Hi there, this is Craig D. Adams of Superbrothers AV, co-creator of #sworcery and JETT.
So, this month I've published a coupla things for #sworcery folks over at the Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP Steam page's news feed.
Specifically, this post about the overlaps between #sworcery and JETT...
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/204060/view/3433458944730393702
...and another post that offers a snapshot of #sworcery creators for fall 2022, before digging into how JETT's interstellar demo came about.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/204060/view/3498763263571476691
Perhaps you caught'em, but It occurred to me I ought to get some of that material on this here JETT Steam page, so we are.
Feel free to go read the original posts, or just settle in here and I'll get you caught up.
. . .
LONG AGO...
I should perhaps explain that #sworcery refers to the 2011 videogame Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, originally an iOS release, that then arrived on PC and Steam in 2012.
Back in those olden days towards the end of the early indie years, #sworcery emerged and immediately resonated with a broad audience. The experience of making it, and the positive response it received, was a life-changer for me. I'm glad to say the project seems to be pretty warmly remembered even now as a fresh experience with some new concepts, strong audiovisual and aesthetic elements, a unique sensibility, with a narrative rendered in a tone that oscillates between the mythic bombast of Robert E. Howard's Conan and the inane patter of early Twitter. It's funny to think the plot hinged on 'detonating The Megatome' a cursed book that allowed everyone to see everyone else's thoughts, a non-subtle Twitter stand-in that the protagonist, the Scythian, had sworn to destroy.
Anyways, that project was built by me at Superbrothers leading the charge on A/V, narrative and concepts, with my old pal maestro Jim Guthrie getting a shot at scoring his first videogame, and the project was made possible by the folks at the studio Capy (Grindstone, Below) who got the project started, kept it going, built it out, made it good, and did a lot else besides.
It's a cool videogame, and if you missed it you might want to give it a whirl. I recommend it on iPhone, where the design began, but it's totally fine elsewhere.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/204060/Superbrothers_Sword__Sworcery_EP/
THE ROAD TO JETT
Right after #sworcery went out in 2011 I started to shift gears professionally and personally, setting out on a path that led to JETT in 2021/2023. In 2011 I pulled up stakes in Toronto, where #sworcery happened and where I had been living for nearly a decade, and soon after I moved to the woods of Quebec, my wife and I began to raise a family, while myself and my pal Patrick at Pine Scented, who lives in Japan, got to work chipping away at JETT, starting in around 2013.
JETT kept us busy for long years as it was just the two of us and composer scntfc, and then in the last coupla years we had to spin up a large squad of collaborators and contributors working remotely from across Earth's troubled surface to get JETT done.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1761600/JETT_The_Far_Shore__Given_Time/
#SWORCERY X JETT OVERLAPS
JETT's actually a lot like sworcery, despite the surface differences (polygons vs pixels, science fiction vs fantasy, stoic vs irreverent, complex controls vs simple controls). JETT's another unorthodox DIY-feeling effort from a tiny team, with some great music, some deep vibes, plus a smattering of bold choices and distinct ideas that'll sit with you for forever and a day.
Here are some specific ways that JETT resonates with sworcery:
- an experience with style, soul and heart
- because I was on deck on both projects defining narrative, characters, tone, music cues and art direction, as well as co-creating design, you'll find a lot of resonance between the two projects -- they're cut from the same cloth
- just like in sworcery, in JETT you'll find yourself moving through a lush world in a vibes-heavy adventure, where great music is often front and center
- in terms of pacing, as you play, occasionally a threat'll pop up and you'll have some action to take care of, and often you'll encounter scenarios that involve a bit of puzzling
- alongside the bombast, spectacle and puzzling, there are a plenty of quiet intimate moments, as well as a few strange dreams... and even a familiar-feeling nightmare apparition haunting dark corners
- story-wise, some echoes
- there are some rich themes that are going to resonate with some of you out there
- gently radical
- a silent woman with a spooky destiny finds herself on a cosmic adventure and eventually goes up a weird mountain,
then, much later on, she goes up the mountain again and di--
- coupla composers in common
- composer scntfc created the moon grotto music in sworcery, which is a neat cameo in a great Jim Guthrie score
- composer Jim Guthrie created the interstellar trip song Out Of Our Hands for JETT, a neat cameo in a great scntfc score
- also, a bit of intentional sfx overlap
- you might notice the 'adventure lead-in' sound is used in both
- sworcery's 'trigons' make something of an appearance inside JETT's 'phosfiends'
- sworcery's 'sylvan sprites' aka space babies and JETT's 'brine wisp' sounds are the same - why, you might ask?
Given all of the above resonances and linkages, you may find yourself wondering: do sworcery and JETT take place in the same universe? Are the two projects connected, and if so, how directly are they connected?
Devoted JETT-heads may have discerned the truth, but now isn't the time to just spell things out.
DEEP DIVE ON JETT'S INTERSTELLAR DEMO
JETT co-creator Patrick at Pine Scented and I had a JETT prototype in 2011, but it wasn't until 2013 that we started chipping away at the full concept, just the two of us. That's when the characters, the narrative and JETT's unorthodox gameplay came into focus. Note: If you'd like to see a glimpse of baby JETT from this time, here's Patrick's #jettdev thread on Twitter.
