One year ago today, we released our first game. By human standards, that means it is now barely a toddler. 🍼
By video game standards, it means that a game we planned for next gen is now very much current gen. A lot has happened in the world since that release -- unfortunately, a lot of it mirrors the horrors of what White Shadows wants to talk about. Our hearts go out to everyone who had harder things to navigate this year than the aftermath of releasing their first video game. 🇺🇦
Good enough reason then, to stop and think a bit, and to write a birthday card and thank a bunch of people.
To everyone involved in helping this game come to fruition -- from the very first sketches, 7 years ago, in something that feels like a different world now, to its release and beyond.
To everyone who wrote and tweeted and made videos about the game when it came out, celebrating it, criticising it, being baffled by it -- honoring us by interacting with something we spent such a long time making.
To the very nice people at the German Computer Game Awards, for awarding us the "Best Debut" prize, and for the equally lovely people at the German Development Awards for two more nominations (we'll know tomorrow, so fingers crossed). 🤞
To our partners at Thunderful, at Mixtvision, and at our regional fund, the Filmstiftung NRW, without whom none of this would have been possible.
To our friends and families.
And mostly to all of you, of course, who played the game and gave us feedback and wrote reviews and sent the loveliest messages.
We'll go back into our cave now and work on the next thing.
There's more to come from Monokel. 🧐
Thanks a bunch, to all of you! ❤️ The Monokel Team
Ministry of Light informs: White Shadows is now ready for Razer Chroma! ⚡
Hello humans!
So, long story short: We're proud to announce that White Shadows is now ready for Razer Chroma! 🙂
Want a long story a little bit longer? Sure. Here you go.
So, you know what RGB color space is, right? RGB stands for the colors red, green and blue, and it's the most-used standard of color representation that you'll find in all kinds of screens. As in, most probably the one you are staring at right now. Unless, of course, you spend your time scouring the interwebs for 1940s TV prototypes and find ways to hook them up to a computer that could probably get you to the moon. And if you do, more power to you! But let's say you're looking at an RGB screen. Which is something you're doing a lot then. Come to think of it, probably too much. So go outside, it's a really nice day! Don't want to? Fine. Your loss. Let's continue. This thing, the RGB color space screen, has color depth, too. Let's say 8 bits, which means it has 256 colors per channel, resulting in a maximum number of possible color gradations of around 16.8 million. You, know... lots of colors!
Why is that relevant? Well, it isn't really, but we thought you'd like to know. Oh, and also, it means your screen really doesn't have a whole lot to do when it's running White Shadows. Decades of technological advancements by really, really smart people, making it affordable for everyone in the Western World to spend their spare time looking at millions of colors, and the folks at Monokel decide to be super clever and use just 2 of them. Black. White. We even got the color of shadows wrong. Oh, and technically, we're not really just using 2 colors, but a spectrum between black and white, which means, I guess, we're using 256 shades of gray? I mean... Okay.
Long story a little shorter, there is a good chance we have no idea what we're talking about.
So we were a bit surprised when we got the request from Razer to include Chroma in White Shadows. You know, Chroma being the super flashy thing with millions of colors people use to make their AAA playing experiences even nicer. So we heard the request, and we were like "bla bla bla, really?" and they were like "yeah, no, sure, really, why not?" and we're like "but bla bla bla huh why? like, cos, you know, two colors?" and they're like "just try it, it's really cool" and we're like "but it's a lot of work and we're a tiny studio" and they're like "no no, we made it really simple for you" and we're like "but, you know... colors?" and they're like "no, really, you should try it!" and we're like "but it's hot and bla" and they're like "..." and so we were like "okay".
And so we took a look at Razer Chroma. You might know it much better than we do: It connects Razer peripherals and can broadcast effects and actions in games by illuminating the keyboard, mouse, headset, mouse pad, etc. And once we looked at it and tested the possibilities, it started to make real sense. Even for a black and white and stylized game like ours. Or maybe even especially for a game like ours. Just sit in a dark room with one of White Shadows' brightly lit trains rushing at you, and you'll understand:
If you've got the hardware, White Shadows will automatically play the effects from now on. Well, that is, you can turn them off, somewhere, probably, but why would you? They're awesome!
White Shadows won "Best Debut" at the German Video Game Awards!
Greetings, fellow humans!
The German Video Game Awards were held in Munich at the end of March - and when White Shadows was nominated in the "Best Debut" category, that was nice enough. But then we actually won!
