn out my brain several times by accident while writing the scripts.
The draft pf mystery toy boxes. Ps: it’s a pity that the 2X2 set design for the boxes were denied.
The most exhausting ‘business’ is to attend events. We need to arrive at the booth very early, standing there for the whole day. Then introduce the game to every gamer who wants to try it till we got thirsty and tired.
When I exhausted, I really want to swallow a questionnaire to make it disappear!
Seriously, the most nervous thing for me is the chat show recording. This is the first time in my life that I participated in such a big show recording! Hmmm… in fact I have participated a show recording in HongKong before when I was still a college student. This time I had ‘Babel’ with me...and unexpectedly became one of the protagonists?! Yoh, the spotlight I’m coming although I forgot my words. If only I had the communication skills of the Chef Lanqi.
What? Just Bronze Three Winner? Never mind, Dripwood awards (an award in Babel game) by the Chef is the highest!
The most difficult moment... may be the role switch. Work is only part of life after all. The challenges that life brings to me are much more tough than the difficulties of game development. For me, Gardener, a game developer of the Babel game, and a husband and father, are both the roles that I need to switch again and again. On either side, never being absent is the hardest thing.
Holding my daughter's hand in the hospital.
Well, how did you guys spend your year? In the new year, do you plan to stop or continue to move forward? Anyway, don't forget you have Gardener’s reporting with you although sometimes it will not be updated very frequently lol. I will be always here for you and happy new year! The destination planet of this voyage is already very close.
So that's all for today, see you soon, folks!
THE BIG ADVENTURE EVENT | DEMO PLAYTHROUGH
The Babel will be hosting its first livestream event this Friday night (January 21st) @7PM PDT (3AM GMT)
Stream details:
<*> WHAT Full stream of the latest English demo (~30minutes)
