Astroblog

Making of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

[theastrocrew]

Next-Gen Art Event and New Horizons exhibit

I have chosen some photos from this year's Next-Gen Art Event and New Horizons exhibit. Just ...beautiful art from beautiful games. We're honored to be a part of this.

See the select photos here.

See The Vanishing of Ethan Carter pieces here.

Even more photos from the event (also the source of the ones above) here.

[theastrocrew]

Video Games Made Me Do It

Something tragic happened yesterday in our home country. A 19 years old (police believes she was "the brains") and her boyfriend killed the boyfriend’s parent. When caught, they said they were inspired by “American movies”.

Today, a drunk man was caught after threatening a woman with a knife. He blamed it on “video games”.

Recall how things were a few years ago. It was the media who were making the “connection”. Digging deep until they found that this or that disturbed individual played “World of Warcraft” or listened to metal.

Criminals learned from this. Apparently pleading insanity is too hard and passé. But “video games made me do it”? Why not, moral panic says it's true. Despite zero actual real evidence.

Let's hope these excuses will not work as they never did in the past.

[theastrocrew]

Achievements in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

We have just added 14 Steam achievements to The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. But I have always been quite vocal about how harmful achievements are (e.g. see the fifth sin here). So what happened?

Well, I did say we would keep figuring it out. And we did.

First, the core idea of awarding the player for achieving something is not wrong. In Ethan, you play as an occult detective. When, for example, you find a corpse and solve the mystery behind the murder, it’s literally an achievement. We may just as well let the world know what you managed to accomplish.

Second, achievements are mostly harmful when they shape a behavior or artificially extend gameplay time. For example, “Finish the game without killing anyone” in a game that offers the freedom of choice (e.g. sneak past an enemy, knock them unconscious or kill them) is both behavior shaping and artificial time extender. Telling the player to be whatever they want to be, but then awarding them for being exactly as the developer imagined is just wrong. It's a much longer discussion for another time, though.

Third, the other way that achievements can harm the immersion is basically by when and how they are displayed. My hesitance towards achievements was mostly due to the way they are implemented in other systems and games. As I play more and more games on Steam, I can see how fairly non-invasive Steam achievements are: muted colors, no sound, lower right corner. Good choices, Valve. Also, some games just unlock them at the right moment, e.g. not in the middle of an emotional scene.

Fourth, yes, achievements are external entities, from beyond the world of the game. But so is “saving the scene” text/icon. So we figured that we might just as well launch the achievement unlock at exactly the same moment. We tested it, everything worked like a charm, and people keep asking for achievements -- so we figured that there’s no harm, then, to add the achievements to the game.

Fifth, if you analyze the names of the achievements, you will probably realize something no one (we think?) has realized so far, and we figured it’s a nice way to integrate the achievements as a certain meta-element of the story and the message that the game is telling.

Sixth, it’s a bit late for that and I wish we had the time to analyze achievements deeply sooner and just had them at launch, but achievements are also a good way to track player behavior. How many people finish the game? If they stopped playing, when did that happen? Is there anything they liked in the game in particular? How popular are “secrets” in a game like ours? Adding achievements will provide us with useful data for the future.

To sum it up, our achievements do not force you do things you possibly wouldn’t want to do, they’re not artificial time extenders, they’re non-invasive and unlocked in neutral moments. That’s why there are only fourteen of them. It would be extremely easy to add fifty, with silliness like “Discover every single clue” or “Complete the game in under two hours” etc., but we didn’t fall into that trap.

All achievements are hidden, because they are all spoilers. Good news is that if you have finished the game already, most of them will automatically unlock just when you launch the game. But at least one thing is new …but we will leave that for you to discover.

[theastrocrew]

Ethan Carter Sales Analysis

We sold 60K copies of Ethan Carter in the first month. Is that a lot or is that low?

On the surface level, 60K is not a lot, considering that currently Steam has over 100 million active accounts. It means that only 0.0006% of Steam users bought the game despite the critical acclaim and nearly 1.5K gamers giving us “Recommended” rating on Steam.

