Hello Make Games SA!
We'd like to introduce you to what we've been working on for the last few months, the first game from Cape Town based Unsigned Double Collective, Freja and the False Prophecy!
Freja and the False Prophecy is a 2D action adventure platformer set in the world of Norse mythology. Taking inspiration from the likes of Ori and the Blind Forest, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells and Salt and Sanctuary we are working to create a game that fuses exploration and a well crafted story with fluid movement and combat mechanics, all delivered in a rich and beautiful art style. A challenging undertaking for a small indie team, but if Freja is up to the task of waging war with the gods, then so are we!
Salesman pitch aside, we're really happy to be able to share our work with other South African developers and if anyone has any questions or feedback we would love to hear it. We're currently in the process of putting the pieces together for a full length trailer in support of a Kickstarter campaign that we plan on launching in the next couple of months. We're also all doing this part time at the moment, our backgrounds in related fields (commercial and film animation, vfx, software development and IT), but this is our first full length game and a real labour of love for the team. We look forward to sharing this journey with the greater community here and hopefully grow together as artists, developers and people with a passion for games!
We'd love to also keep you updated and in our inner circle via our website newsletter which can be subscribed to at:
thefrejagame.com/
Or follow us on social:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/thefrejagame/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheFrejaGame
Instagram: @thefrejagame
Thanks!
-Frank and the team at Unsigned Double Collective
We'd like to introduce you to what we've been working on for the last few months, the first game from Cape Town based Unsigned Double Collective, Freja and the False Prophecy!
Freja and the False Prophecy is a 2D action adventure platformer set in the world of Norse mythology. Taking inspiration from the likes of Ori and the Blind Forest, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells and Salt and Sanctuary we are working to create a game that fuses exploration and a well crafted story with fluid movement and combat mechanics, all delivered in a rich and beautiful art style. A challenging undertaking for a small indie team, but if Freja is up to the task of waging war with the gods, then so are we!
Salesman pitch aside, we're really happy to be able to share our work with other South African developers and if anyone has any questions or feedback we would love to hear it. We're currently in the process of putting the pieces together for a full length trailer in support of a Kickstarter campaign that we plan on launching in the next couple of months. We're also all doing this part time at the moment, our backgrounds in related fields (commercial and film animation, vfx, software development and IT), but this is our first full length game and a real labour of love for the team. We look forward to sharing this journey with the greater community here and hopefully grow together as artists, developers and people with a passion for games!
We'd love to also keep you updated and in our inner circle via our website newsletter which can be subscribed to at:
thefrejagame.com/
Or follow us on social:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/thefrejagame/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheFrejaGame
Instagram: @thefrejagame
Thanks!
-Frank and the team at Unsigned Double Collective
Comments
Our lead lady, Freja, bounding across the screen
Freja attacks!
A nasty Troll
A ferocious Warg
Angrboda, Mother of Monsters, and Skoll
Original artwork by @niminy
Stay tuned for more updates!
I'd be wary of mixing in anything resembling a photo-texture, unless the texture resembles paper, or something that'd emphasise the hand-drawn feeling. In particular, bits of the environment, especially the mountains, look photo-bashed and rushed, and don't match the character work. The lava level has these great, strong lines from the lava that alleviate the photo-bashed look. (TBS has detailed, painted backgrounds with cel-shaded characters, but they make up for the disconnect by offering value in characters that are animated frame-by-frame. I think viewers/players are used to seeing this after decades of 2D animation employing this.)
Both Freja's and the troll's poses make their weapons feel like they're weightless. The debris from the falling rocks also feel weightless, although the explosions of dust look nice. The jump also looks a bit floaty to me, but maybe it feels right when you're playing it. It might help if the first frame of the jump was immediately the anticipation pose (it'd snap, but it might feel good), and she recovered from the landing pose to the standing one more quickly.
