Makers of The Marionette are at it again ........ :-)

I really enjoyed playing The Marionette so I'm very glad to hear that there is another game being worked on. The story for Out of Time sounds really interesting. Will this be a horror type game or more of a paranormal type game?

hatshepsut

I am always glad to see first time independent developers ambitiously move forward with their visions after their first game. We saw it with the Miller brothers (creators of Myst) and The Manhole. With Jonathon Boakes and The Displacement to name a couple. This new game by the makers of the Marionette is no different. The story, as described, seems to be interesting and adding 3D is very ambitious. I am anxious to hear and see more.

Since it is mentioned that the game will be commercial and episodic I am wondering how much game play there will be in each episode and, I assume this will be available as a digital download, how much. For those who dislike digital downloads or simply do not have a high speed connection or bandwidth, I wonder if the developer or publisher will make a disk version. If not for each individual episode but in the form of one complete game of all the episodes once they are released.

A couple of other wonders are

Point & Click?
360 Panning?
Fully Voiced?

Gelert kindly pointed me in the direction of this forum and the website in general, so first of all thank you Gelert for inviting me here.

I'm glad to see that The Marionette and Out of Time have generated such interest here, even if Out of Time is only in pre-production at the moment. The Marionette was seriously the first attempt at a game for many of us on Team Effigy, so all this is very encouraging indeed and bodes well for the future

To answer your questions:

hatshepsut - it will be more of a paranormal mystery. It may or may not have horror elements, but it was not conceived to be a horror game.

GreyFuss - Thank you, I only hope that we're not becoming TOO ambitious. Still, it's a step forward for us.

Because Out of Time is still in pre-production, we haven't set a price or anything like that yet. We do know that each episode will be about the length of The Marionette, and hopefully be a more or less self-contained story in its own right.

If we can find a practical way to print disk copies, we certainly will. I was actually exploring the option of disk copies for The Marionette, but the difficulty lies in the cost of printing - far too much for a freeware game. The advantage though is that members of Team Effigy are located all around the world, so now that we're going commercial we can afford to make physical copies.

Gameplay-wise and control-wise, we haven't worked out all the details so I would not like to make any promises at this point. Gameplay was one of the main weaknesses of The Marionette, so we're treading more carefully for Out of Time. It will definitely be fully voiced though, and in fact I'm currently working on voice-acting for The Marionette as well. So yes, both games will be fully voiced.

We have a development diary on our website, teameffigy.com, for anyone interested in the game development process. We'll be updating periodically with news and general game development ramblings, so watch this space and I'll bring you more info as we go along.

Thanks for dropping by Auriond.

The prospect of voice acting is quite exciting for Out of Time, but certainly for The Marionette as well. I'll watch for this with interest.

Gelert.

Hello Auriond

Nice of you to stop by to fill us in. Thanks for the information and the link to Out of Time. Looking forward to hearing more from you as you continue with your development.

I enjoyed The Marionette, and am looking forward to seeing what you do with Out of Time- thanks for the information. Keep us informed.

Hi auriond

Will there be timed sequences in Out of Time ? Will the episodes be different stories that conclude with each episode and flow into the next episode ? Or will it be more like a cliffhanger that flows into the next episode.

hatshepsut

Thanks everyone!

hatshepsut: That's a reference to the notorious timed sequences in The Marionette, isn't it? Well, it depends on the storyline. We'll try to avoid them if possible, since I know people generally aren't too fond of them, but there might scenes or puzzles that naturally require timers.

As for the flow between episodes, it is all one storyline. The episodes will end at "natural" cliffhangers, i.e. after some kind of climax, but with a teaser kind of cliffhanger for the next episode. We'll definitely try to keep the interval between episodes as short as possible.

Hi auriond,

yes that was a reference to the notorius timed sequences . It took me awhile to figure out what I supposed to do. They were very good sequences. Made me think what do I need to do. I like that. I don't mind those kind of puzzles or timed sequences.

The episodes ending with a natural cliffhangar teaser cliffhanger sounds great. So we might guess what the ending will be but we won't really know till the last episode.

And at this time you are thinking that it will be about four episodes?

hatshepsut

Three or four. I can't confirm it right now, but I'll post here again once we have worked out the details.

Thank you auriond. Please do keep us informed. After playing The Marionette I am really looking forward to Out of Time.

hatshepsut

My colleague, Khyle, has written an article discussing the pros and cons of an episodic approach. You might be interested to know that the "adventure-gaming enthusiast" mentioned is none other than Gelert of this website.

http://www.teameffigy.com/?p=48

Thanks for the link to Khye's article. It was interesting and informative. I think it laid to rest any concerns I had about Out of Time being an episodic game. I think we are going to be in for a very good gameplay with Out of Time.

hatshepsut

Hi auriond. I read the article. It certainly leaves me more open minded about the episodic format than I had been before. I completely agree with the principle of short time periods between episodes and, if the game is suited to episodic release, then ............. I can't wait to see what happens. Looking forward to it immensely.

Keep in touch.

Gelert.

Another update: this time detailing the design of the main character, Travis Walker.

http://www.teameffigy.com/?p=96

Thanks for the update auriond. Travis looks good. I like the look and I love those red sneakers.

hatshepsut

Travis looks cooool man!

Travis does look cool doesn't he. Just the kind of character that you really care about.

hatshepsut