It’s also not a lot considering that an indie game like Rust sells 1M in the first two months (150K in the first two weeks). Or that Goat Simulator sells 1M in four months.

On top of that, some of our sales are from retail, from which we get less money than from digital platforms. And even from digitals platforms it is not the 70% for the developer as some people believe. Remember that in countries like Russia the price is lower, so the revenue per copy is lower. From the units sold in Europe, subtract VAT. Then subtract the US tax from the entire revenue. Then subtract the engine license. Then subtract the Polish income tax from that.

Yeah, forget the 70% dream. Not even close.

But when you dig deep, you will see that 60K copies is actually pretty good.

First, it’s a game from a new studio, in a genre the creators are not known from. Consumer trust is everything. Rust wouldn’t sell as much if not for the fact it’s from the developers of the legendary Gary’s Mod.

Second, we are priced at $20. No point in comparing us to games that cost much less like Goat Simulator or The Stanley Parable.

Third, that is just the first month. It’s not like the game is disappearing from sales now. It will keep getting second, third, and fourth life. For example, the PS4 version will also boost the PC sales (confirmed by talking to devs with similar history). Also, games like ours have what we call “a long tail”. They are nearly evergreen, still a valid proposal for someone two, three, four years down the road.

Our goal was to sell at least 50K copies in the first month, which is what Gone Home achieved. We chose Gone Home as a point of reference due to identical price and similar genre. I wouldn’t compare our sales directly, as – affair – Gone Home was only sold on Steam at the time, and without pre-orders, and we did pre-orders, and were available on GOG and in retail from the start. But still, it seems like we have managed to hit the target. And that is great news, and our new target is 250K, which is what Gone Home sold in half a year.

So that is what counts. The trajectory. The initial month of sales allowed us to catch a breath, pay debts and be calm about the future. We should be financially secure for years to come in just the next couple of months, and anything else, like PS4, is going to be an extra. Which we’ll probably spend on the next game anyway, but that is a different story.

[theastrocrew]

The Evil Within

The Evil Within is clunky, outdated, full of issues. It’s also the best game I’ve played this year.

If there were a list of Top 100 Design Not-to-Does, The Evil Within would probably tick off every single item. Bad dialogue. Doors blocked by cardboard boxes. Grind. Motivating the player to explore mostly for extrinsic rewards. Filler through forced re-use of gameplay segments. Invisible barriers. Interactive parts of the environment becoming interactive only after a script is triggered. And so on and so forth – listing it all would take a while.

The thing is, I don’t care. I don’t care!

I had a blast, and even did not go to work just so I could finish the game. I loved the experience so much that I have bought the Season Pass and even the comic book. And I’m about to jump on the game's Steam forum to spend a couple of hours reading the interpretations of the story.

How is that possible?

The Evil Within did two things right for me. I played it on PC, so not only I had a nice and steady 60 fps, but, more importantly, I could use the official cheats like godmode and unlimited ammo. I could still die in the game (the cheats don’t protect you from quite a few dangers), but I could also avoid a lot of the game’s design clunkiness. The cheats turned the game to more of an experience than tiring, mechanical grind through frustrating – mostly due to the faulty execution – set of challenges.

If this is the moment when you thought “but he ruined the game for himself”, then a) I just literally wrote I didn’t, b) read this to better understand how cheats can improve experience in games that offer the difficulty setting anyway.

Second, The Evil Within has a soul. I played quite a few really good games this year, but something was always a bit off. Some were a bit too calculated, some a bit too hermetic, some just a little bit boring. The Evil Within can be many things, but boring it is not. And you can feel that the creator had a lot of freedom when designing the game. I mean, I do not know if that is true, but it just feels like it is –because of the undeniable fact that the game has a soul.