You don't win awards every day, so... let's hear it for us 😄 Here is what the jury had to say about it:
"White Shadows throws us into a dark world whose dense, oppressive atmosphere casts a spell over us. Thanks to the successful staging and many lovingly placed details that tell a story about oppression, discrimination and violence via environmental storytelling, the gameplay never gets boring, even in quieter moments. Puzzles and mechanics added in the course of the game provide variety, and classical pieces of music used selectively in only a few places set exciting accents. White Shadows is an audiovisual work of art with a strong message."
That's nice to hear, isn't it? 🙂 White Shadows was our first game, and we're really proud of this award. We are a small studio and the idea for the game had been with us for many, many years before we could finally realise it. And so we would like to thank everyone who made it possible and went along for the ride. Thank you so much! You're all awesome!
And so are you, our players! To all you lovely people out there who supported us on the long journey of developing White Shadows, who played our demos and gave us your honest feedback, all the way through to the actual release: Thank you! ❤️
It has been exactly one week since our launch. As promised, our first patch is now live! Once again, thank you all for the feedback and the issues that you brought to our attention. Feel free to keep dropping us a line in the community discussions here on Steam community discussion or on our discord! :)
And now for the actual changelog. These include not only the issues you pointed out, but also some quality of life fixes:
The following achievements are fixed and will now be triggered at the correct times: There's blood on your hands; That's unfortunate!; You got a friend in me; Join the circus; Lord of the Birds (link)
Train ride and Chapter 2: mysteriously disappearing or misbehaving objects are now conducting themselves properly (link);(link)
Added accessibility tab in the menu where unlocking the cursor is possible (link)
We improved some of the frame drops
Ravengirl no longer falls or crawls in unwanted places - riding the batteries: going through the last platform; first small interactable box: falling through the floor after getting hit by the box; Tintown trials: falling through the floor after getting hit by the first obstacle; First trains sequence and Birds' house: falling through the ladders; "The Prophet" swirl: flying through the roof; Ravens! propaganda: crawling under the boxes; Chapter 5: crawling under the interactable button; Ravengirl as teenager flashback: crawling under a tube to hide from the light; Tiny chick flashback: crawling under the floor
Ravens! propaganda: Ravengirl uses her belly, not her legs, to slide faster backward
Checkpoint 2: the elevator is back in its rightful place once the checkpoint is loaded
Shuttle service puzzle: carrying tiny chicks into the shuttle with Ravengirl no longer causes issues
Chapter 1: Ravengirl can no longer rotate the hierarchy puzzle after it's solved
Funworld trials: respawning while on the wolf’s hands will not result in an endless death loop anymore
Fixed a graphic glitch on the menu screen while the Funworld TV overlay was active
Flying down with umbrella: no more Vultureboy flying across the screen continuously
Tintown trials and Stageplay: kids no longer are magical and disappear on screen
Waking up at Tintree: fixed a glitch where Ravenmom and Ravengirl would clip into each other
Infinity puzzle can no longer become infinite forever
There are more quality of life updates planned, but for now, the Monokel team is heading towards some well-deserved rest. We will see you next year!
Enjoy the festivities, The Monokel team <3
White Shadows is out now
And… *drumroll* … it’s done! What a ride!
Today is an emotional day for all of us here at Monokel. We completed something that is, in many ways, a dream come true for everyone on our team. All 7 of us. Our first game. When we put this studio together, we did it to tell stories that we felt needs to be told. That hasn’t changed.
In a world that’s growing more divided, we wanted to tell stories about that divide. To make our little contribution; to give you something interesting, something to talk about with your friends – or maybe even with people you don’t agree with. To entertain and to inspire.
We worked on this game for more than 3 years. We put the studio together almost 7 years ago. The first idea for the scenario that became this game world is more than a decade old. Everyone gave so much for this, it’s hard to describe. We couldn't be more thankful for all the help we had along the way. And we can’t help but hope that all of this means something to some of you, as well.
White Shadows is Monokel's first game. It won’t be our last. And it’s out now.
One more day… !?
Hello, future friends!
It’s been more than 3 years, and the dreams and fears and hopes of 6 people thrown into it. And with the help of lots of friends and family and partners whom we can’t thank enough, we can finally say… it’s coming out. Tomorrow. Just picture the largest “Wait?! What?!?!” billboard you can think of.
We had a really difficult, weird, beautiful, intense 3 years. Everything that could go wrong probably went wrong, like Murphy's law was using us as a test case. People say making games is hard -- they're right! 😄 Especially if you do it for the first time, and even more especially when you try to tackle the rather difficult themes we portray in our game world. And of course, it doesn't help when an excavator cuts the cable and causes a block-wide power outage while you're uploading the game's final version.
Anyway, that's all done now. We still can’t believe it’s coming out tomorrow. We’re grateful to everyone who helped us out along the way, and all of you who wishlisted it or said really kind things to us over the past year. We can’t wait for y’all to play it.
