alexander-bruce
Latest
Antichamber chops half off its price, Starseed Pilgrim takes off on Steam
Antichamber is half off on Steam through April 18 at 4 p.m. PT, bringing the price of completely blowing your mind to $10. What a steal. Antichamber has already "absolutely, exponentially" made back its production costs for developer Alexander Bruce, but a Steam sale never hurt anyone.In more psychological Steam news, IGF nominee Starseed Pilgrim is out now to teach you how to tend the seeds of the universe. You little gardener, you. Starseed Pilgrim is $6, now and forever, for PC and Mac.
Antichamber 'exponentially recouped' dev costs
Antichamber, the mind-melting puzzle game that Alexander Bruce had in development for six years, sold more than 100,000 units in its first seven weeks on the market – "You do the math," Bruce tells Joystiq after his talk at GDC 2013.Challenge accepted: Antichamber costs $20 standard, but was on sale for a week after launch for $15. Without knowing how many copies were bought on sale, we'll take the median of $17.50 and multiply that by 100,000 copies, for a speculative estimate of $1.75 million.This doesn't automatically mean Antichamber made a profit for Bruce, since it has to be offset by development costs. Bruce estimates he spent $60,000 developing Antichamber, though he made back roughly $50,000 in prize money and government grants; he didn't pay himself a salary, he saved money by living at home, and he streamlined all convention expenses."I have absolutely, exponentially recouped all my costs," Bruce says. "Ridiculously, definitely made back all of my costs."Bruce guaranteed low development costs by working with the Victorian government in Australia to receive grants. For example, during GDC and PAX East last year, Bruce decided it would be easier to stay in the states for six weeks straight, rather than fly back and forth during the interim. He presented this plan to the Victorian government and it said, "That's fine." Victoria covered half of his expenses abroad, meaning if he spent $6,000 on booths and living, the state gave Bruce $3,000, he says."This is how I kept my costs so low. I kept my costs absolutely low," Bruce says. "That's why I was able to just be dedicated to quality and make sure that I had it correct."Antichamber is on sale on Steam now, for $12, through March 29.
Antichamber: How a game of impossible spaces came together
In 2009, Alexander Bruce took a week off from his university studies in Australia to fly to Tokyo and present his Unreal Tournament 3 mod, Hazard: The Journey of Life, at Tokyo Game Show's experimental games summit, Sense of Wonder Night. It was his first official recognition as a developer and Hazard was still a hobby project, something Bruce had worked on in his spare time over the previous six months, based off prototypes he'd messed around with since 2006.In the years following Sense of Wonder Night 2009, Bruce's updated, full-game version of Hazard – now called Antichamber – won more than 20 honors, including the award for Technical Excellence at the Independent Games Festival 2012. More notable, however, was that Antichamber launched on Steam yesterday, January 31, 2013, and quickly claimed the No. 1 spot across the entire service."Pretty much everything I've ever made somehow found its way into the final version of Antichamber," Bruce told me.
PSA: Antichamber bursts onto Steam today, on sale through Feb. 6
Antichamber is here, so the gaming community can finally play it, discuss it and figure out exactly what it is. Is it a game? An experience? A drug-free acid trip? If you're up to the challenge, check out Antichamber for yourself on PC via Steam, where it's on sale for $15 through February 6.Antichamber, as crisp and busy as it may seem on the screen, might be more of a mental state than a game. As designer Alexander Bruce describes it, Antichamber is a "psychological exploration game where nothing can be taken for granted." It's like the experimental novel House of Leaves had a baby with Technicolor, then shoved it inside a PC. Or maybe it isn't – find out for yourself.
Antichamber's launch trailer is perplexing, just like the game itself
Developer Alexander Bruce's experimental, out-of-the-box approach to Antichamber is evident in the puzzle game's launch trailer. After six years of conception and toil, his award-winning project befuddles Steam tomorrow.
