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Soothe your soul with 'Panoramical,' a game of musical manipulation
Panoramical doesn't fit into an existing game category. It's not an action game, simulator, point-and-click, FPS or any other traditional gaming genre -- but it is magical. Panoramical offers a form of musical meditation, allowing players to manipulate gorgeous 3D landscapes with a gamepad, keyboard and mouse or MIDI controller, all backed by music from David Kanaga (Proteus, Dyad) and overseen by Argentine designer Fernando Ramallo. Plus, it features a host of guest musicians, including LittleBigPlanet 2 co-composer Baiyon, Samurai Gunn composer Doseone and Luftrausers composer Kozilek.
Game development is better with friends at Finji
Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman founded Finji, a collaborative development studio, in March. Finji offers publishing and other services to developers, and it runs on revenue share for each project – for Saltsman's new apocalyptic survival game, Overland, this means each of the four development team members will split revenue from the game "basically forever" once it's released. Finji works with other developers on their own games, such as Infinite Fall's Night in the Woods, and Fernando Ramallo and David Kanaga's Panoramical, which is also backed by Polytron Partners. So far, the collaboration is going better than he'd hoped, Saltsman says. Developers use a combination of text messages, Skype and Google apps to get their work done, and they're figuring out the kinks among everyone's schedules. Most of the team is local to Austin, Texas, but they do have to deal with some time zone confusion and melding different work habits.
Overland: A lonely game filled with monsters
Overland is not a zombie game. It's a turn-based survival story set in an apocalyptic wasteland filled with monsters, and it plays out as if action figures from Half-Life 2 and Stephen King's The Stand were on a road trip across a chess board, creator Adam Saltsman says. It is a horror game, in a sense. "It is intended to be scary or unsettling or lonely, but I don't think it will be compared to Resident Evil or Amnesia," Saltsman tells Joystiq. "The thing I'm most interested in right now is, what if the people in a roguelike-type scenario weren't heroes and could not become heroes ... how do they manage? I like that feeling of vulnerability more than the feeling of 'horror' exactly. As a team we're definitely investigating things that are lonely and vulnerable and beautiful more than 'scary' so far, I think."
Fez studio starts Polytron Partners to 'give back'
Polytron Corporation is breaking into the not-publishing (but kind of publishing) business with Polytron Partners, beginning with Panoramical, an audio visualizer from designer Fernando Ramallo and Proteus music man David Kanaga. Fez creator Phil Fish announced Polytron Partners on his blog: "We only got to make Fez in the first place because of the help and support of a LOT of cool people. Time to give back a little, you know? When I offered to help with the release, Fernando explained that he was already working out a somewhat similar deal with Adam and Bekah Saltsman's FINJI. They would provide help with day to day operations, payment logistics, things like that. The kind of details independent developers often need help with when they're busy trying to ship the damn thing. What Polytron could help with was production and promotion."
