Almost there...

We are slowly coming to an end in our new project "A Grain of Truth". The whole scenario is constructed, the dialogs written (special thanks to Maria Barć), the graphics drawn and the music composed. But it is no time to rest as there is still a lot of work ahead. As we are making the game in HTML we (and by we I mean brother Martin) need to write the whole code from the scratch. Fortunately Martin is a skilful programmer and therefore the progress bar reaches 90%.

How it all began...

It all started with a train journey. When I returned home from college by train the travel stretched for ages. During the ride I read, drew, and ... I let my imagination loose. At some point, from this idleness, the idea of the Big Old tree that Dreams came up. Although at that time I gave him the title of Vigne Virge (with an error as I learned later, it should be Vigne Vierge, which in French means the Wild Vines). In the beginning there was the ash, with it roots reaching the Yggdrasill from the Norwegian mythology, who much later became the Great Oak. Around him different lands grew, inhabited by various characters. At first I thought of the world of the Big Old Tree only as the background of my comic book. But for a long time I just took pleasure in the creation of the world, its geography, culture and people. Years passed and the world of the Great Oak survived three unfinished comics, several short stories and, recently, computer games. And although in the meantime in my head and on the pages of my sketchbook many different worlds were born the world of the Big Old Tree that Dreams is the closest to me. Maybe it's because I met that tree during a walk? It was huge, dominating over the others. And it was old. You could sense it, not just by looking at its twisted branches, roots winding deep inside the earth, the cracked bark, but also by the attitude of the surrounding trees, which rose around him as if with respect. There was something mystical about him, metaphysical. I imagined that he was dreaming. What can an old, ailing oak tree dream about?

The progress bar for "A Grain of Truth" reaches 85%.

Launch page

The game "a Grain of Truth" has now its own launch page.
 It is also on facebook and twitter.
Follow us and be in touch!

Music

Since I've started working on the first Trader of Stories game I knew that music is a very important part of the game. It builds the atmosphere of the game, like an additional background but on a whole new level. Therefore I'm very excited that for our newest project "A Grain of Truth" I was able to invite to cooproation a great music composer: Sergiu Muresan. He created four tracks illustrating the changing environment of the game. Thanks to him the game sounds really amazing and the progress bar hits 80%.
Once again - thank You Sergiu!  

Last location

I have just finished the last location for the game thus achiving 68% of the game progress (the game contains 22 full screen locations and 14 closeups). What is left? Puzzles, cutscenes, music and programming, so pretty much, but we are working on full speed and the finish line is getting closer.

Sketches

I have been so busy working on the game that I have forgotten to update the progress. I’m almost finish doing the backgrounds for all location. The inventory is up and running as well as the map that will allow for fast travel during the gameplay. And the progress bar hits 60%.

Below I present some rough sketches for the game.

Why HTML?

Have we said that we do this amazing thing all in HTML? Yes it is true - we are so excited about the possibilities and the whole creation process that we can't wait to show it to you. We used it for prototyping but we quick discovered that it's powerful enough to create the game we love. HTML is open source, completely free and really fun to use, and it's perfect for 'Myst' like type of game. When we see an adventure game we want to touch it and we want to be able to play it on mobile screens (iOS, Android) too. Now we can - direct from browser with no lack of good game experience. And we plan for even more…

Of course HTML5 has it own issues with older browsers like Internet Explorer and to play it we will need modern browser - and only it.

By the way the process bar hits 49%