By 2015, we had The Far Shore and Given Time campaigns roughly mapped out, but at that time the experience began with Mei and Isao deploying from The Mother Structure to the unfamiliar planet of the far shore. An epic science fiction moment, for sure, but as time went on it began to feel too abrupt. Who are Mei and Isao? Why are they deploying to this planet? What is a jett and how do I fly it?
It occurred to me that, before immersing people in this complex unorthodox videogame, we really oughta consider cooking up and bolting on a kickass prologue.
The spec was to 1) intrigue and interest the player right from the get-go with an intricate and distinct storyworld 2) put the player on the hook personally and emotionally, and get them to be curious about and care for the people in this society 3) give players a sense of the gee whiz thrill of how it feels at the helm of a jett...then 4) give the player an opportunity to get familiar with the ensemble cast all before 4) melting some minds and taking players across space and 1000 years into the future.
Ideally we'd get all that done in a smooth 30 minutes. It was a tall order, particularly for two people, but a few months into 2016 we had it roughly in place and playable.
When people played it in mid 2016 we could see it was delivering pretty well, and that was before Jim's Out Of Our Hands song showed up in 2017.
Since those olden days the prologue and everything else got a metric ton of production effort, shaping and polish from dozens of people in the JETT Squad era from 2019 to 2021. I'm real proud of how it came together, and I hope it resonates with you.
At cosmodrome z-13 you'll meet the characters who make up your scout unit, from the leadership -- Misha, Pasha -- to Jones, jett ace and commander.
In the JETT demo you'll get a sense of who they are and what kind of headspace they're in, as they leave everything and everyone behind and embark on a one-way trip across space and 1000 years in the future, in the hope of carving out a future on some faraway world.
Here are a couple character drawings I had made back in 2013, including Mei's co-pilot Isao (a young George Takei) and jett ace Jones (what if Grace Jones was Captain Kirk).
In the olden times of 2014 to 2016, when it was just Patrick and I, it was up to me to create all the 3D models and pretty much anything else visual. It was a relief when we were able to bring in help, with my old pal Chris Beintema on deck for models and rigs for the characters and creatures in the shipping game.
Eventually, the time comes for Mei to lapse into torpor -- JETT's version of cryosleep -- and for her and her fellow scouts to be put aboard a rocket.
As the rocket ignites, we drop the needle on Jim's song "Out Of Our Hands"... and off we go, to dock with The Mother Structure in orbit above, and then set off across the sea of stars, to the far shore.
Here's a possibly interesting aside, about the tone of 0.Embark:
At TCAF 2015 I crossed paths with Dan Berry and I bought his comic Carry Me, a book about parenting, life and death that stuck with me. Related to Carry Me, in 2015 I was a new parent, my daughter having been born in 2014, and I got to thinking about who I most identified with in JETT's emerging story.
The short comic Carry Me by Dan Berry can be read in a handful of minutes at the following internet website. http://www.thingsbydan.co.uk/2017/04/read-carry-me/
Upon reflection, I became aware that the character with whom I resonated most in JETT was the protagonist's father. We meet him once, he apologizes, then wishes Mei well. He is to remain behind, while she sets off to the stars. There's a very specific agony and heartbreak at work here, because a parent knows that, if all goes well, their child will outlive them, and that there will someday be a tearful parting. What's more, parents here on Earth in the 21st century feel an additional weight, a heavy brew of regret and helplessness at the thought of the troubled future our children have been born into. I felt compelled to reckon with these feelings, and bottle some of them up in JETT.
Fast forwarding a few years, and Dan Berry found himself in JETT's orbit, climbing aboard the squad that delivered the Given Time expansion. Small world! You can read all about this in our recent JETT squad profile featuring Dan and Richard Flanagan.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/3404184263846060375
Speaking of Dan, him and I are starting to broadcast dev commentary streams on the JETT Steam page. Keep an eye out for when our streams are live if you'd like to tune in.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1761600/JETT_The_Far_Shore__Given_Time/
I hope you enjoyed the above!
To stay in the loop with Superbrothers and all things JETT, please like and subscribe and so forth.
Wishlist JETT on Steam and Download Demo - it helps!
- Play the prologue to get warmed up, and ensure your PC rig works.
- Note: We recommend playing on a controller, with headphones!
If you're a streamer or press, and if you'd like to play JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time and help us get the word out, please get in touch!
- We have piping hot preview keys near-at-hand, and we're around to chat.
- Get in touch at [email protected] and/or [email protected].
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Give us a follow:
- Twitter (RIP?): @jettxyz @superbrothersHQ @craigdadams
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- Hive (?): @superbrothers
Poke around our websites:
- superbrothersHQ.com
- jett.fyi
- swordandsworcery.com
Thanks for your time and attention, cosmic friends!
* Oh, are you still reading?
Looking for more?
Well now, let's see.
Ah, there is this one thing.
Here:
What's this? Well, it's a little slice of a playable something special related to sworcery that will surface at the appointed time, a few moons hence.