It appears that you have stumbled upon my humble blog. Welcome stranger! Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to customize the layout, but don't judge the book by its cover right?
Most likely, you came here because of a certain game I've been making. In this first blog post, I'm going to tell a little bit about the making of the game, about myself and game making in general.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, check out the trailer below.
Katakomb is a freeware independent horror game, made with the Unity engine. For a little under 9 months now, I've been hard at work to deliver a certain vision I've had since last October. I have made games before, but this was the first time I've been working in 3D and at such a big scale.
Let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. Looking back, I cannot believe how far the game has come. It's such a relief that I can finally show some footage. During developement of my previous games, I would show footage as early as 1 month in development, when only a small part of the game was actually finished.
This lead to many unfinished projects and failed experiments due to lack of motivation. One of the reasons for the early footage, was because I have big passion for making trailers and hopefully it shows in the trailer above. A good trailer should make you excited and want to play the game, but it should also spark a little bit of investigation, where you start to analyze the trailer bit by bit.
I especially like the trailers that Rockstar Games and Kojima Productions have produced. When you can make the anticipation of a trailer exciting, you know you've done something right.
So what about me then? Well I'm 20ish old guy from Finland that likes to produce stuff. I've done short films, drawn a lot and have tried to make some music in the past (although it usually failed quite horribly).
Then of course, there's the game making, which I started somewhere around 2007. I worked mostly with Game Maker and produced many games, with an emphasis on storytelling or interesting game mechanics.
My current philosophy is that a good game isn't purely about the gameplay nor the fun factor. A good game is entertaining and delivers an interesting experienc. A good game makes you think. For example, think about Call Of Duty and Metal Gear Solid. Which one made you think? Which one made you question your views? Now there are some interesting segments in Call Of Duty series (one particular mission in Modern Warfare 2), but I think that MGS series offers so much debate on different issues that it no only works as a game, but also for example as a political commentary.
However, I think that MGS series does very little to deliver the story from a gameplay perspective. Most of the story is made up of cutscenes and the gameplay consists of sneaking and shooting.
Thus I think, that the future of game storytelling is about the different ways to express particular idea or concept from a gameplay standpoint. How do you use gameplay to tell about povetry or hunger? What about slavery or corruption? Games can help significantly for us to understand and explore these things. The only question is how can it be done.
Games that experiment with these new ways of storytelling, might first be considered out of place or odd.
That's also where name MrOddbird comes from: to offer different, perhaps even odd experiences and to explore new things in familiar genres.
Also, that logo isn't suppose to be a turnip in a trenchcoat.
Katakomb isn't really that different from many other horror games, but it's a start and hopefully it will deliver on some of the aspects. It's more about experimenting, rather than making something groundbreaking
Some of the ideas I've had in my head are very exciting (or at least a few close people of mine think so). There have been moments where I thought: "Why isn't anybody making this!?"
At the same time I'm kinda nervous that someone might make a particular concept before me.
However, there have been some indie games that have had a very similiar vibe to the game I've been making, so I cannot really say that my work is something completely new and fresh.
I'm still hoping to deliver an exciting short experience and hopefully I can deliver even the slightest that I've set to make.
Thanks for reading this introduction. I'm not sure how often I'll write on this blog.
Until next time, stay tuned!
Katakomb is coming late 2013/early 2014.
