EDGAR: The Great Victorian Adventure

EDGAR: The Great Victorian Adventure
Upcoming indie game EDGAR from Wrought Iron Games

“There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.” – Edgar Allan Poe

Hark! Direct your attention to this gothic adventure platformer featuring Edgar Allan Poe battling through Victorian London to rescue his wife from Jack the Ripper. Described by its creators as “a 2D lootfest with heavy influences from Gothic literature”, EDGAR’s alternate history of vampires, supernatural strangeness, and tuberculosis vagrants is sure to be a fun romp.

To save his wife, Edgar will arm himself with two of a variety of weapons, player’s choice of ranged or melee. Enemies will follow distinct attack patterns to force the player to adapt the appropriate tactics for each battle. Collectibles include coins to purchase new weapons, alcohol to restore Poe’s vigours, and inkwells to keep Poe’s weapons stocked against his foes. There are a number of clothing items that provide bonuses and additional movement options such as double-jumping and wall-sliding. Local and online co-op have been promised with Poe teaming up with his contemporary, Jules Verne.

Edgar's one snappy dresser.
Poe’s extensive wardrobe

EDGAR is made by a team of six operating as Wrought Iron Games. No release date has been mentioned, although the developers intend to launch a Kickstarter campaign soon to fund the remainder of the game. They hope to release on as many platforms as possible. You can seek more information about their game on their website.

Are you excited to match wits with Jack the Ripper in foggy London?  Talk about EDGAR in the forum.

Hard at Work

The work continues. Many sacrifices of sleep. It’s all worth it as the product nears completion.

Here’s where things stand:

– the first 8 levels are playable (and beatable!) with all 4 completed characters

– 18 of the game’s music tracks are done and quite excellently

– Death is a fully-animated running, jumping skeleton

– more graphics and sound effects are added every day

 

Stay alert, there will be a gameplay video loosed upon the public in the coming weeks. Possibly even something special for those of you with a sweet tooth.

Until next time, 2012

The creative minds behind Afterdeath reconvened for a week in Las Vegas to swap notes and enjoy some downtime. It wasn’t all booze and blackjack though. Afterdeath now features 4 playable characters.

  • Death runs, Death jumps. Everything you’d expect from a platformer character, except you can control the exact trajectory of your jump with the angle of the thumbstick. 90 degrees, 70 degrees, 15 degrees… all the angles you know and love.
  • All-Seeing Eye is a bouncy fellow. As in, he can’t sit still. Or run. Or jump. But every collision with a surface is an opportunity to send the Eye bouncing in a new direction. Not only can the All-Seeing Eye inelastically richochet off walls and ceilings, but he can stretch himself to increase air resistance, allowing you to stick those tricky landings.
  • Dead Icarus is the melancholy sort. Despite being burdened by zombified immortality, Icarus can still spread his wings and glide great distances, always accelerating toward his destination. Choose wisely, your only options are left and right and it’s a long way down.
  • The Traveler is lost… has lost. His rudimentary control of electrostatic potential lets him build up charge as he slides, increasing his grasp of the situation and offering time for contemplation. When the moment is right, the potential can be unleashed, launching The Traveler onward in a burst of electricity.

Use any of these characters to bounce, vault, dash, and dive through the countless levels of Afterdeath.

Level One: Complete

I’m excited to report that I finally have enough environment objects created to begin designing and testing levels in my first scheduled project, Afterdeath.

Afterdeath is a 2D platformer that will be released through Xbox Live Indie Games, Ouya, and PC in 2013. In Afterdeath, the grim reaper must track and follow a robot through dark underworlds and surreal realms of myth to retrieve the stolen tool of its trade, Death’s scythe.

This month I’ll continue aggressive debugging of the engine, refining the player controls to provide even more fluid gameplay, and filling up the world maps with completed levels to playtest. The current cache of environment objects at my disposal includes stationary and moving hazards (a platformer staple), jump pads (launch you into the air), dropout platforms (run and jump off them in freefall), springboards (aka diving boards, control the height of jumps), updrafts (a dense column of air that buoys objects upward), and pendulums (both weaponized and platformized). I’m currently working on adding moving platforms, various types of projectiles, and triggered events although so many interesting levels are already possible with the completed objects.

One down, one hundred and forty-nine more to go.

Don't judge: actual art assets TBD

Big Empty Space

This is one of those first actions inevitably made when confronted with a big empty space.

I believe that the increasing prevalence of technology and automation in our lives is freeing us from being constrained to any one pursuit or career. Free and open source tools are enabling hobbyists to produce professional quality results. The only limiting factor is the time and effort poured into the project and as technology simplifies the demands of daily life, there exists time to pursue creative dreams in the remainder. The rise in self-publishing is just the beginning of a creative revolution where no person has to be any one thing, but can be anything.

I seek to make my creative visions manifest as an experience that I can share with others through whichever medium suits the experience. I hope that with enough effort I can make these things exist in the world and gain the experience to collaborate with others to realize their creativity as well. This ambition now exists as Nonadecimal Creative, an agenda to make sure no sheet of paper remains blank.

I look forward to seeing what comes next.