This summer was prosperous for The Party, as Black The Fall was recognized by our international comrades as being one of the best indie games. We are yet to organize
a parade to celebrate the occasion in the genuine communist style. But in the meantime, we'd like to take the time to hug every team member who's dedicated each day in the past months/years to this project: Cristi + Nico, Razvan + Licu, Andreea + Marius and Andrei+. And also thank all the organizations who recognized our creative efforts by nominating or awarding us: BIG Festival , Gamescom , Spawn and [http://bicfest.org/] BIC Festival .
The Party feels awkwardly humble, grateful, hopeful and proud at the same time. And here is a token of appreciation (souvenir from BIC Festival) to always remind us of these mixed feelings.
Thank YOU for playing!
A Bleak New World
There are decades since The Party has forbidden imagination. Wandering minds are dangerous. They create free worlds, they love and disobey. They challenge the status quo and fancy changes.
Anyway, we know you'd rather risk it than submit to The Party, so you've probably already imagined how the world outside The Factory looks like. So did we. And we've created it for Black.
This outside world is much needed in his journey. As a thought prisoner Black has to gradually unlearn how to be a worker and learn how to be a survivor. As he discovers how to cope with his surroundings, he might even take part in revolutions bigger than himself.
Up until now, if you played the demo, watched the trailer, watched a game-play or just stumbled upon Black The Fall screenshots, you must be acquainted with The Factory - the place where Black worked for the past years and the very subject of his escape. You might have also noticed some darker areas where work is done by machines mainly and shadows are reigning. That's what we call Into The Dark - the unfriendly area that separates the Factory from the outside world.
Now, considering the harsh conditions from the communist factory what should Black expect when getting out? He might have hoped for a colorful happy place, but the communist reality can only be painted in shades of black.
Black first sees the sky in The Mire. But as he explores the area he'll discover there's only polluted air to breathe and rusty water to drink. Exploited workers and killing machines. Sentinels or guards, their only purpose is to eliminate anyone who doesn't serve The Party anymore.
In a world where humans can't be trusted with empathy, he finds a friend. A robot helper. A pet. Now, his Pet.
As Black continues his journey of resilience, he reaches The City.
Not that he remembers so much about how it should be. He used to live in a village and to visit the city only once or twice a year. However, he can tell that The City has something unsettling about it, it feels strange and more dangerous than anything he's seen until now. Pushed by courage or plain necessity, he continues his journey. And so, he's up for a bitter-sweet discovery. But that's another story.
We are pretty thrilled about the outside world and The Pet, so can't wait to share more of Black's universe with you soon.
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Black The Fall - World Tour (see you at E3)
Not sure if you were aware, but the Party allows us only 12 seconds of excitement per day as part of the controlled distribution of scarce resources. Ergo, we are dedicating today's excitement allocated time to the world tour we are planning. That's right, we are making our best to meet most of you. If you happen to attend any of these events, we would love to meet you. Here is when and were we can meet for sure in the upcoming days:
25 June - 2 July - BIG Festival, Sao Paolo (BR) - So proud, to have Black The Fall nominated for Best Art. We won't be there, but Black will ;)
21-24 July - Comic Con, San Diego (US) - Find Black at the Square Enix booth. Plenty of room to play there. If lost in the midst of awesome games, just ask a Square Enix gal or guy for help, they're all lovely.
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Black The Fall is Now Fully Playble
We are very excited to let you know that Black The Fall is fully playable. All puzzles are in place and working, all scenes are set-up, the ending is there – all of it. Black The Fall is alive and kicking!
We are now pushing for the full Alpha version, due in a month (without deadlines one would still be improving the first playrooms). This means there’s still some work to be done starting with a lot of in-house testing, as we need to scrub it of all obvious bugs, before we call our friends over for an outsider opinion. Nico is our testing queen and she needs a spa week, a city-break or just a break from playing, bug spotting and trying not to fix things on the spot (no matter how tempting this is). Point being that testing can be very stressful.
By the way, if you happen to be in Bucharest in the following weeks and want to play any parts of it, just drop us a note. We'd love to have you testing it!
