Hi everyone,
I wanted to check in as we are working hard toward shipping and will have an announcement on the exact date soon - check back for specifics in the next month. But don’t fear, it won’t be long before you’ll get to stare down our cult leaders Isaac and Rebecca in person.
If you want more about the game right now, I wanted to make sure everyone got to see what we did for LudoNarraCon - the first game convention hosted and streamed right here on Steam. A ton of interesting story-related games streamed gameplay and other content all weekend long, all organized by our publisher Fellow Traveller. For The Church in the Darkness, we did two different streams on the game plus a panel discussion.
First up, I am sure you'll most want to see this long look at our gameplay. Some spoilers in here, so watch carefully, but the first 15 minutes or so are fairly safe. We were lucky to play with Geoffrey Card, senior designer at Undead Labs (who I got work with on State of Decay years ago). Geoffrey is pretty good at games (check out his many streams for examples of that), and when he plays again, I'll definitely make him go up a difficulty level. More on that below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsqL5aM0tRM
I also got to do a panel on procedural storytelling with a great crew of designers: Tarn Adams (Dwarf Fortress), Bekah Saltsman (Overland, Night in the Woods), and Tanya X Short (The Shrouded Isle, Boyfriend Dungeon).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEAHI1MfdbQ
And finally, we had a Q&A with Ellen McLain and John Patrick Lowrie (our cult leader actors) - we talked about how they got involved, inspiration behind the story, and their own background with 1970s “alternative societies.” We definitely got into the weeds with that, while we also took questions from people in the chat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzUOraASA9Q
The Church in the Darkness we feel is something different for a narrative game: it's got very specific story and fully voiced characters, but that story is also dynamic and it is designed to be replayed. It doesn't feel like a simulation, but under the hood it really is (and that's one reason it's taken so long to finish). So once you get your hands on the game and get your first ending, remember you've just started to unearth everything that's in there. Go get some more endings to find new characters, alternate versions of the cult leaders, and of course tons of different outcomes for you, your nephew, and the people of the Collective Justice Mission.
Once you get to replaying it to get different endings, some of you will find you're mastering it, and that's when we hope you'll bump it up to a higher difficulty. Geoffrey Card from our gameplay stream linked above is a great example. He's clearly someone who should play at one of the higher difficulties, and I know he can take it, so I'm inclined to guilt him until he does. But each player gets to decide that for themselves. If you just want to get more story or don't want to be challenged and pushed, stick to the default difficulty or even go down to something easier. But if you want to really master the game systems, go up a difficulty or two. One feature we've added while in our final stretch is that the game now tracks what difficulty level you achieved for each of the main ending types, so you'll be able to look at your overall progress and decide if you want to push yourself more.
But that's also something I'm looking forward to learning when we do ship - how well does everyone do? Will we need to tune the gameplay or even add more difficulty options to expand the range of challenge? I can't wait to find out.
- Richard
Director/Designer/Writer on The Church in the Darkness