Back to the Future or Causes of lingering development
Hi! Artem Netyagin, Head of Development, here and today i’m gonna tell you how the development of The Uncertain: Episode 2 looks on the inside.
Full notes
Full The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day update
Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.
What changed
0 fixes0 additions1 change0 removals
Balance
changedAfter the release of Episode 1 we’ve got a lot of reactions. The feedback was generally positive, but there was some critique as well, fortunately quite insightful. Having taken notice, we’ve realized that we had to change our approach to development: in Episode 1 I took up too many tasks and I had to solve many of them for the first time in my life, which affected the quality of the game. After some discussions we’ve decided that everyone has to do his own thing. We hired a dedicated script writer and a dedicated game designer. And even though I continue to closely work with them, they have taken most of key tasks for themselves. Changes in the team and the approach to development have led to a complete overhaul of the game concept and the script of Episode 2, effectively meaning we started over. Thanks to the team’s expansion we were actually on the way to creating something special, and the award that our script has gotten, “Die Grosse Nordklinge”, or “The Greatsword of Northern Lands” is another indication of that. Working as a team we’ve managed to interweave the story of Episode 2 into the already existing one of the first episode, not really changing the general concept, but making the story more engaging nonetheless. The work on the script and dialogues became much more serious - at the same time taking much longer to complete. While reading your comments we’ve noticed that a lot of players were upset by the fact that the game was quite linear. Surely it is not in our capacity to create something as non-linear as Detroit: Become Human, but we’ve put a lot of effort into creating some story branching, which should make each playthrough more individual. We won’t disclose the details just yet - you’ll see everything for yourself after the release. Moreover, the type of characters has changed. There is a reason why there were only robots around in Episode 1: I’ve chosen them not entirely because of the plot. They are also easier to animate, their movements are rather simple, they don’t have facial expressions or eyes. This simplified the development process. This time around the main characters in the game are humans, which leads to a whole bunch of stuff getting much more difficult: lipsync (the process of synchronising the lip movement with the speech), realistic movements, facial animations, eye movement, even the dialogues. There is a particular emphasis on the ill-fated Emily, the main protagonist of the game. She was getting on the nerves of our animators and modelers, her
The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day changes
changedAfter the release of Episode 1 we’ve got a lot of reactions. The feedback was generally positive, but there was some critique as well, fortunately quite insightful. Having taken notice, we’ve realized that we had to change our approach to development: in Episode 1 I took up too many tasks and I had to solve many of them for the first time in my life, which affected the quality of the game. After some discussions we’ve decided that everyone has to do his own thing. We hired a dedicated script writer and a dedicated game designer. And even though I continue to closely work with them, they have taken most of key tasks for themselves. Changes in the team and the approach to development have led to a complete overhaul of the game concept and the script of Episode 2, effectively meaning we started over. Thanks to the team’s expansion we were actually on the way to creating something special, and the award that our script has gotten, “Die Grosse Nordklinge”, or “The Greatsword of Northern Lands” is another indication of that. Working as a team we’ve managed to interweave the story of Episode 2 into the already existing one of the first episode, not really changing the general concept, but making the story more engaging nonetheless. The work on the script and dialogues became much more serious - at the same time taking much longer to complete. While reading your comments we’ve noticed that a lot of players were upset by the fact that the game was quite linear. Surely it is not in our capacity to create something as non-linear as Detroit: Become Human, but we’ve put a lot of effort into creating some story branching, which should make each playthrough more individual. We won’t disclose the details just yet - you’ll see everything for yourself after the release. Moreover, the type of characters has changed. There is a reason why there were only robots around in Episode 1: I’ve chosen them not entirely because of the plot. They are also easier to animate, their movements are rather simple, they don’t have facial expressions or eyes. This simplified the development process. This time around the main characters in the game are humans, which leads to a whole bunch of stuff getting much more difficult: lipsync (the process of synchronising the lip movement with the speech), realistic movements, facial animations, eye movement, even the dialogues. There is a particular emphasis on the ill-fated Emily, the main protagonist of the game. She was getting on the nerves of our animators and modelers, her
Hi! Artem Netyagin, Head of Development, here and today i’m gonna tell you how the development of The Uncertain: Episode 2 looks on the inside. I hope that having read this you’ll learn more about some aspects of work of small indie-studios as well as why there wasn’t a second episode for such a long time. The Uncertain: Episode 1 - The Last Quiet Day was our studio’s first game. The development of a sequel didn’t start right after the release of the first game - there was a half a year pause. During that time we were not only coming round after the release of our first project, but also supported Episode 1 and ported it to other platforms. Meanwhile first steps in Episode 2’s development have already been made simultaneously with the finishing touches of the first. We’ve already had a first draft of the story, first models, concept arts and even a couple of really crude locations.
After the release of Episode 1 we’ve got a lot of reactions. The feedback was generally positive, but there was some critique as well, fortunately quite insightful. Having taken notice, we’ve realized that we had to change our approach to development: in Episode 1 I took up too many tasks and I had to solve many of them for the first time in my life, which affected the quality of the game. After some discussions we’ve decided that everyone has to do his own thing. We hired a dedicated script writer and a dedicated game designer. And even though I continue to closely work with them, they have taken most of key tasks for themselves. Changes in the team and the approach to development have led to a complete overhaul of the game concept and the script of Episode 2, effectively meaning we started over. Thanks to the team’s expansion we were actually on the way to creating something special, and the award that our script has gotten, “Die Grosse Nordklinge”, or “The Greatsword of Northern Lands” is another indication of that. Working as a team we’ve managed to interweave the story of Episode 2 into the already existing one of the first episode, not really changing the general concept, but making the story more engaging nonetheless. The work on the script and dialogues became much more serious - at the same time taking much longer to complete. While reading your comments we’ve noticed that a lot of players were upset by the fact that the game was quite linear. Surely it is not in our capacity to create something as non-linear as Detroit: Become Human, but we’ve put a lot of effort into creating some story branching, which should make each playthrough more individual. We won’t disclose the details just yet - you’ll see everything for yourself after the release. Moreover, the type of characters has changed. There is a reason why there were only robots around in Episode 1: I’ve chosen them not entirely because of the plot. They are also easier to animate, their movements are rather simple, they don’t have facial expressions or eyes. This simplified the development process. This time around the main characters in the game are humans, which leads to a whole bunch of stuff getting much more difficult: lipsync (the process of synchronising the lip movement with the speech), realistic movements, facial animations, eye movement, even the dialogues. There is a particular emphasis on the ill-fated Emily, the main protagonist of the game. She was getting on the nerves of our animators and modelers, her