Lastly, you've got a lot of detail going on for characters that seem to be really small in the shot of the gameplay. I'd strongly recommend that you put early versions of characters into the game asap to avoid putting loads of time and work into things you barely see.
Double jump - every single jump seems to be a double jump....... What then is the point of normal jump?
The troll seems like a rad enemy. The effect of his size being so much bigger than the player is really good, and I think fits with the Norse mood.
Like @Tuism said, the poke attack (the second attack in the video) seems to come a bit out of nowhere. Though I think the big swing (the first attack) is pretty good in terms of timing/warning.
I feel like there's an opportunity with this sort of enemy to make the players jump to deal damage, and then for the troll to have some kind of air attack response.
I mean, hitting the trolls feet seems like it wouldn't ever kill him (though maybe cripple him). Maybe there's some strategic choices you can add there (like crippling his legs first, or avoiding the legs and focusing on the face).
@Tuism, Double jumps are pretty much a staple for the genre and there many ways we might approach it (stamina based, save the mechanic for later on in the game, etc...) . There will be environmental and combat situation where both the standard jump or double jump are called for.
Just a random idea around the 'giant-slaying' aspect: you could have creatures that are so big they go off-screen, which you have to climb/jump up to defeat...
The first hit I was talking about was when the player character got hit for the first time - you can hear the sound happening, and if you pause at the right time you can see the player flash red. The player character was right by the troll. That's the first hit I was talking about.
Here's one more quick video where Freja finds herself washed up on a beach after a brutal battle at sea...
Are you intending it being so long before finding another living thing? Like after the battle and shipwreck Freja has to run for a while before finding other life?
I realize this might be just an environment test... but if you want that mood to really land maybe you could work on another walk animation for Freja where she looks more desperate. I mean if the actual distance were shorter, but Freja is limping along, it might feel more like the aftermath of a battle and the desolate beach more inhospitable.
I appreciate it when the pace of a game occasionally slows down and you're encouraged to watch the environment and anticipate what's coming next. I think an empty scene now and then can provide great opportunities for world building. Though in this current video Freja looks really healthy and energetic (like she just ate a bowl of Frosties and is working off the calories), and this seems to undermine the intriguing narrative you've described.
I know you're still working on more to show for your Kickstarter. But as it stands it's quite unclear what threat the eyes in the black shapes are. We see Freja on her own and the eyes on their own, but I don't really know what scale they are, or what the black shapes are capable of.
Given that I know there are big enemies in Freja, I feel a bit disappointed with the point the scene cuts off. I want to see the monsters and Freja together.
Here's a cutscene from a trailer that is burnt in my mind (one of the trailers from Force Unleashed 2). Never played the game, but for me anyway this is the scene that all other slow motion monster encounters compete with.
Another way to make them scary is to have Freja be in a scene where she's wounded. I love a protagonist that fights on after being hurt, it's about as badass as it gets (I watched Kill Bill 1 again last week, and fight scenes like the final fight in Rob Roy always stuck out for me).
Hellblade does a lot to show how tough Senua is in their trailer, just by showing that she isn't going to make it through the story unscathed:
I don't know if this is the gritty tone you want for Freja though? I think it's the slightly sad look in Freja's expression that makes me feel she fits into a harrowing story with high stakes, rather than a hyper-competent fun romp.
Thanks again, really appreciated!!
Hope you all having an epic week! Quick update to announce our Kickstarter campaign is going live on Saturday December 1st with full length trailer and a short playable demo! Will also have the demo up at Playtopia for those who are there. Will update this thread when the links go live.
Quick announcement... we are LIVE:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1769906085/freja-and-the-false-prophecy-norse-platforming-gam
It's been a crazy couple of months / weeks / days / hours but our little project is out in the real world and looking for support to develop into the game we envision! All contributions or sharing of the campaign is greatly appreciated.
