Hello everyone!
We at MKDB Studio, that is my wife and I, are pleased to announce our first game: Signals. It is to be released late September for PC on Steam & itch.io and has been in development since early this year.
Here is a short teaser:
What is Signals?
Signals is space exploration builder set in a procedurally generated galaxy. Traverse hundreds of planets, collect resources, upgrade your buildings in the quest to follow the signals as an AI in charge of the expansion.
You lead the search funded by the A.L.A.N.* Corporation who wants to use the opportunity to spread its arms across the galaxy. Set up a network of outposts and finance your way forward. Maintain a positive cash flow and cover your upkeep costs so your progress doesn’t stall.
Manage your harvesters and take care of their power needs on planet surfaces, build outposts throughout the galaxy, and upgrade your buildings for better efficiency and faster harvesting of resources.
Open Production
Having relied on lot of information and knowledge shared by members of the industry like Weather Factory (Cultist Simulator)[2], or Grey Alien Games[3] and many more, we felt it was natural to share as well.
Our aim is to be as transparent as possible; from how the game came to be, to reviewing how we planned it, the financial aspect and once released we'll take a look to see whether the game was successful or not.
Alongside the weekly devlogs, which will cover these topics, we will also be on Twitch[4] every now and then where we will be doing live work on the game and diving sessions in the codebase (so you can judge hard).
Who are we?
MKDB Studio is an 80/20 venture that involves a husband and wife team and is based in the UK. I, Michel, have a background in software engineering and management where I have been a professional for 15 years outside the gaming industry, while Kathryn has an art and design background.
MKDB Studio and Signals is my full time venture where I oversee the business side, finance, planning, game design, programming, some 3D work and terrible sketching. Kathryn has been helping part-time with the UI, design work, game design and rubber ducking[5].
We are committed to doing multiple projects to give us a real view of what it takes to make games and be successful at it. I am under no illusion that it'll be easy, but so far one thing is certain, happiness is at an all time high.
Next week we will cover the prototyping & ideation phase and how we got to Signals with some footage, screenshots, and documents from the "early" days.
Thanks for tuning in!
MKDB Studio
*A.L.A.N : Artificial Life & Advanced Networks