The Evil Within also showed me how important it is to have a certain mindset when starting the game. I have honestly not expected a lot from The Evil Within, as the trailers were too surreal to me, and too focused on the cliché damage to the flesh. But right before playing I thought to myself, “Fuck it, I’m just gonna go with it. Give me madness, give me cheesy dialogue, give me a goddamn RE4 shotgun” – and the game delivered in spades.

I am yet to play The Walking Dead Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us, so, you know, maybe I’ll have a new GOTY next week. But for now, The Evil Within, this joyously chaotic mess of old school designs is the game I enjoyed the most this year so far. Simply because it won me over with is sheer madness, incredible visual and audio stylization, and despite being a highly commercial video game published by a corporate giant, feeling like it’s personal.

[theastrocrew]

On Violence in Video Games

Founders of The Astronauts worked on a few violent video games: Painkiller, Bullestorm, Gears of War: Judgment. Even our latest game, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, dot not shy away from violence and the macabre. I guess this is the reason why Engadget asked me what I think on Hatred. The Engadget article is here, and below you can find my full response in one piece.

Humans are cultured animals. We want to believe we are rational, objective, driven by noble goals, but the truth is we’re incredibly biased, instinct-driven animals. But here is where the “cultured” part becomes important. Stories – told by books and movies or experiences through video games – allow for catharsis that satisfies our primal side without any discernible harm to anyone.

Some creators achieve that through empathy, but in video games we mostly achieve that through hypocrisy. You kill, torture, dominate, humiliate and sin without consequences, but game designers always offer a thin veil of an excuse.

Take Bulletstorm, for example. It’s a game in which you are rewarded for creative kills. The more elaborate the kill, the higher the reward. Decapitate the enemy, and that’s cool, but decapitate them when they’re on fire, now that’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

But the game offers two excuses for you to feel good about yourself. First, all enemies are clearly evil, bloodthirsty thugs, the worst scum in the known universe. Second, the gameplay is absurd, grotesque. You impale enemies on gargantuan cacti with a super-kick, for example. Reasonably hard to confuse that with real life.

In some games the veil is thinner, but it still exists. GTA is a nearly photorealistic simulator, but the ghosts of Tarantino and social satire are not invisible. You know you’re not role-playing a real gangster, but one straight from a movie. The entire world of the game is the reality’s Hollywood doppelganger.

As I said, more often than not it’s hypocrisy. The point is still to massage your primal instincts, to let the vampire in you taste the human blood. But this is one of those rare cases where hypocrisy, “the homage that vice pays to virtue”, is a good thing. We eat the cake, and we have it, too.

Violent video games satisfy the desires we don’t admit having, but being able to find an excuse for all the murder keeps us believing that we’re still rational, decent human beings. That we’re actually doing ourselves a favor, letting off steam in the most harmless way possible.

Games like Hatred remove the veil. They are the Xenomorphs of this world, “unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality”. It’s their lack of hypocrisy that is so, nomen omen, destructive.

A hypocrite knows right from wrong; they know they sin when they sin. They find excuses for these sins just like we find excuses to mow down another hundred enemies in a video game. And even though they don't follow it, deep down they know which way the moral compass is pointing. Hatred takes the excuses away from us and asks us to enjoy the sin out there in the open.

We will not do it. A request to bare our animal souls in front of ourselves is a step too far. The fact we cannot do it is a gift, one that allows us the realization that we're not as corrupt and empty as we subconsciously feared we were. And thus a lot of people will not buy and play Hatred, feeling disgust just looking at the game's title. However, and I guess that is the key here, I don't think it is Hatred we really despise.

It's the realization that we are surrounded by people who do not have enough basic decency to be hypocrites. People who have no moral compass, no empathy, who refuse to acknowledge that no, it's not 'just a game.' With their cold realism, motion-captured animations and hair-raising screams, the creators of Hatred go all the way to make sure it's not just a game, but an experience.

We don't want to acknowledge the ugly truth that there are people out there whose idea of fun is to press the shotgun barrel against the face of a terrified woman –- and pull the trigger.

[theastrocrew]

Seeing through the Veil

We don’t expect much from games, do we?