On a personal note, spending the week at Africa Games Week has been an incredibly insightful and humbling experience. Our team, although passionate about games, has pulled together from outside industries (Film / animation / business and web development) and the game industry is fairly new and fresh to us. It's been truly amazing seeing the projects coming out of here and the rest of the world, the workings of the industry, and the many truly inspiring people who make it up, many of who'm I know are on this board and were kind enough to look at our project and give honest feedback so thank you!
Have a great day!
I had a look at the KS and the amount you're asking for seemed very low to me. If you're releasing in January 2022, then $22k across 3 years at R13.80/$ is around R8,500 per month, which is barely enough to pay one junior developer full time, never mind contract for the other bits and pieces. Is there extra information there that I might be missing? Are you purposefully low-balling hoping it'll be easier to reach?
[edit]
I'm going to sneak this edit in here because I don't want to dog-pile you with criticism. I'm sure you're swamped with managing a Kickstarter campaign, and I don't really want you to be replying to forum posts about decisions you've already gone ahead with! I'm not familiar with Hollow Knight's campaign and development, but the impression I get is that they ran the Kickstarter near the end of 2014 with an aimed release date of mid-2015, and asked for USD33k minimum. That's around 6 months of development, which is $5,500 per month. The average living cost in Australia is 2835AUD (which is around 2100 USD), and splitting 5500 3 ways is 1,833 -- which is below average, but not by much.
Which is to say that I don't think you can say that $22k is similar to $33k and just leave it at that when it comes to making comparisons. But everyone makes mistakes and we're all learning, and hopefully the things we do well can carry us well through the mistakes that we make! :D
To answer your question: Yes, we've done the math and the Kickstarter at it's current target would not fund the team's salaries to work full time on the game without any external funds over the proposed period until release. At this point the team consists of contract freelances and people (well me...), with other full time employment working on this part time. What the Kickstarter does offer is covering some base costs, external contractors for animation, sound, music and cinematics, and more importantly a chance to build a community and gauge interest in the product that we feel could entice further investment or publishing. We think at this point we have a compelling art style, an exciting lead character, base systems and mechanics (which granted, still need fleshing out) and a great world for the style of game we wish to create. It is however early development Kickstarting, and I'm not going to stand here and say we have all the answers and there's no risk in the proposition. I don't think realistically we're in a position to ask for more, the target is pretty much the minimum we feel we could still deliver a quality product with. At the same time we are fully dedicated to the project and should we reach the target we will do all in our power to follow through.
I hope that answers your question, it's been a tricky one to grapple with ourselves, but at this point the ball is rolling and I'm pretty happy with how it's gone so far... There is still a tonne of work to be done though!
You do need more - @Elyaradine is right - but, as you're aware, people are not going to give it to you (though you might be lucky and it may slowly tick well past the funding goal you're asking for, in which case yay!).
I think you've been doing a really good job with this campaign in building the community (I anonymously said this to you as well in your Google form) and I just hope that you can pull through to the end of development without getting all the money you will need from external sources. You're in a complicated position but I think you've picked the right strategy for the crowdfunding portion of the project.
[edit] omg, using smileys in messages causes the rest of the message to be cut off!
[edit2] Retyping. :P
Ha, I don't want to argue, but it's so hard not to want to be right... XD I could swear that I saw USD33k, but the page is showing it to me in AUD now, and I can't seem to change it back. I was probably mistaken though, but the maths still kind of works out:
In November 2014, the AUD was around 0.873 to the USD, so AUD35k was around USD30.5k. This was also 4 years ago, with Australian inflation being at around 1.8%, which means amount for comparison today would have to be around 7% more, which is around USD32.7k -- much closer to USD33k than it is to USD22k. I mean, if you've run the numbers and it works out for you then cool; it's just that I typically look at budgets as a personal interest because of working in games and potentially needing to think about these things a bit myself.
I sadly didn't get to play this at Playtopia, but I was happy to be able to play the Kickstarter build. I felt the audio in particular was quite strong, but the game as a whole had a lot more content in there than I expected so I was impressed!
