Keen and Graev are making games!

We’re excited to reveal a first look at one of the games we’ve been developing this summer.  What’s this? Keen and Graev making video games?  Yep, we formed our own little company and we’re hard at work on several games.  We’re not ready to reveal a title yet or too many details, but we wanted to give you guys a quick look at some screenshots and provide a general idea about one game in particular.

Our game (title not released yet) is designed to be like and follow the rules of a classic adventure game. Many of you may not know what that means since “adventure game” no longer means the same thing.  King’s Quest, Space Quest, and Monkey Island are but a few games that you may recognize and we encourage you to google for details or buy them for yourself.   Adventure games are very story driven with puzzles and a little bit of thinking required.  Many times there are intellectual challenges and puzzles to overcome as well as items to collect and places to unlock.

Details now.

Platform: iPhone first followed by iPad.  We decided that it would be easiest for us to FIRST distribute through the App store and then release it to PC and Android once we have a better grasp on the languages we want to code our game in.  Eventually we hope that our game will be multi-platform.

Gameplay: Character(s) movement will be controlled via on-screen touch pad similar to the oldschool King’s Quest.  Interacting with NPC’s, items, objects, etc., will happen by simply touching the screen.  In one of the screenshots below you can see our HUD which has 6 buttons: Look at, Talk to, Pick up, Use, Give, and the Inventory.  To give you an idea of how the gameplay will go, imagine walking around until you meet a NPC.  You walk up to that NPC and touch the “Talk to” button, then touch the NPC.  A dialog tree then opens. If you need to give an item to the NPC, you’ll press Give, then open your inventory, touch the item, and then touch the NPC.  This should feel very familiar to oldschool classic adventure veterans.

The game will mostly play out in what feels like isometric 2d. We’ve kept to an art style we enjoy that is vibrant, fun, and inviting.   Expect the setting to be fantasy with a twist and your adventure to be full of humor and exploration.

 

These are exciting times for us.  We’re excited to reveal actual gameplay video footage as well as the title, characters, and story to you soon.

  • I used to love Adventure games back in the early 1980s. Load them from cassette onto the ZXSpectrum. Watch the load fail half a dozen times. Finally get the game to run and spend all evening trying to think of a way to say “Put the brick in the wall” that matched the one phrase the game recognized as a command.

    Not sure I ever finished one.

  • Grats guys this is wonderful news! I don’t have an IPad but you make this, get it out there and I’m buying one.

  • A good old timey adventure game sounds good. I do miss King’s Quest & Quest for Glory.

  • I’m so proud of you guys! Coming in with a classic Adventure! Way to go. Looking forward to the iPad version 🙂

  • Oh neat, I always though you guys should make a game. Our teams game was halted but we’re looking at other options at the moment.

    Good luck with your project!

  • Keen, Will there be 3 sides with open world pvp objectives? Just kidding Congrats !!!

  • Gratz man!

    Just a suggestion about your HUD. Is that D-pad meant for actual movement? If so, you might want to move it over to the right or left corner so one’s thumb can control the D-pad whilst his other thumb can controlt he buttons.

    Putting it in the middle like that will make it a nightmare to use, especially when you have thumb-activated buttons on both sides of it. It just looks uncomfortable. Console controller design will show you the way.

    Good luck!

  • I should be getting my first iPhone in September (so the 4S or 5 depending on what they call the one they release then).

    So you have until then 😛

    iPad 2+/3 with a “Retina” display will almost certainly be out around the same time so be ready to exploit that display….

  • Good luck. You may carve out you own lil niché in the gaming world if Lady Luck smiles upon ye.

  • Good choice with Adventure games IMO.

    It’s a dead genre on the PC, but the iPhone controls and ‘setting’ should work. Just keep in mind most people game for 5-10 minutes on the iPhone, and get interrupted by calls and such frequently, so anything between ‘saves’ has to be bite sized, and you can’t really expect people to remember too much from gaming session to gaming session (maps, hints, reminders work wonders on the iPhone with RPGs).

    Good luck, looking forward to the end result.

  • I’m also with Jay P. But I also want an end game gear grind!

    In all seriousness, congrats fellas. That is fantastic.

    My first games I wrote in BASIC were some of my best gaming moments to this day. (That and playing Zork!)

    Oh the suspense you had in my games….

    “There is an enemy soldier with his back to you.”
    “What do you want to do:”
    “1> Stab him in the back?”
    “2> Cut his throat!”
    “3> Just shoot him!”

    Oh the days. I could type the word “print” a hundred miles an hour with 2 fingers. ahhahaha.

    Good luck boys! Can’t wait to see it.

  • @Werit: We want to make an android version asap. I think we’ll use Corona since lua isn’t too difficult. Xcode is just a beast.

    @Snafzg: The hud and controls have gone through a few iterations. The goal was really to move people out of the idea that they’re holding a game controller and into more of the oldschool arrow key mentality. Almost no one uses arrow keys anymore, but back in the day it was the primary input. It was ‘removed’ and out of the way. We’re still playing with it and may move it around based on feedback and beta testing.

    @Intruder313: We’ve designed ours for retina display on the iphone and our graphics are nice in that they can be resized nicely and keep the look we’re going for at larger resolutions. Depending on the timing of our release, we might get retina in for ipad when it comes.

    @Syncaine: We’re planning to save everything in variables. Essentially every decision and change are saved. Any progress lost should just translate to their position being “time warped” like in oldschool MMO’s.

  • What about my blackberry?! just kidding.. good luck Keen! you state working on ‘several’ games. should probably focus on 1 , no?

  • We have two other projects in the works. One is only in the concept art phase and the other is only ideas on a white board, but both have clear visions. We’re only fully working on the one until it is done.

  • I’m getting The Realm flashbacks. Are there any giant rats to swat with a sword?

  • Grats fellas. now hurry up and make a Sandbox MMo to make us proud. I wish I was rich and I would develop the mother of all sandbox MMO’s.

    Make a Droid version too *wink* *wink*!

  • Baby steps! Hopefully one day we’ll be giving you a sneak peak at a MMO. We certainly have all of the details and ideas for one worked out.

  • Keen do you have any computer science / programming background? Game creation is a great way to build interest in programming and software design. In my case, it was so enjoyable that I stopped playing games other than smash bros 64 all together.

    I’m curious how your transition from commentator to “player” in the game development arena is going. Obviously this is not a big budget project, but I’m sure you’re sampling many issues that professional developers (even in industries beyond games) face. What have been the tough design decisions? Frustrating platform limitations? If you can’t spoil the details of the game immediately, I think it would make an interesting post to discuss the process in the meantime

  • Nice Keen and Graev.

    I am happy to see you both taking initiative and making something. To much crap out there. I need more cowbells. I gotta have my cow… bells …. baby.

  • Keen and Graev. Just wanted to say wish you guys tons of luck. Been followin’ yall for years now and by far one of my favorite blogging websites. Just wanted to say Good luck hopefully it’ll become huge :).

  • Thanks for the kind words all! We have humble aspirations right now. Our goal with these projects is to have fun making some games that we enjoy, build awareness of great gameplay we don’t see these days, and to get our name out there even more.