Antichamber set to melt minds on January 31
The award-winning indie game Antichamber will finally drop the general public into its mind-altering world on January 31. Developer Alexander Bruce announced this morning the game will be available on Steam for PC, but the price is still to be determined."After several years of obsessively watching people play and trying to get inside their minds, refining and then watching some more, this is what I've discovered, and it's finally time to share that with the world," said Bruce.At its core, Antichamber is a puzzle game. We've tried to describe it in the past, but with only two weeks to go before launch, if you know nothing about the game, it may be best to enter its world without any knowledge.%Gallery-176712%
On The Fringe, Part One: Alexander Bruce's Antichamber
On The Fringe is a two-part series from freelance contributor Danielle Riendeau that focuses on games designed to push beyond established boundaries in the video game industry. No matter what the video game industry would have you believe, games don't all fit into neat, simple categories. They aren't all cinematic action masterpieces of the AAA realm, quirky indie puzzle-platformers or minimalist exercises in rhythm.In reality, there is a teeming ecosystem of games out there, with creators who are just as interested in what games can be – both mechanically and thematically – as what they have been in the past. They see boundaries and their first instinct is to push or subvert, rather than color within the established lines, and these folks are doing some of the craziest things that the medium has ever seen.Alexander Bruce, creator of Antichamber, is one such developer.%Gallery-148850%
Antichamber and Indie Fund: A match made in M.C. Escher's basement
Antichamber mastermind Alexander Bruce enjoys screwing with people's perceptions of reality, on the screen and on the show floor of PAX East. As part of the Indie Megabooth, Bruce had full reign to make attendees perform a mystery challenge as part of the Megabooth's signature rally. Bruce gave every hopeful participant that approached Antichamber a simple command: "I need you to stand on your hands."A few people removed jackets and dropped their bags in preparation for the inevitable fall they'd suffer trying to perform a handstand in the middle of a crowded Indie Megabooth; one young man guessed he would probably kill someone with his gymnastics. Before anyone attempted the actual handstand though, it hit them -- this was Alex Bruce, and he wanted them to stand on their hands. So they stepped on their fingers and Bruce signed their punch cards, grinning the entire time, every time.
Antichamber playable at GDC, PAX East; launching mid-year
Antichamber is a nightmare to describe on paper, but the opportunity for some hands-on time with the first-person exploration puzzler set in an Escher-like world exists at next week's GDC and at April's PAX East. Antichamber will be at the IGF Pavilion during GDC and at the Indie Mega Booth at PAX East.Shacknews conducted an interview late last year at IndieCade with developer Alexander Bruce about testing the puzzles and his years-long observations of how people played the game. We've placed that video after the break. Antichamber should be ready for full exploration "mid year" on Steam.
Antichamber preview: Psycholudology
Trying to describe the hour I spent with Alexander Bruce's PAX 10 Finalist indie game, Antichamber, is going to be one of the most difficult descriptive feats I've ever attempted. I think that the big hang-up is that it's going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people: For me, my time with the game was all about learning the obscure rules of a universe with no immediate context; a game about second, then third, then fourth-guessing my own actions until I found a solution I was able to walk away from with just a modicum of satisfaction. For the person who took up the demo after me, it was about moving forward as quickly he could, attempting to adhere to an entirely pointless 90-minute time limit while ignoring all the lessons the game had to teach. Here's the thing: I'm not entirely sure either of us was playing it wrong.
Indie game 'Hazard: The Journey of Life' is now Antichamber
Hazard: The Journey of Life, by Alexander Bruce, is a super-abstract first-person exploration game, whose rules seem to constantly change. For example, a door might not lead to the same place twice, and a wall might be a door depending on how you look at it. And now, even the name has shifted -- to Antichamber, in advance of its commercial release ("when it's done"). Speaking to Joystiq, Bruce explained the motivations behind the midstream re-christening, by way of explaining the evolution of the name and the game. "Hazard' was chosen back when I was first exploring the geometry system," he said, "and the game was all about killing players in an arena combat game, but eventually that idea died off, and I just kept calling anything related to the geometry system 'Hazard' because I was used to it." He began adding "philosophical" themes "about choices and metaphor" in 2009, at which point the "Journey of Life" subtitle came in. Now, he explained, the game is less about philosophy and more about "non-Euclidean space, non-physical geometry and massively toying with expectations in a meaningful way." Antichamber covers those angles better than Hazard did. "The game speaks for itself, so the name change is really just bringing it up to date with everything else that has changed."