Some smaller niggles that I had: When I hit something at point-blank range, it didn't register a hit, so that I'd have to move back a bit and hit again. This felt wrong for games of this type. When I normally add rain to scenes, I prefer to have them falling at a slanted angle with a bit of variation (with a greater slant the more violent the rain is). I don't know if having them fall straight down was intentional or just something you didn't think about, but diagonal rain usually feels more alive. Lastly (and most importantly), I felt the writing itself was quite weak. The one viking that spoke to me said "Greetings!" in two consecutive lines (oops!), and although there was effort to make the language more archaic (which does add some flavour), they largely didn't have much personality to me. For a game that talks a lot about mythology and story, I'd personally want to do more than using Ye Olde English words and dropping Norse references, but to have the characters themselves to have their own personalities and nuances that make them interesting or likeable.
Anyhow, I look forward to seeing what surprises you drop in the updates for keeping the campaign going! Best of luck!
I'd go so far as to say anyone hoping to kickstart for anything other than recouping costs after already doing most of the work, or possibly looking to fund a marketing/user acquisition budget once dev is near complete is probably going to be disappointed. The amount you can reasonably ask for at say 75% completion is also higher because of proof of final work. Also, by that stage you (hopefully) have a much bigger following, many of which would be likely to contribute.
As it is though, good luck with your campaign, the game looks cool and I hope you're successful :)
As to the game itself, thanks for playing! :) I'll test the diagonal rain, you could definitely be right about that giving a more dynamic feel. As for the in game writing, I'm in agreement, it was one of the last things we got to in the mad rush to get everything done for Playtopia and the Kickstarter and I'll be the first to admit it didn't get the care and attention it deserves. Will look at polishing that up in an update soon! Again, thanks for your time and feedback, it really is super valuable!
1.) We're all in agreement that the game is going to cost a hell of a lot more to make. Assuming we work full time: Over $200 000. Arguing about whether or not we asked for enough is a moot-point, we asked for what we thought we could get (And we may still be proven wrong)
2.) In the best case scenario, we'd have waited longer and implemented but this is not a perfect world and we're under financial pressure. I have no well of money that I'm sitting under and I need to make lose/lose decisions sometimes. It sucks, but not everyone is sitting on a goldmine of money and resources to tap into.
3.) The release date is actually incorrect. The date is meant to say: 2021 but we fucked up and kickstarter refuses to change it in the rewards section.
So why did you run the campaign then?
1.) It's insanely good publicity and gives us a chance to determine whether or not people actually like the concept/idea.
2.) It helps build our fanbase in a big way.
3.) It allows publishers to be exposed to the game. (I've already had a few offers of people who'd like to work with us)
4.) The money we raise is to cover our weak/problem areas, not to pay everyone a salary. Our weak areas right now: Animation/Sound/writing. We have to get a 3rd party to do this for us.
5.) We desperately needed the money to pay our animator.
How we plan on tackling the development of the game, allocating resources and financing it:
1.) Myself and my girlfriend finance the game.
2.) Her and I work approximately 6 hours per day on the game on average over the course of a given month, juggling freelance work and paying bills. Every weekend, for the last year has been committed to this game. If I can get enough money to turn down one freelance job here and there, that would be a major win.
3.) We pay for outside help only when/if we absolutely need it.
4.) We speak to investors/publishers once the game is F-word awesome. (yes I do have contacts here)
Remember the further the game comes into fruition, the more possibilities open up to us.
We have a hump right now, if we don't get a small cash injection right now: The project has a good chance of dying and more than anything, having a good kickstarter is a morale boost. I love my game and If I have to make bad decisions now then that's how it is and it sucks.
I hope this clears things up and you can take a look at the positives. It's easy to make good decisions when you're not in a position where you have to make bad decisions.
At the moment, we have 3000 views on the video with 200+ pledges. That's a 6.5% conversion rate. Our issue right now, isn't how much to ask for or consumer confidence. It's getting enough eyeballs on the campaign to get our goal.
