Indiegogo - Give us a hand!

http://www.indiegogo.com/evergo

Help us reach our goal! Check us out on Indiegogo and maybe even contribute! We will be forever grateful.


It has gotten to that point where we need more to achieve more. We've done all we could with what were given to start with but we need recording equipment, we also need new software for more immersive ambience.


There are perks you can receive if you contribute, so please just check our page out. 

Thanks! Aaron.

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Players Perceptions on a Scene

  This thought and concept is a very scrutinised topic and the effect is only really carried out in the sub-conscious of the player unless they apply the utmost scrutiny to the mechanics and ideas behind Evergo.
  There are some scenes in Evergo that we want to really have an effect on the player. The first scenes of the game are very important as it sets the players expectations and feel for the game ahead, so some deep ideas and mechanics need to be thought through to influence the players perception of the scene ahead of them, specifically when they enter a significant room or area. Primary and obvious things that achieve this are things like the shape of the room, the gloominess, the atmosphere e.t.c But delving even deeper into the players sub-concious perception of the scene in front of them involves the mechanics of the brain when an individual sees a piece of artwork, literature or, as we are exploring: a scene. This theory is culturally biased, but only mostly towards Asians (that does sound harsh). Now, most races, especially English, read a piece of writing from the top-left, to the bottom-right, whereas Asians (Chinese not Japanese) will read from the top-right, to the bottom-left. This, in the sub-conscious, also can apply to an image. In a piece of artwork, we usually observe it like a piece of writing: top-left to bottom-right. now if you went and tried this you may notice it or may not because you are now concious of that fact. So when its comes to 'painting a picture' in an important scene from Evergo, this theory/concept is used. So with this implemented, the scene has to be arranged and designed to feed information to the players eyes on their presumed path from top-left to bottom-right. So, if we want to bring out a sense of confusion and messiness, before a feeling of the unknown... we would probably have rather dirty and messy feature on the left wall (to weakly influence confusion and messiness) and then have a corridor leading of to the left (to create a sense of the unknown). This is a basic example and can definitely go deeper, like a  painting within a painting within a painting... psych!
  It may be hard to understand and is a minor-looking idea but in the end it is effective to use and can deeply influence the players feeling about what they see before them.

-Jonathan Ravesteyn (Lead 3d modeller, sound engineer, founder)

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Playing Evergo with an xbox controller!

Modified the code only slightly to test out what it would be like to play the game with an xbox controller. No, the game wasn't compiled to an xbox (i just used a USB xbox controller on a pc). To be honest it felt kinda cool playing our own game with an xbox controller, it's a different feeling because an xbox controller is only related to gaming whereas a mouse and keyboard is used everyday for anything and everything. It sort of made the game feel more "exclusive", and that we are actually making a game!

Hardest thing to explain...

-Aaron

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A message from the scripter!

My personal journey so far, as an indie game developer has been exciting, tiresome yet fun. Who would have known how much one can actually learn about the game industry in such a short time span (something like 4 months in total). I didn't even know a programming language. So I've learnt JavaScript, the entire unity interface including it's engine, game development concepts and a little C#. There have been hours of time devoted to understanding how a game should run and different methods to make the game more immersive. I think the hardest part about creating evergo so far has been trying to pack as many visual features into the game with and engine which is powerful, yet doesn't seem to do well with image effects. My point here is not to brag, but to show you how hard we've worked to get where we are now. Just a little side note: I ordered 10 evergo pens to trial them. Mainly out of excitement for the game but if anyone wants one leave a comment or email me (aaron@bilinearsoftware.com) , you're more than welcome to buy one. Soon I'll post some images of them including an image for a possible t-shirt with the bilinear triangle or evergo title.

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GMZ Interview with Thomas Grip

ORIGINAL POST HERE!

Basically these guys are our main inspiration, so we found this pretty interesting. Enjoy!