It bothers me, yes. It has real repercussions. For example, some reviewers and some gamers finished Ethan, just took what they saw and formed an opinion, and didn’t think to dig deeper. I already wrote about it once (warning, spoilers!) but to be clear, I don’t blame anyone. As I said, we don’t expect much from games, so why should things be different in Ethan’s case?

A fun fact: there is a thing about The Vanishing of Ethan Carter that no one has discovered yet. I’m not talking about a secret or an Easter Egg, it’s out there in the open. It’s an important part of the game’s overall construction, but no one notices. Is it because it’s hidden a bit too well? Heck no. I bet if Ethan were a book or a movie, people would spot it right away. But it’s, you know, “just a game”.

Of course, some people trust video games a bit more. Take Plastic’s Datura, an experimental PS3 game. No reviewer realized what it was really about, but one gamer did. I remember talking to Michal, Plastic’s head honcho, and how happy he was that at least one person saw through the veil. Maybe one day it’ll happen to Ethan too.

Who’s to blame that we don’t expect much from video games?

I do blame creators first. Because the story is often merely “a layer”, and not an integral part of the experience. And, let’s be honest, even that “layer” is rarely more than an afterthought or a mess that only a thirteen years old is not embarrassed by.

Second place belongs to the journalists, because “the story of this action-adventure is boring and weak, but it’s a still 9/10 game” is a thing that still exists as of October 2014.

Does the third place belong to gamers themselves? No, but I think there is something they can do to help change things for the better. What exactly? Watch these seven minutes of the latest episode of Extra Credits. Yes, the whole blog post is just to lure you into watching that video. But seriously, do it. Then give it a little thought. Quite an interesting proposal, that video, isn’t it?

[theastrocrew]

Idle Thumbs and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

I love it when game developers criticize and analyze games. It’s a different perspective to journalists and gamers, and I find this perspective extremely useful.

I have also criticized and analyzed elements from some games on our main website, and I always hoped that someone from the gamedev world would do the same to my game one day. That just kind of happened in the latest episode of Idle Thumbs.

I never listened to Idle Thumbs before. Nothing to do with this particular podcast itself, I’m just not a fan of podcasts, audiobooks, radio interviews and anything of the sort. Not sure why, maybe “just a voice” is not enough of stimuli for me, married with the lack of control over the flow. But anyway, so Idle Thumbs talked about Ethan and it was interesting to listen to.

Was it because they didn’t like the game very much (apart from the visuals)?

No. But first let’s look at what exactly didn’t work for Idle Thumbs:

Bad writing

Supernatural

Not engaging

Let’s start with the last one. Chris Remo elaborated on that on Idle Thumbs forum:

In general this isn't something I have a lot of patience for "All this stuff you found scattered and unappealing totally makes sense if you just play it for hours and hours first." I'm not playing the game as a preparatory exercise to have my mind blown six hours later, I'm playing to enjoy myself throughout. I am not a fan of "the twist" as a justification for any number of convoluted things prior to the twist. I am totally fine with works being dense or subtle or nonlinear or whatever, and I'm fine with totally recontextualizing something that is already interesting—then you make it interesting in a totally different way. That's great!

I could not agree more. There are exceptions to this rule – The Moon is not exactly an easy movie to watch, but the catharsis is worth it – but in general this is a philosophy I can totally get behind.

Ethan was designed to be engaging from the start, but sometimes the game does not click with some players, as it was the case with Chris. When that happens, it’s sad, as we would love everyone to like the game (duh!) – but the reality is that it is simply impossible to achieve.

The “it’s supernatural” I don’t get. Not only the game was always advertised as a weird fiction game, but also “supernatural” is a staffage that works very well in fiction. The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, The Journey, To the Moon, etc. – they are all “supernatural”. So I am not sure what exactly was that about, but I guess it’s possibly a case when if something does not click with you, you’re starting to see issues everywhere. You can see it often in game reviews, where if the game clicks, not even crash bugs discourage the reviewer from giving it 9/10, and when it doesn’t, even the menu font sucks.

