As promised in the last update, we’re kicking off our monthly updates on the state of the game’s development. Since this is the first one, it will focus on more general things to give you an overview. The following ones will be shorter and I will be focusing solely on the previous month’s progress.
Book of Aliens is one of two games currently developed at Thing Trunk, the other being Hellcard. As most of the team members are focusing on finishing Hellcard, Book of Aliens is in the pre-production phase with only two members working full time on the game - a designer-programmer and a graphic artist. But don’t fret! It’s quality, not quantity that matters and the development is progressing every day.
What working on BoA designs looks like. Also, a sneak peek into the future!
On the design side, Book of Aliens has been in on-and-off development since 2012 and we explored countless prototypes and ideas over the years (definitely a subject for a dedicated blog post someday). When we completed Book of Demons in 2019, we realized that most of our early ideas didn’t age well. We knew that we need to apply what we learned from Book of Demons to the next game in the series.
Since then, we have been developing a brand new exciting idea and we can’t wait to share it with you.
We already have a working prototype of the tactical battle mechanics and we’re currently working on expanding it into a whole campaign that will form a strategic layer for the game. This part will also be implemented as a playable prototype, and the plan is to make this version public to gather feedback. We’re trying to make this happen this year, but we’re not making any hard promises at this time.
Meanwhile, in the art department progress is being made fleshing out the look and feel of the game, various characters, props, and elements. This month we’re focusing on basic armors for the human operatives. As you can see, we always start with the general geometry, as this is the most important part of our paper/cardboard art style.
The current version of human operatives.
Earlier, far less bulky concepts...
... and some very early sketches!
Take care!
Matt