What a week it's been at GDC 2023. On Monday Mechinus was featured in the fantastic MIX Showcase, and on Tuesday we braved the extreme San Francisco weather to take Mechinus to the European Showcase down at pier 17.
We brought two Steam Decks to GDC, which made showing the demo at impromptu meetings in noisy hotel lobbies a breeze (compared to carrying around a bulky laptop and controllers). The response to the demo was extremely positive, and some people told us it was the best pitch they had seen all week at GDC - a testament to the brilliant work done by the dev team in the run up to the event.
Still, although we were delighted with the demo we arrived with in San Francisco, there's always room to polish and, naturally, showing the game to new people reveals new bugs. Each evening we would update the JIRA priority list for the dev team back in the UK to work through, so we awoke each day to an updated build. By the end of the week, the quality was quite astounding. The team really knocked it out of the park.
Finding Cog's Voice
Cog was designed as an emotive character, able to react to events around him in the world of Mechinus. In many games, the player is looking at the back of the protagonists head, or if their face is visible, it's often relatively small on screen.
Cog has a large, expressive face which is always pointing at the camera, providing a golden opportunity to build an emotional connection between player and character through his expressions.
During pre-production, we went searching for Cog's "voice". While Mechinus is designed in the spirit of silent-storytelling, which means no dialogue, we decided this didn't mean Cog should be voiceless. Even if we don't understand his language, we can understand his emotions.
Since Cog is a mechanical being in a clockwork ecosystem, we needed his voice to be distinct and unmistakable. The test we set ourselves for all of the audio design in Mechinus is that if you were to hear, but not see, the game - would you instantly know which game it is? The same applies to Cog's voice.
So, what do you think? Did we capture a unique mechanical voice for Cog? Can you feel the emotions he's expressing? How do you imagine Cog reacting to events in the game as he ventures through the mechanical jungle of Mechinus?
Day of the Devs - Mechinus Showcase
Today at 11:00am ET / 8:00am PT / 4:00pm BST / 5:00pm CEST the #DayoftheDevs showcase goes live, and will feature the world-first reveal of Mechinus!
Tune in via your preferred live stream platform below:
