With the Game Developers Conference just around the corner, we've been diving into the next tales from the Worlds Across the Causeway so we can share them there and find others who want to help us bring them to life.
Preproduction and Pitching
For the past month we've been refining all of the broad strokes for the next couple of games. Some days that's been figuring out the details of how the core mechanics work and how the stories will be structured, while other days we've been nailing down character profiles, working on visual development, or setting up the foundations of the actual game projects. One thing we prioritize, especially early in development, is to make things that we can look at and react to rather than discussing hypotheticals, so we've been leaning into experimentation these days.
The rest of our time has revolved around finding the development funding to bring these games to life. We've been distilling the core concepts for these games into pitches that are now going out to game funds, publishers, and investors so we can have the resources to fully realize our vision. Now we're geared up for GDC in a couple of weeks and looking forward to reconnecting with everyone we saw last year.
The Valley Calls a Journalist: A vignette from the Worlds Across the Causeway
The Valley calls. The Valley calls.
Todd had known the rhyme for all his life, though exactly where and from whom he’d learned it he couldn’t remember.
Darkness settled on the valley as the sun crept behind the San Juan Mountains. His eyes kept to the long, white lines bathed in his headlights as he drove, almost as a visual mantra. To his right, he passed the famous UFO Watchtower.
Things hadn’t gone how he’d planned after reporting back to The Inquirer and Reflection in Harvest. He thought he convinced them, his own employers, that the threat in western Kansas was real — at least a story worth committing resources to, something that could sell copies. But no… “excommunication”. That was the actual, professional, technical, legal — whatever — term the paper had used. Being quirky wasn’t new for them, though; Todd knew what he’d gotten himself into, he knew the kind of people he’d built his career around.
His mind had drifted. He was unsure how much time had passed. Everything now dark, his eyes fixated on the long, white lines — how long had he been staring… meditating.
And then in the distance, he saw it: a large, drive-in movie screen. He’d found what he was looking for. The neon Vacancy sign shone like an otherworldly lighthouse. Time to check in.
Stickers? Postcards? Merch?!
Shortly after the release of The Haunting of Joni Evers, we had an onslaught of people commenting on some of the art in the game, and more specifically asking for certain stickers. Well, we'd like to announce that we've made our first foray into merch and you can now get some of the stickers and postcards from the game in physical form!
Whether you want to show your appreciation for cryptids, prove you survived the ghost tour at the Holler Spring Hotel, or send a friend a postcard from Scrivener Point or the San Luis Valley, we've got you covered! Check out our merch store today!
Searching for The Causeway - Excerpt 2: A vignette from the Worlds Across the Causeway
“What are the “Worlds”? I’ve heard much mention of these places, questions from travelers as to what exactly they are and how one might explore them. While I don’t fully understand, allow me to shed some light so that others may see more clearly.
The “Worlds” are exactly as they sound: strange and wonderful places tucked away across our universe. And I use that phrase “tucked away” very meaningfully. They are at once a part of this world and separate from it. They are like the folding of spacetime, yet nothing like that at all.
In the same way that we can visit other “Worlds”, these “Worlds” too can visit us. We think of them as being distinct, but they are not. Whether or not we comprehend, our understanding of the cosmos is inseparable from their existence — they are intertwined into the very fabric of our conscious experience.”
We kept things a little lighter this month, but we're excited to share more when the time is right! If you have someone in your life that enjoys strange tales or story-focused games, please consider sharing this with them.
Until we meet again along the Causeway,
Kjartan Kennedy, Studio Director