Finally, “bad writing”.

Now, Ethan has flaws. Sure. Heck, I think that one of these days I will write a critical analysis of the game myself, pointing out those flaws, the reasons for their existence and possible solutions. Why not?

But you won’t find “writing” on that list. Contrary to what Idle Thumbs think, the game is not a pure “Euro” game, it’s created with the help of two American writers (Tom Bissell and Rob Auten). And I think they have done an outstanding job, and would absolutely love to work with these guys again. And again, and again. So while I am wide open to discussion on many aspects of Ethan, the writing is not on the menu. At least not unless you are able to recognize that “Paul Prospero” is not merely a “dumpster novel name”, but an unsubtle – one would think – and purposeful steal from Shakespeare (Prospero from The Tempest) and Poe (Prospero from The Masque of Red Death).

So, why did I say that Idle Thumbs’ talk on Ethan Carter was “a bit disappointing”? Is it because my gentle soul was hurt?

Sure, a bit, yes, but if the game didn’t enjoy good sales and great reviews both from the press and the players, I’d probably be hurt more. I mean, the critique always hurts – don’t believe any creator who says that it rolls off them like water off a duck’s back – but it really helps when most of the world likes your creation. I also happen to believe that the steel hardens in the fire, no pain no gain, what does not kill us makes us stronger – you get the point. So no, it’s not about Idle Thumbs having issues with the game.

The problem I have is that I didn’t learn anything. Three great game developers in a room, but all I heard was a lot of whats but nearly no whys. I just craved for something more than “I don’t like thing”. I can get that from hundreds of other places. From fellow game developers I would love to get something more substantial and useful.

I need to add, though, that:

a)      I just listened to Ethan Carter segment. It is very likely that the podcast is full of golden nuggets of knowledge and that segment was just an exception.

b)      Maybe I am misreading the idea of Idle Thumbs. Maybe the podcast is not about game developers’ perspective, maybe it’s just a couple of friends – who happen to be game developers – hanging around and having fun. If that’s the case, then I’m sorry and let’s move on.

This way or another, I do appreciate Idle Thumbs. We live in times when it’s very rare for game developers to speak their minds about the games of others, so it’s always a breath of fresh air when that happens. More, please.

[theastrocrew]

Metacritic and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Just realized one problem with Metacritic. Well, apart from all the other problems with Metacritic.

We made a game for a specific audience. That audience gives us great reviews, mostly, and owns the "gamer space". We got dozens of 9/10s on blogs, we have an 83% user score on MC (that's high in case you don't know what's the average user score on MC), and we have nearly 1200 reviews on Steam with 91% giving the game "Recommended" verdict.

Some of the press likes the game too. If you think I'm too shy, modest or well-mannered not to mention 9/10 from Gamespot, Eurogamer or Joystiq, well, you're wrong!

However, sometimes the game does not click with a professional reviewer. That's okay. For what I am on about today it doesn't even matter what's the reason. This way or another, the game does not click and that's it. And then we get something like 7/10.

The end result is that our "critics score" is 81%. I certainly hope it stays this way, as there's a big mental difference between, say, 80 and 79.

But that's exactly the problem. 81% MC does not tell me, as the player, that the game is great for most, but won't work for the rest. It tells me that the game is kind of good for everybody, but not really as good as the games that have, say, 91% MC.

I have no idea how to solve it, other that hoping that some people are not just taking a glance at the score and moving on. That they form an opinion based on a couple of sources, and they actually read the reviews instead of just googling the Metacritic score. That they see past the meaninglessness of a number, however pleasant for us.

Which, come to think of it, is fine. These are exactly the people we made this game for.

[theastrocrew]

Didn’t even have the time to announce that the game is out... THE GAME IS OUT! On Steam and GOG.

We’ve been in Steam’s Top 10 without any reviews yet (the reviewers got the codes late, basically when the game was released) and people seem to dig the game:

The game got patched twice, and it seems like that's it for a bit (knock, knock).

