Idea
About TLR Games
Like many other projects of this kind, TLR Games was born by a long conversation between two good friends — Edu Verz from Brainwash Gang and I. It was early 2020 and the COVID pandemic had already begun, so we spent a lot of time at home feeling crazy about creating something new. That’s how we started working on the concept that later will turn into The Longest Road on Earth, a deeply personal experimental game where we delve into concepts like routine, boredom, and social classes. I hope you have had the chance to play it!
It was a wonderful journey I wouldn’t change for anything, but after we funded the game on Kickstarter and it was supported by Raw Fury, I started feeling like searching for a new adventure on my own terms. And that desire brought me to IDEA: The Game and all the amazing people that comprise TLR Studio at this moment.
To be honest, it was like exploring the B side of the tape. In The Longest Road on Earth, all the little stories were meant to feel deeply melancholic, with an original soundtrack that seeks to convey the characters' uneasiness through deep and heartfelt lyrics. IDEA: The Game, like its namesake short film by Olli Huttunen, explores more positive concepts linked to the idea of exploring, persevering against adverse circumstances and sharing what’s inside you as a way of becoming eternal.
It’s funny when I think about how I discovered Olli Huttunen’s short film, IDEA. It was during Manuel Gonzales’s TV show -Zoom Net- emission of the short film. The possibility of this project came to my mind immediately while watching it. Manuel and I started to move Heaven and Earth, contacting Olli, writing emails, and having exciting video calls about what will happen next. Gladly, we got a deal of mixing Olli’s short film with my idea of making an app to share anonymous reflections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HliKhvDmnU
IDEA is the first game we fully own as TLR Games. After its release in March 2023, we aim to keep developing great games that mix many kinds of mechanics and aesthetics in new, entertaining ways. Doesn't that sound like a plan? For us, it does — after all, that's what keeps moving us as game developers.
Do you dare take a guess on which kind of game will be made next? I’ll read you in the comments section.
Best,
Arturo Monedero, Head of TLR Games
PS: Remember to add IDEA to your wishlist, if you haven’t already!
The year we leave behind
2022 has been a good year so far for us. We had the opportunity to attend many events, meet interesting people and share our ideas in comforting environments. Internal support is the main pillar of the indie game industry, and we are grateful for all the backing we received this year.
Looking back, we travelled a lot:
We took IDEA to Japan, meeting Shuhei Yoshida at the Tokyo Game Show. Idea didn’t achieve an award at the Sense of the Wonder Night. However, meeting Yoshida and sharing the stage with some of the best independent game developers was good enough for us.
We crossed the ocean to be present and collect players’ IDEAs in Buenos Aires, at Ventana Sur. Sometimes, the best you can take home are the thoughts of those who care about you.
Although, going abroad is not necessary to get recognition. In fact, we were present at many national events:
Spending summer on the paradisiacal Canary Islands at Tenerife GG, where we won Best business idea and Most innovative video game. We also attended Barcelona's IndieDevDay, a small gathering for all the Spanish indie scene to come together every once in a while. Bonus track, we landed the Most Innovative Idea award.
And what about the virtual presence? Something good that came with 2020 is the wide range of virtual events that someone can join. Like we did on Indie Cade, where we got the Visual Design award.
Looking back, we travelled a lot, and we gained a lot. Not only awards but connections, human contact, and incredible experiences we will rarely forget. And now we have the most important step ahead of us, releasing Idea on Steam, Nintendo Switch and mobile so everyone will be able to share their thoughts and feelings with the whole world.
Thanks a lot to those who support us on each step. We hope the year to come brings you all the joy you deserve.
Happy new year!
IDEA joins DreamHack Beyond until October 23rd
Morning, ladies and gentlemen:
If you recently visited our Steam page, you already know the good news. After weeks of waiting, we're finally taking part in the DreamHack Beyond fest on Steam! It will last until Sunday, October 23rd, which is also the last day you will be able to play our public demo here. After that, it will be exclusive for physical events.
There's a good reason behind it. We updated the distribution of the game areas included in the demo after including new ones, and increased the number of paths available per zone. We also have achieved great strides in terms of optimization after listening to players' feedback since last June. This is something we couldn't have gotten without attending the Steam Next Fest, as well as Gamescom and the Tokyo Games Show.
Because of that, we think that the demo now available on Steam is not currently representative of all the potential IDEA has. Anyway, we’re sure it gave you at least a couple of fun hours in the time it’s been available, so we’re sorry for that, but the whole team is working super hard to bring out the final version of the game as soon as possible. If you have any further questions, don’t be afraid to ask.
And one last thing regarding DreamHack Beyond — we’re looking for the most optimal day to run a short live stream here and, if possible, show a couple of new endings. We’ll let you know about the date and time via Twitter.
