Here’s the main theme for SpinSling, composed by the talented André Lund of Mojo Soundtrack
retrogene
SpinSling: Challenges
It’s quite clear that making a game, small or large, over a short period of time is a challenge in and of itself. Add part-time jobs, researching and developing marketing plans, understanding how publishing works and well… all of those other things that sometimes go unnoticed when thinking about game development, and you’ve got yourself a busy schedule. With such a schedule comes a huge set of design and development challenges, and we’ve tried to outline a few of them here.
Time Management: Make a plan and stick to it.
Oh, how important planning is, and oh, how many times you can tell yourself that and not follow up on it. Sticking to a plan and really working towards reaching the goals you’ve set up for yourself and others is important if you hope to have any kind of steady progress. The busier a person you are, the more sense it makes to plan things. It’s pretty obvious, but falling out of the plan is dangerously easy when no one is following up and making sure that progress is being made.
Ensuring Fun
After playing SpinSling too much already, I’m confident the game will be fun… or can I be that confident? We have planned for a short development cycle, but it is still important to get actual player feedback on the project. Extensive testing on big groups will be important through development and before release. Still, the game is already a good bit of fun, but ensuring that it will be as much fun as possible is the challenge!
Design for the circumstances
We can admit that Secrets of the Labyrinth was and is a pretty big undertaking for our first project, that’s why we’re doing SpinSling. SpinSling is designed to be a simple, yet extremely fun experience, and it has to be if we’re going to make it in the time frame that we’re planning. With part-time jobs as well, it’s easy to see how big or medium sized projects can end up taking a lot more time than intended because a lot more things can go wrong. The challenge here lies in following the golden rule of KISS: Keep it simple, stupid! Some of the fun in our game comes from the fact that it is just so easy to get into it and the challenge of mastering it, keeping that in mind while designing the game, we think, is key.
These are just three things that we have to be aware of. There are obviously many other things to think of. Like, how do we monetize the game? How do we market it? How do we make sure that you, the player, can come back to our game, again and again, and still have just as much fun as you had the first time, or better yet, even more fun! For now, this will do, and we hope you will enjoy the further development of the game!
SpinSling
While our work continues on Secrets of the Labyrinth, we found it was a suitable time to split up for a much smaller project that we hope to plan, develop and publish in a short period of time. That project is SpinSling!
We’re super excited to share the development of the game with you guys, and we’ll be doing three updates a week, starting today and updating on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. At least until we reach the polishing phase (I’m not sure how exciting it will be to read about yet another day of polishing).
So what exactly is this so called “SpinSling”?
In the game you control two critters that spin and sling their way through an endless obstacle course, in their hope of escaping Pirate Whose-name-has-not-been-decided. Along the way they collect berries, fruit and power-ups to aid them and unlock more critters and other goodies that you can play around with.
This is a concept image that tries to explain what the game could be like in-game. Expect things to get more wacky though!
Hope you look forward to the next update on Sunday!
The New Logo
So, just a small break to talk about something not related to Labyrinth.
We made a new logo! And we think it’s pretty rad, but other than that, I think its due time to explain just why we’re called Retrogene.
Retrogene ‘re-tru,jeen
It’s a medical term and a game company in Bergen, Norway. However, despite our vast intellect, we did not become doctors, but gamers and then game developers. As gamers we grew up learning to love the 8 and 16-bit systems and of course later generations of systems and software. While modern games can be just as fun to play, the good old games of the past will always have a special place in our hearts and therefore we say that we carry the retro-gene with us.
Also a shout out to the testers at ByLan in Bergen for giving us some valuable feedback!
About time!
For an update that is. The promise of weekly updates came and went, but hey – we’re not dead and we’re still working on Secrets of the Labyrinth. Check out some of the kick ass art from our artists as well as an early screenshot from the game!
Let’s go for a walk!
This week’s update we’re showcasing some of the excellent animation from our animator Andreas. Some fine tuning left, but I think it’s safe to say that you can see where it’s headed! Stay tuned for next week’s update!
Also we would like to send a big congrats to our friends at Rain Games and Henchman & Goon as well as a bunch of other Norwegian developers who received funding. We’ll be crossing our fingers for next time!
Gameplay Feature #02
It’s that time of the week again – development update time! This time, let’s have a look at some of the objectives of the game! Remember that all images are from early development and subject to improvements!
1. Primary objective: Reach the end of the level
Pretty straight forward – clear the puzzles until you find your way to the finish line. However, there are certain things you might want to do which can make this become a little bit tricker!
2. Secondary objective: Find all the treasures
There’s a bunch of things you can find throughout the levels. Some of them might be well-hidden, some challenge you to solve a puzzle in a less straight forward way. You’ll have to do your best to find everything! What can you do with all this fantastic loot? We’ll save that for a later update 😉
3. Story objective: Unravel the story
Throughout the game you can find clues to an underlying storyline, can you figure out what’s going on?
That’s it for this week, stay tuned for more updates next week!
Office!
After looking at several offices, finally selecting one, going to contract meetings, paying deposits and rents.. we’ve got it! Our very own office! There’s something about stepping into a work space which you know will be filled with lots of creative ideas and long hours. It’s about that time you start to feel like “this is really happening”. Even if it has been happening for much longer than just in that moment.
Of course I could talk about it as much as I wanted to, but as the wise people of the internet says: “pics or it didn’t happen!”
Photobombing
Photobombing: The Sequel
Aragorn being a rockstar.
In the end I just want to remind you that we also have a facebook and twitter page, consider following us there, and also here if you want to keep yourself up to date on our latest progress!
Development Blog
Welcome to the development blog for Retrogene Studio. We’ll use this to keep you up to date with our latest projects. I would write a really lengthy post right now if I had the strength to do so, however, I’ve spent all my energy spicing up the studio’s website and ignoring one of my body’s favourite primary needs: Food. So with that said, keep a look out for posts in the future to find out what Retrogene Studio is all about!
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you can find us on twitter, facebook and also our own website!