So many good things are happening that it's all a bit overwhelming. Will try to get back among the living next week and write more on various aspects of the game.

[theastrocrew]

Mini-FAQ on the Release of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

When will the game be released?

The plan was to release at 7pm Warsaw time (10am Valve time :). Doing what we can but we might be a few hours late. The game is 99.99% done, but that 0.01% is bothering us because it's bugs we KNOW about it and we can't in good conscience publish the game with that knowledge.

Why no pre-load yet?

It's simply because everyone is 100% busy (not really sleeping for the last three weeks) with the core game itself, and preparing and launching the pre-load is not just a click of a button. As soon as the build is ready we will try to unleash the pre-load (although, again, being honest here, that may turn out to be a regular "load", i.e. the full release).

I have pre-ordered through the widget, why didn't I get the key yet?

I am sending the keys to Humble asap and will take down pre-order widgets too to make sure it all goes smoothly (for a few hours you'll still be able to pre-order from Steam or GOG directly).

Where are my pre-order items?

The items are done and ready to be uploaded:

They will be released along with the game.

Now what?

If you have any other questions, we might not be able to answer right away, trying to make sure you get the game today. For any updates please follow The Astronauts or me on Twitter.

Fingers crossed, and thank you for your patience and understanding. We've been making games for a long time, but this is our first self-publish since ...1997.

[theastrocrew]

#screenshotsaturday 2014.09.20

Our final #screenshotsaturday. Six days to the release (September 25th) of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, a game in which we tried to merge gameplay and story-telling into one cohesive experience.

1080p here.

[theastrocrew]

FOV Slider Love

Real time preview while in the in-game menu.

[theastrocrew]

#screenshotsaturday 2014-09-13

Twelve days to release...

1080p here.

[theastrocrew]

Indie's Rookie Mistake

Indies are told and taught that the last month is crucial, this is where your biggest marketing push should happen, this is where you would be getting tons of e-mails you really should respond to, etc.

On the other hand, this also is the time when you don't have the time for emails or marketing, because you're finishing up the game and every hour counts, literally.

So... Be prepared. We weren't. We knew what we had to do but somehow we didn't do it. My mailbox has a few hundreds unanswered emails, our blog updates are way too rare, and we certainly have no time for any "making of" videos.

I did manage to give one interview, though.

[...] we’ve decided to make a game that demands some mental investment from the player. There’s no tutorial, no hints, no journal, and no objective markers. You’re on your own. It’s not a hardcore game, but it assumes it’s being played by someone who already has some experience with video games.

The rest is here at Adventure Gamers.

[theastrocrew]

Let's take a look at a different side of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter's music. This is a pretty unique track: light, mellow, fun -- with only a hint of mystery and melancholy. It is played during the exploration of the "house of portals", the one we showed at the end of the gameplay video.

[theastrocrew]

Vote on a Certain Menu Option in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Until now the game did not feature any sort of crosshair, although there was an option in the menu to turn it on. That option existed not for gameplay reasons but because we’ve heard the crosshair can help people with motion sickness.

However, we thought that maybe it’d be cool to add one more option, a “smart” dot crosshair, bringing up the choice to “Off”, “Smart” and “Always”, e.g:

OFF

The crosshair is never displayed. The text gets highlighted to yellow when you are close enough and more or less look at (there’s a decent tolerance here, you don’t need to be pixel perfect).

ALWAYS

The crosshair is always displayed.

SMART

The crosshair is off most of the time, but it materializes when you are close to an interactive object and the object is visible on the screen. The crosshair appears a little earlier than you are able to interact (white/yellow) so it is actually useful (if it appeared exactly when you could interact then it’d be too late).

So, I’m curious what you think should be the default option. All solutions have their pros and cons. I do have an opinion, so unless there’s some big surprise here it’s going to be …nah, don’t want to affect the outcome. Just choose honestly what you think you’d like to have: