The art of apemarina for his game Tales:
POPOL VUH will be among the books that can be visited in “Tales”.
A tribute to a great masterpiece of Mayan literature …
But also a tribute to one of the best Kraut Rock bands, named Popol Vuh.
The icehouse is a collective of indie creators! We are artists, developers or film directors who enjoy art, video gaming and animation, and we help each other. If you have a nice project that is homemade with love, maybe we can work together?
Simon keeps posting his articles about the development of Catyph. It’s a bit technical maybe, but it also offers some nice screenshots of the game.
Myst IV: Revelation journal (2008)
We had never met people so talented in making a journal from their favorite game. Look at that: it’s the diary of a fan of Myst IV. It’s really impressive!!! We’re sure that Simon would love to see the same kind of journal for his games ASA and Catyph!
In June 2008, I passed my third year exams at the faculté (History studies) and then, immediately after, suffered some kind of burnout. I was still living at my parent’s home, and they had just bought a computer - the one they had before barely worked. For the first time, I had a real Internet access, and most importantly, I could play games that the previous one couldn’t run.
So I decided to play Myst IV: Revelation (I had already been a Myst fan for a good part of my life at this point… and it was about to get a lot, lot worse. Or better).
I basically lived in that game during ten days, approximately.
And guess what I’ve just dug up?
My Revelation journal!
The text at the top says "I have found the frequency".
Trying to fix Atrus’ machine and talking about his attitude towards his family problems ("the fact that he trapped Gehn on Riven or his sons inside books is typical of his "yeah-I’ll-deal-with-this-later" attitude…").
"D’ni letters all look the same…" "Just like in real life, I’m scared of vast empty places. I spent far too much time in that kitchen, just because it looked like a safe place!" "Looking at the portraits in the living room, I noticed Anna wasn’t there. Maybe Atrus didn’t have anything to take pictures when she was still alive."
Trying to make a map of Spire and failing remarkably. It’s titled "Map of Spire (not finished) (and approximative)".
Getting really pissed off by the Spider Chair (I called it la machine infernale at the time, “the machine from Hell”), drawing chibi Sirrus, and getting really excited because I found the right frequency for ONE crystal out of four.
"It’s 5 PM already and I just noticed I forgot to eat (!), so let’s stop for today." Then getting completely and hopelessly lost in Haven.
Tons of notes on the Haven fauna. "Did Achenar come up with all the creatures names himself?"
Trying to solve the Mangrees puzzle with a malfunctioning mouse is a nightmare.
"I don’t really trust Achenar, but to be fair I don’t trust Sirrus AT ALL, so I kinda like the violent environmentalist better than the affected psycho, somehow." Also trying to map Serenia and bam, CHAOS.
Getting really pissed off by the Ancestors puzzle because it’s completely abstract and you can mess it up by accident. "Done. Ok. What’s next? Next I’m out of the dream. Kay… What was the point??"
"The door is open >:) Color code? It looks complicated O_oU The marbles that Sirrus uses, as Achenar told me? Looks like that disk from Spire? SHIT I HAVEN’T NOTED THE COLORS O_O …had to go back to Spire… I’m so stupid… stupid code… I HATE YOU SIRRUS" "I was so pissed off I turned the computer off." "IT WORKS!!" "I’m, well, ATROCIOUSLY happy to go through that door."
Positive and negative points, and then some post-game thoughts. "What can I say? Waoh. That was like a big musical colorful slap to the face." "Feels like mourning something at the end of the game…" Basically everything I didn’t like was in Serenia.
"It’s interesting that the main colors of the prison Ages are the exact opposite of the colors of the books." "Retrospectively there were so many evidences of Sirrus’ culpability. The thing that broke the bridge and knocked me out at the beginning was one of his bombs…"
(next page) "Achenar would have killed himself on Spire. Sirrus would have been devored after a couple of days on Haven." "There’s no way in hell that Sirrus’ plan could have worked without anyone noticing there was something wrong with Yeesha."
Another work in progress from the new game of Beckoning Cat. This time, the 3d models of the main characters were imported in a test environment. We can already feel an interesting ambiance, with the fine lightings and textures. Whereas it can look like precalculated backgrounds, everything is in realtime and some of the blocs can be detroyed with bombs. We’re curious about this!
Finally!
Simon Says: Play! shared with us the new 3D renders of the region named Vysynia, from their game CATYPH.
Maybe it’s because we are not used to see so much snow during Summer, but these new screenshots seem interesting, don’t they?
We can’t wait to discover the new puzzles and visit this area of moon Tytaah. CATYPH is a Myst-like game, similar to ASA: A Space Adventure, to be released in Q4 2014. More info and screenshots on the official website!
catyph.theicehouse.fr
Beckoning Cat are now fully working on their next project after Chilie (it’s still untitled). They’re trying to find the best style for the characters (realistic rendering or not?), but as you can see on the pictures, the result is already amazing. Look at the details on the clothes! We really enjoy what we see, here at The icehouse, and we can’t wait to learn more and more about this game made with Unity. We’ll keep you updated.
In the meantime, if you speak french, you can follow the devlog.
ApeMarina goes international
Donald Dowell and the Tech-Demo of Tales, already available in English and Italian, are now available respectively in Bulgarian an Czech.
Tales Tech-Demo was localized in Czech Language by the friends Kajlin and Ricky. Thanks gals for translating it!
The Czech version is inside the same file downloadable from our website: http://apemarina.altervista.org/Tales.html
Donald Dowell was entirely localized to Bulgarian by the friends from Adventurers Community (http://adventurersbg.info/); special thanks to didka222
Donald Dowell Bulgarian edition can be downloaded here:
http://adventurersbg.info/catalog/game/893-donald-dowell-and-the-ghost-of-barker-manor
If you follow a little the development of the game of Simon (Catyph), you may be interested in this series of articles on TIG forums.
There, Simon will try to describe from time to time how he creates his game: methods, tools, ideas… It is somehow a Making Of.
