Well. You can probably guess what RIPPER is trying to do to you.
As you've not doubt read in the tagline, we've begun work on the next RIPPER environment which see you placed in a slate quarry.
ENTERING THE DARKNESS
You'll see our detective Sam Harlow in some of the shots - this isn't to imply any gameplay cameras (although we will have some lovely wideshots in some of our vistas), she's more there to help get a sense of scale when we're building out our environments.
THE DEMO
Our current focus is to get the whole team (we're 14 people), aligned around a demo we're putting together for you all. We don't have an estimated date for this yet - sInce we're self-publishing RIPPER, we want to take our time and get things right. We also want to have the game in a really good place before we start releasing demo content in case we need to make any design changes to help it feel consistent across the rest of the game as we iterate.
Previously in RIPPER's development, outside of the trailer where we all came together to get the shots in place ready for the edit, we've mostly been spread across the project. In development there can be multiple blockers across departments so we've been trying to work in parallel ways to each other so no ones blocking too many other people to bring different aspects online that we needed to help define the scope of the game.
We've also had a few people working on getting Dahlia View out onto consoles (for those of you waiting to pick it up, it's coming!), so this will be a great chance for everyone to focus on a specific section of the game.
SILHOUETTED IN THE CAVE
It's always been a tough thing demo'ing our titles. Since you're reading this, you're probably into the narrative-type thrillers we love to design. It can be hard to immerse yourselves in the world and characters when you have a limited time with a demo. Although we know it can be best practice for demos to be around 20-30 mins long, I suspect we may want to give you a bit more than 30 mins to really give you a sense of the overall game feel.
WORK IN PROCESS
Although these images are really just our process of bringing an environment together, aimed to get the environment fleshed out with the main gameplay beats, the screenshots help you see how our artists approach an initial pass of the lighting and texturing - they're using world aligned tillable paint strokes which help add that slightly stylised feel to the world. The lighting is just an initial colour direction and you'll likely see this change many times until we're ready to unveil the quarry demo but we thought it might be fun to show the early stages of the space.
SAM CLIMBING THE STEPS
Outside of the demo, it's just been so lovely seeing so many want to come join our server and hang out. There are lots of people connecting with us who are excited about RIPPER who have also played some of our previous work which is always awesome to see.
As we enter our 15th year as a studio next year (which crazy to think!) we feel so fortunate to be able to show up every day and create games for you all to experience. So thanks for sharing the journey!
I think next month we may share some more cool tech breakdowns, this time about our custom weather system we're putting together which has a massive impact on your sense of space with sounds, materials, and objects in the world all reacting to a dynamic weather. Whether it be classic British drizzle soaking the streets, or the crisp layer of snow we get for precisely 2.3 days each year before it turns to grey mush, we want the weather to have a big impact on the way we play.
Speaking of snow, only 13 weeks until Christmas.