The money we're asking for is to cover our monthly deficit, not finance the whole game eg: I know that a switch port costs far more than $1000. But lets assume we're funded on Kickstarter and complete the game: I can take out a loan to get the port done safe in the knowledge that I have a fan base and a fun game that will sell and I can recoup the costs.
- Did we launch too early? Yes.
- Did have a big enough fanbase before launch? No
- Did we make mistakes in the presentation and setup of the campaign itself? Yes.
- Does the game need more polish? Always.
- Are we still gonna make the game? Abso-f**ken**lutely.
There's been a bit of discussion about the game needing more money to fund. While that's true, the reality is it doesn't make sense to ask for the amount of money you need, but rather the amount of money you can actually get. Looking at the numbers, it looks like Freja can (and hopefully will) just get funded (ideally at one week in the campaign should reach the 50% mark). Asking for much more money would jeopardize this campaign, and lose whatever opportunity the $22,000 would get.
These are my favourite gifs. Maybe it's possible to put out more bits like this, or improve the weaker bits and include them as well.
I guess I'm also saying that some improved combat would solve my concerns about the experience. Even a concept animation of the combat i.e. it's not working as gameplay yet. Just seeing how the developers envisage Freja hitting an enemy and performing a combo on them would help convince me that part of the experience was also going to be good.
(I know that combat is time-consuming to get right of course, and I understand why it's still a work in progress, but it still needs to look and feel good eventually)
Guacamelee combat for instance was very convincing in gifs (here's just a very small gif of it)
Funny that Guacamelee is mentioned in the same breath as concept animation because their initial concept pitch was all made in Flash, and none of it was working gameplay lol. Kinda a useful approach for visual/thematic driven prototyping, I've thought.
Can see the trailer about 22:50 into their GDC talk:
I'm working hard on the combat, but at the moment I'm stuck with some animations that I don't like too much and just don't work in-game but we just don't have the time/resources right now to fix / update :-( Feels frustrating.
You're right about some gifs not being as cool as others, I'll update some of them and try leverage the awesome ones a bit better. Some of them are from fairly old builds.. Eish.
Also, we've had some real issues with animation. Geez it's been a journey and a lot of things have gone wrong and always at the wrong time, it's really one of our weak points but we're busting our asses to get better there.
We've got a new guy, Nick, who's supremely talented and devoted but comes from the film biz so is still getting more experience with the nuances of animating for games. I'm also learning a lot about juicing up combat and I've gotten feedback and made quite a few changes since playtopia.
I'd love to also get in an animation consultant, someone nick can bounce ideas off of and learn the quirks and he can leech off of. So if anyone is keen on coming aboard or knows someone with experience who'd like to join our team on that basis I'd appreciate it.
Honestly, I would've loved to delay the kickstarter by a bit but if I did I'd have to start selling my furniture lol. As is we need to adapt/improvise and overcome :-D
Thanks for all your advice and suggestions guys, much appreciated.
Quick update on the campaign. Right now we are 60% funded with 13 days to go, so target is reachable but it's going to be close! We've also made a bunch of updates to the demo, some of them aesthetic, some bug-fixes, as well as updated dialogue and more air control during attacks. If you haven't played it yet or played an older version, I invite you to grab the latest version off the Kickstarter page and give it a spin. Would love to hear your feedback. We're also testing out some combo attacks. They're not yet implemented, but here's a concept gif:
Lastly would just like to appeal for any contributions (even 1$ increases our visibility), or if not sharing the campaign with your friends or network to help get the word out and get Freja funded!
Thanks!
Wishing you guys a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
We're in the final 48 hours of our campaign and 80% funded, so it's down to the wire! If you can contribute or share at this point it would mean so much to our team. Also since my last update we added voice-over to the demo. If you haven't played it yet, or played an older version, check it out, we think it adds a lot to the experience!
https://kickstarter.com/projects/1769906085/freja-and-the-false-prophecy-norse-platforming-gam
Thanks!