Fun fact: Licu actually advised Nico to be bad at it, this way nobody would want her to test. But I guess she can’t go against her nature of being such a merciless observant of what can be improved.
The game looks great and we're now adding the final Communist touches. We're aiming for excellence here - Party's orders. So we're currently working on:
Dressing – suitable scenery to render the atmosphere (on our artists’ to-do list Nico, Marius, Andrei and Andreea).
Animations - how Black, the Guard, the Worker and our jazzy Sentinel move around (it's on Cristi for design & Licu for functionality)
Navigation – how the characters navigate individually and together (Razvan is the lucky responsible for this one)
Designator – how our laser pointer, used to designate, works (pinkie swear from Razvan on this one)
So we are closer to our goal, as we planned to launch Black The Fall on PC this autumn. And we’re going for it, full steam ahead!
Hi everyone,
We are excited to let you know that the new build is up and running. Actually Black is the one running, solving puzzles, fighting the system and making a revolution all together - wanna help him out?
To start anew hit NEW GAME in the main menu :).
Here are the release notes:
Dynamic loading 0.1
● our dynamic loading system is in place at its first iteration
● stalls will occur and we are aware of that. Things will be much smoother when we reach 1.0
A.I. system
● added the first version of the AI system
● guards react to you now (don’t make too much noise)
Character movement & animation
● black has a new face (and body :) )
● we have improved the controls and animations
● we have smoothed out the transitions
● the designator (laser pointer) was improved - just move the cursor over the selectable objects to use them with the designator.
Level Design
● we have revisited the first part: we have improved the puzzles, the world is more coherent, improved the feedback
● we have added a new area (The Shadow Area) - here you can experiment what living in the shadows was like
● the new area has new types of puzzles that prey on the player’s perception
● we have improved the sound design and added new music bits
Black is back - darker and smarter
Release Notes
Dynamic loading 0.1
● our dynamic loading system is in place at its first iteration
● stalls will occur and we are aware of that. Things will be much smoother when we reach 1.0
A.I. system
● added the first version of the AI system
● guards react to you now (don’t make too much noise)
Character movement & animation
● black has a new face (and body :) )
● we have improved the controls and animations
● we have smoothed out the transitions
● the designator (laser pointer) was improved - just move the cursor over the selectable objects to use them with the designator.
Level Design
● we have revisited the first part: we have improved the puzzles, the world is more coherent, improved the feedback
● we have added a new area (The Shadow Area) - here you can experiment what living in the shadows was like
● the new area has new types of puzzles that prey on the player’s perception
● we have improved the sound design and added new music bits
From deep inside our laboratories
Hello everyone,
We've been hard at work on our communist baby game, making sure that he'll grow up into meaningful and awesome experience.
I'm super excited to share these new shots with you:
Hey everyone, we have a big and exciting announcement to make. We have been working for a couple of months on the first episode of Black The Fall. We have listened and learned from the community and we decided to release the game in in fully playable episodes. This way the experience is stronger and the game is as good and polished as we desire and you deserve.
We want to thank all the players that have supported us through Early Access and to all that have provided interest and feedback for Black The Fall. We'll make sure we'll put this feedback to good use in our next build. New images and information will be available soon (in the next few days). You'll love them. They are testament about how much your involvement in the project helped us shape the game.
Given the fact that the old build is "too old" :) and it doesn't represent the game as it is today we'll make multiple adjustments and will move on working solely on the next build till is ready. We hope to achieve that till December.
When you'll see what's coming you'll see that it was worth it. We promise.
Thanks again for all your support.
We love you!
BTF Team
Next Chapter
We're now working on a whole new chapter. Lot's of new cool stuff, aesthetics and gameplay.
We'll have one big level for this chapter. It will be longer than all the levels that we have now put together. You will be able to climb and thus the level will grow vertically too.
We're also working on a lot of new movement features like jumping, crouching, turning, wall climbing, hanging ...
We'll have new NPC's like the Proletar: http://youtu.be/fGhF8-ghdlk and new NPC behaviour.
For the latest news please visit our fb page: https://www.facebook.com/blackthefall
The Linux build is now LIVE!
Hey everyone we have uploaded our first Linux build. Enjoy!