Having said that, enjoy this wonderful celebration of games and remember to add your favourite ones (including ours <3) to your wishlists. It’s the most helpful thing you can do for an indie dev!
Have a great week,
The Longest Road Games
IDEA: How the game was shot
IDEA is a twice-awarded game that explores the boundaries between filmmaking and video games. Based on an awarded short film by Olli Huttunen, it challenges players to take an idea as far as possible while travelling through beautiful landscapes mixing the human and the wild. Both the pictures seen in the film and the game were recorded by Olli himself, who has shared more insights about the filming process and how the world of IDEA was created.
"Aerial photography is fascinating — with a drone, you can get to angles that we don't often see. I find the direct top to down angle interesting, and here it is a central part of the whole story and the game. All the aerial footage was shot with popular DJI drones. I mostly used a small Mavic Air and few shots were filmed with Mavic pro. Both Drones are cable to record 4K video", Olli explains.
Another noteworthy feature is that landscapes keep changing as the lightbulb moves on towards a goal, using the seasons as markers of creative progress. Huttunen's photographs show the evolution of the landscape between early spring, where streets are still covered in snow, and early summer, when everything gets covered by green. However, Olli confesses it was very difficult to carry out since spring “was quite late that year and the change of season took longer than expected”.
The key to making IDEA work, both as a short film and as a video game, was "finding good streets and intersections", Huttunen acknowledges. He mainly flew his drone in public or remote areas that don’t require special permits. Then, the filmmaker looked for suitable shooting heights and found three different distances ideal for his project: “In some landscapes, I had to watch out for trees, but for the most part I flew over open places where it was easy to observe the views below".
After wrapping up the short film, Huttunen and The Longest Road Games team shot new footage for the game — now facing the problem of bad weather: "I planned and researched on the map where interesting streets and areas could be found near the place where I live. Unfortunately, there was a long period of rain here and I didn't get to shoot as much as I would have liked.”
The filming plans got postponed until next year but fortunately, we could use some old pictures in Olli Huttunen’s collection that also fit the game very well. We feel very glad to have been able to work with such a talented professional!
"I find it interesting to explore the entropy of nature and our place in it"
Behind every revolutionary idea, there is a concept or a person worth knowing. In our case, it was the incredible work of independent filmmaker and animation professional Olli Huttunen (Finland, 1978), creator of the original short film Idea. After so many years working in the digital media field, designing art installations for several art exhibitions in Finland, Olli decided to create on his own a series of brief movies that straddle the line between wild and human, or revolve around abstract concepts like our need to reach others with our words or ideas. Recently, we had the honour of interviewing him for our dev blog.
Q. Both Idea and its game take place between gorgeous natural spots and some locations belonging to human societies, but there’s not a single hint of life in any of those places as the light bulb — a new idea — moves forward and collides with moving cars or static obstacles. What’s the meaning of this?
A. When I decided to combine the animation with the aerial image shot directly above, I looked for map-like views. It was interesting to note that from this perspective a person can no longer be distinguished from a certain height. We recognize the cars and buildings but it’s hard to see the people. It's about scale. Seen from afar, some things seem to be disappearing. Also joys and sorrows. But good ideas are the right size for this scale.
I shot the aerial videos mostly in a quiet areas with very little life and even the traffic was very light. There are some real human figures in a few pictures, you just have to look for them very closely. I like to show rugged landscapes rather than the excessively beautiful and exotic landscapes that the aerial imagery is typically full of anyway.
Q. A similar question goes for the last shot of the short film, where we can finally see a man leaving something inside a container right after the bulb finally lights up. Does it represent the end of an idea after a long way?
A. The original question in the short film was can you find the idea if you intentionally search for it?
At the beginning of the movie, we see the car leaving from the trash container. The car is driven by an idea seeker. The idea is generated after when the seeker leaves. At the end we see the same car at the new trash containers. The seeker is looking for an idea in the trash but can't find anything. He gets in the car and leaves again. The story is like in a loop. Can an idea and its seeker ever meet? And when will they meet? What could happen? That's why there is a text "Searching and finding again and again" at the beginning of the movie.
It's like the opposite story. The idea must follow a similar bumpy road to its seeker as the seeker has to go through on its own. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
This was an original story that I knew it was very difficult to understand, but there are a lot of topics in the story and it gives a space for inspiring interpretations.
Q. Why did you choose roads as the vehicle that ideas use to travel?
A. From this perspective, it seemed natural for the idea to run along the streets. Of course also for technical reasons. The physics calculations of the idea ball made sense to make it to bounce along the streets. it’s like a giant pinball game that’s interesting to follow.
