Overland Newsletter — July 2016
Ok this is our first-ever proper newsletter so we have a lot of stuff to cover. I’ll do my best to get this over with so I can get back to adding more cool stuff to the actual game!
PUPCAR SHIRTS ARE GO
At long last, Heather’s fantastic “pupcar” tees are available now at the new Finji shop! Featuring Overland’s iconic rusted hatchback and a very ambitious pup, these shirts are online for the first time ever since our original print run last winter. Bekah and I are fulfilling the orders ourselves, so if you ever wanted us to mail you a thing, well, we would love to put a surprisingly soft and comfortable T-shirt in an envelope for you while we catch up on Parks & Rec.
MAKING GAMES IS CRAZY
Since this is our inaugural missive, here’s a quick summary to get everybody up to date. We started building Overland part-time in late 2013 (there’s a whole lot of words about that here). Last summer we changed up the team layout a bit and spent most of last winter breaking and rewriting big parts of the game to support the next wave of planned features. This Polygon-exclusive video is a good summary of where Overland was at around then.
In the spring we took Overland to the Game Developer’s Conference, where we sat in on a podcast with Frog Fractions’ creator and generally wonderful human Jim Crawford and let PC Gamer’s Tim Clark take the newly-refactored GDC build out for a spin. We also started adding shippable character and creature animations, which really brought things to life.
With E3 approaching, things started to get pretty exciting. We did two big Overland experiments and were really happy with the results from both of them. The first thing we did is start selling access to the playable alpha in limited quantities through our amazing partners at Itch.io. We even collaborated with them in developing the new Itch.io Refinery toolset. Currently Overland has over 2000 players and we could not have done it without them!
I feel a little weird spelling it out here but it is very important to us — the player reactions to the alpha, even the first round, were very positive. Overwhelmingly positive. Slightly disconcertingly positive. I personally found this very energizing… and a little scary. But you don’t have to take our word for it — Rock Paper Shotgun’s review of the alpha that was available then is very even-handed and sharp.
Big Experiment #2 was Art Director Heather Penn’s brainchild — a completely new approach to the way we generate and display the human characters in the game. Here’s some of the old, admittedly stylish characters:
But here are some of the characters that can be generated in the new system:
This is one of the places in the design where it was very easy to make an argument against the ‘cute’ faces, and to defend the faceless characters. For example, maybe it would be easier for players to project their own personalities onto faceless drones, similar to how FPS games work. Plus, this is a post-apocalyptic road trip, if things get too cute, well, it’d be the end of the world. Heather knew better though — Overland isn’t about projecting your own personality as much as it is getting to know and empathize with your generated crew. And that works about 1000x better when they have faces!
Also Chris Dwyer, who joined us back in February to help us manage the PR and marketing needs of this crazy project, started pushing us to do interviews and podcasts again — Bek and I got to chat on Creative Coding, NerdlyCast, and even an in-person recording on Loading Screen with fellow Austin dev Saam Pahlavan… just before we left Austin forever. On a roadtrip! In a hatchback!
ELECTRONIC ENTERTAINMENT EXPO
The Big One. The E3 — the Sauron of game events. This place was all about Doritos. But they were also all about IndieCade, where we got the chance to exhibit Overland for the week. We started things off by getting Heather to present her new Overland trailer on stage at the PC Game Show. She wasn’t nervous at all:
We also had the chance to show off the new terrain system we put together at the very last moment. I’m so excited about how these spaces are coming together.
Despite me missing my flight home and accidentally taking the team to see a burlesque show, the event went better than we could have ever expected. Overland, even in this early alpha state, was recognized as one of the best games of the entire show by PC Gamer, RPS, ZAM, and Paste Magazine. Heather and our audio director Jocelyn Reyes even went on Giant Bomb.
It went some places. And we took our PCGamer Best of E3 2016 Honorable Mention Placard on a little sightseeing tour of LA.
THAT WAS THEN
Since E3 we’ve been working on probably the least exciting stuff you can imagine. We hadn’t updated Unity (our game engine) for over 6 months, so we did that. We upgraded our static IP to use a remote VPN server for flexibility and stability purposes. We finished moving from Texas to Michigan (more on that in a minute). We also upgraded our automated build server from a very old crappy net-top to a very old nice laptop. Our new build script is nicknamed Waffles and is a very good boy.
All in all, it’s been a pretty busy year for Finji. And that’s just the Overland stuff! We also published Feist and the multi-IGF-nominated audio-visual masterpiece Panoramical. Then we moved from our home base of Austin, TX to Grand Rapids, MI, for several complex reasons. We’ve also been logging a few hours prepping for Night in the Woods’ upcoming PC/PS4 launch this fall. And, as we mentioned above, we finally opened our physical shop.
THAT WAS NOW
So where do we go from here? For the first time in over a year, we have no scheduled travel for an entire month. I can’t wait to get back on our regular game updates, especially with Waffles there to expedite everything. Most of the month is dedicated to transforming the functional UI wireframe we have now into the actual finished UI that we’ll be shipping with the 1.0 build next year. UI work is the worst… but so worth it.
We’re also looking forward to seeing everyone at PAX West this year, another first for us. Overland will be there, albeit in a yet-to-be-revealed capacity, but we’ll also be helping cover Night in the Woods’ PAX 10 booth. Plus, stay tuned for some announcements about when alpha access will be publicly available again.
As usual you can follow Overland or Finji on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and if you happen to be in the alpha already, don’t forget about the Itch.io Overland community! Thanks for reading, and I’ll somehow assemble another one of these before PAX West.
