We’re kicking off our Steam News updates for I AM RIPPER with something winter focused since a lot of game is set in the dead winter of the UK in 1988.
Snow is such a large part of a game set in winter (especially one where you’re trying to track a killer) so we need to create the snow in a way that enhances the atmosphere and affects your gameplay experience.
Leaving a trace
When characters walk around in the snow; whether that’s you the player, people you’re working with, or maybe a suspect you want to follow, leaving footsteps behind not only grounds you in the world, but gives you a sense that the weather can affect any clues pertinent to your case.
This video shows how our footstep system can react to multiple characters in the world
Even the darkest cases have moments of levity
I AM RIPPER is a dark game. We want the true grittiness and realities of cases like this to be at the forefront of your game play experience. We don’t take these matters lightly and want to do justice to what it feels like to solve a case like this in real life.
We try to design around features we take for granted in video games such as respawning at checkpoints or collectables for the sake of collectables. Instead we put focus on gameplay designed to respect your time as a player, which is one of our core design pillars when creating our games. We want you to be focused on everything surrounding your investigation into the Ripper.
With that said, we love to juxtapose sections of the game where there can be moments of laughing & levity. We don’t want to give away too much there, but you can imagine the opportunities that snow presents..!
Rolling snowballs is the most fun way to test physics!
A focus on Detail
We love to focus on even the smallest details in our world. It’s the polish (which can be time consuming and complex to achieve) that we think really helps sell a unique vision to the gameplay. We're still a small team of 14 but these details matter a lot to us.
Be sure to look at where the feet are dragging to see the focus we're putting into each footstep
We’re so excited to have the opportunity of sharing more about what you can expect for I AM RIPPER throughout development to give you a better understanding of the vision, since you’ve only had chance to see our announcement trailer so far.
If there’s anything you’re curious to know about (avoiding spoilers of course..!) then please do let us know in the comments with what interests you most about Ripper. We’d love to share more articles like this as we continue development.
Thank you all for supporting and following our work and really hope you’ve enjoyed our breakdown on the snow in I AM RIPPER!