Q. Are the environments that straddle the line between wild and human, like the ones you show in Idea, somehow special to you?
A. Ever since I started photographing the aerial images with my drone, I’ve been looking for interesting and different angles. I like maps a lot. The straight top to down view is very fascinating to me. Looking down from above is an atypical view that we don’t get to see that often. It also reveals the human footprint in a nature. People tend to build and draw straight lines while nature tries to breaks them down. I find it interesting to explore the entropy of nature and our place in it.
Q. What does the aerial footage add to the story you wanted to tell?
A. Looking down from the sky I find it refreshing. It puts many things on the right perspective and scale. It is important to see the entities. The aerial images shows concretely what kind of environment we live in and what our place is in it. I wanted to play around and visualize what it would look like if we could see our thoughts or ideas on this map.
Q. Idea points out the relevance of understanding failure as a phenomenon that, despite the general belief, can be more enriching than immediate success. How do you deal with disappointment in your particular creative process?
A. I have learned that failure can indeed be a resource. In general, learning essentially involves failure. in fact one of the themes inspired for this short film, was a project where we had a great idea but it went down because other people didn’t see it as such. Getting ideas through is sometimes very tricky. Poor reception or smashing ideas should not be discouraged. When you know how to handle an issue, it can lead to an even better and whole new idea. But going through disappointment is very instructive.
Q. Also, does sharing your ideas and experience with other artists, just as players are able to do in Idea The Game, help you find new creative paths to walk?
A. Absolutely! It is worth being open to suggestions and different views. And good ideas are worth sharing.
Demo available now!
Good day everyone! We’re very happy to let you know that the demo of IDEA is already available. Putting the game in your hands after months of hard work is a very exciting moment for us, and we can’t wait to see what you have to say – and to read the messages you leave in the game, of course!
There are a few notes about the demo that we want to share with you. Overall, the demo represents a bit less than 25% of the content that you will find in the game. There are 29 areas for you to explore, more than 25 icons you can use, several endings you can get – and we have implemented already some of the Achievements you can unlock by playing the game.
But this is not just a slice of the final game – while it is representative of the experience of playing IDEA, we have tried to make it stand as a separate (if smaller) game, so to speak. There are some areas that are quite different than what you’ll find in the final game, and the whole level design is specific to the demo – the paths you can take are different even in those areas that will be in the final game too.
Please let us know what you think after playing IDEA! You can find us here in the Steam forums as well as in our social media channels (Twitter and Instagram). If you like the game, please Wishlist and Follow it on Steam – and help us share our IDEA spreading the word to your friends!
IDEA comes to the Steam Next Fest!
To celebrate the occasion we've released a new gameplay trailer, highlighting how the sharing feature works. Next Monday we'll also broadcast the game and share with you a few secrets of the development process. Stay tuned!
Wishlist and follow the game so you don't miss anything about IDEA!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1873870/IDEA/
We went to GDC!
The feedback we got was amazing, though: everyone who played IDEA loved the concept of the game, and praised both the breathtaking visuals and its relaxing gameplay. They also jumped at the opportunity of sharing their own thoughts when their run ended before its time, and we got lots of different messages – from funny jokes to heartwarming and even poetic lines. We are working on a little surprise to show you some of the best ones… stay tuned!
Attending an event such as this is not a decision that should be taking lightly. You’re showing your game in the middle of its development, when sometimes there isn’t even a working build (outside of the engine you’re using, that is). Some features might still be in the air, or not fully implemented. That means that you have to produce a functioning, stable build – but it won’t be the final one, so in some way it implies taking a detour from the actual development of the game.
On the other hand, having a deadline, and being forced to settle on some things because you have to implement them in some way in the game, can have positive effects: it forces you to make decisions, to commit with some concepts and features, and test them in a real environment (i.e. with actual players that don’t know, and don’t care, about the creative process that has taken you to where you stand).
We experienced all this, and we’re happy to say that it has had positive effects over the development of IDEA. We don’t want to spoil any surprises yet, so just let’s say that soon we’ll have something to announce! In the meantime, we want to leave you with some pictures of our time in San Francisco…
This was the Spanish area at the GDC!
This is how our stand looked (and how the boss Arturo Monedero found it when he arrived!)
And because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, after the GDC Arturo took some time to visit Yellowstone. Arturo definitely did not send us this pictures to make us jealous. Not at all. Absolutely not. *shakes in jealous rage*
We wish we could bring these landscapes to IDEA as well! Thanks for reading this far and remember, if you want to help us, wishlisting and following the game can make a great difference -- and you can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram and help us spread the word on your social media. Have a great weekend, and see you soon!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1873870/IDEA/