Frictional Games are a small independent studio based in Sweden and have so far impressed with their excellent Penumbra game series. They are preparing to launch their new horror game, Amnesia, soon and we thought about asking them a few questions. Read on below:
GMZ: First of all, how did Frictional Games come together?
Thomas Grip: Jens and I first collaborated on a game called Unbirth (that never got finished) in 2005. We then worked together on a game for our thesis which in turn led us both to do a one year masters course. It was during this course that the Penumbra tech demo was made and after the course we started working on Penumbra Overture. In 2007 the company was officially formed and Penumbra Overture was released. During the development of Black Plague and Requiem 3 more people joined, which has brought us the total size of five people!
GMZ: How many people are involved in the development of Amnesia?
Thomas Grip: We are five people in the core team that have worked full time on the project since the start. We then have a lot of freelancers that we work with. We have one guy who does all the music, one writer, a mac/linux porter, a guy that makes all the additional sounds, a firm that did some of the animation, two that have been doing some concept art and four artists who have done additional art. On top of that are voice actors, people doing casting and so on. Some of these have only put in a few days of work, while others several months. So there has been something almost 20 people involved in total, but at the core we are just five people.
GMZ: Where do you draw the inspiration for your games? There’s a lot of Lovecraft in there, but what else? For example, there are a couple of Thief levels (Cradle and Return to the Cathedral) that seem pretty close to what you guys showed so far.
Thomas Grip: There are have been tons of inspirations when making Amnesia and these have been collected during the three years we have worked on the project. Some of the more major inspirations comes from books read on 18th and 19th century scientists and set the tone for much of the story. Also things like the Milgram experiments and Unit 731 have been inspiration for themes that we cover. Games that have inspired us include Bioshock and Silent Hill 2, which have helped us determine ways to tell the story and how to create environments. I really loved the first 15 minutes of Bioshock (before the wrench fighting started) and that kinda of immersive and interesting environments and scenarios have a been one of our many goals.
GMZ: I remember the first time I read a short story by Lovecraft and realized that the key to a successful horror is to not actually show anything specific, keep the reader (or player) guessing, unsure. Games are not that subtle: you usually get a gun and some baddies that may or may not look scary. The only games that come close to that feeling of dread that you get from the Lovecraft stories are Asian horrors (the Fatal Frame series, for example). Why do you think developers are so reluctant to use these incredible powerful mechanics?
Thomas Grip: I think many are stuck in the thought that games must be “fun”. So when a game is started out you first try and find the proper mechanic (usually based on killing stuff), refine that and then add all story, atmosphere and immersion on top of that. This approach makes it impossible to have enemies that are only hinted at and build a fear of the unknown. What we try to do instead is not to have any specific gameplay at the core of the game, but rather emotions and feelings that we want to evoke. Then we try and come up with mechanics that work towards creating these. For example, Amnesia does not really have any core gameplay, but is rather about placing the player in a fictional world and then let them have an experience inside this world. The mechanics are only there to support this experience and does not need to have any fun-value on their own.
GMZ: What are the most important design rules behind Amnesia?
Thomas Grip: The most important rule is to let the horror happen inside the head of the player. By letting the player imagine what lies behind the next corner instead of showing, you can increase the horror level a lot.
The second rule of importance is that the player should be the protagonist. The player is always in control, there are no cut-scenes, no time-jumps and the protagonist should not speak for the player. The last point means that there will never be comments on subjective matters in the environment and it is up for the players to decide what they are seeing.
GMZ: What did you set out to accomplish with your games? Besides getting the players scared…
Thomas Grip: To create a game where the players feel like that they truly are the protagonist and then immerse them in a story that stimulates thought and makes them think about moral, human evil and things like that.
GMZ: How does the creative process go for Frictional Games? I know you don’t actually work in an office, but from home. Does that affect you or the project in any way?
Thomas Grip: Hard to say since we have never really worked in an office. We have worked out a lot of ways to deal with stuff and do not feel like we miss much. As for creative process, it is very hard to describe, but involves a lot of iteration and cutting. I think that pretty much nothing of the initial idea is left in the game.
GMZ: This is your 4th horror game, so you seem pretty committed to this genre. Let’s presume Amnesia will sell millions and make you all stinking rich. What would you like to do next?
Thomas Grip: As long as we make enough money to survive we will continue to evolve and try to make something new and interesting in the gaming medium. Our plan is to try and push the boundaries further and the amount of success we have with Amnesia will determine how much resources we can spend trying to do so.
GMZ: Tell us a little bit about your experience as indie developers. How hard is it for you to keep developing games on your own?
Thomas Grip: At times it is really hard and I think we have been close to closing the company at least three times since we started. Right now things are looking really bright though and if we get a decent success with Amnesia we should almost come up to normal living standards! The last year has been quite tough financially, but I guess sometimes that is what is required to do what you love.
GMZ: Will you launch the editor alongside the game? It looked really interesting and easy to use, so I presume a lot of people would want to try it.
Thomas Grip: It will be released along with the game! Probably as an optional download.
GMZ: Will there be a boxed (or collector’s) version of the game?
Thomas Grip: There will be a boxed version of it in Russia, but EU and US are still undecided.
GMZ: One of the voices in the latest video (not the main character) sounds a lot like the mission briefing voice from Dungeon Keeper 1. Am I crazy?
Thomas Grip: As you might have read from our release date PR, the game has been known to cause insanity…

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Thoughts on Provoking Fear Through Monsters and Phobias

  By now, it has gotten to the stage where we have needed to concern our self's with involving monsters in the game. Provoking fear, being the main purpose of involving monsters, can become a matter involved rather deeply with emotions and phobias.
  Monologophobia (which can refer to repetition/the same) is a phobia that, along with many other phobias, can be integrated quiet well into the game and used in context of the idea of pursuit from the monsters. Monologophobia is a fear that I used specifically in one of the basements as the basement is like a small maze, and all the corners and walls are very similar giving the feeling of being lost and presenting Monologophobia. Then with the idea of having a monster in there with you that could be anywhere, brings out those fears to the surface and the players mind wanders into, most likely, a place where these fears are always nagging at them. If mastered, it can be a perfect circle.
  Another thing that was meditated on was the actual design of the monsters themselves and their influence in the game. The monsters hold the biggest sway in the fear factor in this game, so a lot of time was taken to perfect the monsters and their influence. Their appearance is the most important factor in my opinion; it is what we observe and become confronted by in the monsters the most. So with this in mind the monsters were based on basic child-hood fears eg: the boogeyman, Frankenstein, general monsters etc. Many horror games these days are 'over-doing' (so to speak) the monsters or zombies they involve in their games by taking on the tactic of provoking disgust by making the creatures completely torn, flayed, skinny, half dead, twitchy, and pretty much an over-flayed corpse-thing. There isn't much wrong with that approach but if not used right, it is very short lived and it has also been used up and people are just about used to it. Having a new approach to the look of the monster keeps the fear of the unknown by easing the monsters into the players experience rather than loosing it out in a sudden burst of scare to chase the player and desensitize the payer for the rest of the game and render it not as scary an experience as it could be.
  As the game goes down the long road of development, new concepts and ideas are being surfaced and integrated to make it a suspenseful and fear-filled game as possible.

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Forum launch

BRAND NEW forums have been launched on our BRAND NEW website :)
Feel free to access them HERE!

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