STASIS, An Isometric SciFi Adventure Game

Games
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For the serial killer game, I have already mapped out how the game would work on a technical level.

Lets say we have 10 murder scenes. Each scene would be planned and played out as a separate, completely unrelated game event.
The game would then trigger each murder, with the order of the murders happening depending on the players actions.
If ALL of the murders happen, the player looses, as the serial killer escapes to a different place. The less murders that happen, the ‘higher’ the player score.

To have a game like The Butterfly Effect, the easiest way would be to attack it like a very linear Adventure Game. Sort of how Telltale has done its Back To The Future series.
If it was a more ‘freeform’ approach, it could be done by separating each element of the story into completely separate and ‘unrelated’ events. For instance, a NPC would have 3 separate ‘states’.
Nice, Mean, and Hobo. Going back to a ‘starting time’ (say 5 years earlier), your conversation would trigger which ‘state’ the NPC would be in the future.

Each NPC would have these triggers, so in the ‘future’ you could have NPC A be a hobo, and NPC B be nice, and going back and doing ‘something’ around NPC A would change his state to ‘Mean’ and NPC B to ‘Hobo’.

In this way, the future would have an ‘infinite’ amount of states (well, with 2 NPC’s, there would be 9, but with more NPC’s, and more states the amount becomes exponential).

Now the tricky part would be having the different states of some characters influencing states of others. The game would essentially become an experience of balance, to try to get each player to a certain state. But chatting to one person could change the state of another without you knowing (ie-a brother turning ‘mean’ would influence his sister. His sisters state would influence her best friend, who would influence her teacher). So you would have to find the trigger to turn the brother back to ‘nice’ to stop the other trigger of events-but the brother being nice could make the best friend ‘mean’.

The idea is that the rules you would set up would be very simple. 3 states. 3 triggers. Each state triggers a different state in someone elses 3 states. This in turns alters the ‘world’ of the present (the states of the people could not only alter their personality and look, but also what their house looks like, and their surroundings).

Or something like that. ;)

65

I did an interview with KILLER BITS about STASIS.

You can see some new footage, cinematics, and get some general game info.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GUUNCsQ5RfE

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This is the first I’ve heard about the game. I’m a complete sucker for anything Isometric. Buy buy buy. I’m slightly disappointed that it isn’t something like Crusader or Fallout, though. Maybe I’ll get to shoot at least one person and do one combat roll? Pretty please…

Feels very The Dig-gish. What’s the engine? It’s clearly not AGS ;)

edit: Actually, looking back through the thread, my comment echos a lot of the other ones. There’s clearly demand !

doubleedit: Engine is answered in the video. I should just watch and read everything before replying. Anyway, it’s Visionaire. Given the isometric look I was expecting a custom engine or something with a full isometric tileset. The third link for ‘Visionaire’ is Chris’ own blog on the subject.

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No combat rolls (although I may have one area where I could possibly put one in), but you do get a ‘high voltage slug gun’ at one point, that you use to blow up an oxygen tank…does that count?

I have plans for another game that will have some more actiony elements to it…but STASIS first!

Surprisingly, the engine works really well for the isometric view. Essentially its ‘fake’ isometric, as there are no tiles, and no actual depth. The only thing that gives it the isometric feel is the paths that character walks on. I was as surprised as you that I could actually pull it off! :D
It does take a bit of wriggling when it comes to having a character walk ‘behind’ and ‘in front’ of objects.

68

I sometimes take a break from vivisections, rotting corpses, and the cold hard floors of The Groomlake to indulge either my artistic, or game designer side. Here are a few examples of previous side projects I’ve done. My general rule is to not allow them more than 3 days, with the exception of 1KL, which was a 2 week process (but involved actually making a fully playable tech demo…so it was time well spent!).

http://www.stasisgame.com/stasis-infinite/

These side projects are honestly some of my favorite things to do, and things that I think many people really appreciate. It, in a strange way, actually focuses me MORE on STASIS by letting me step back for a few nights and just let my imagination run wild.
Of course, with BIOSHOCK being a massive influence on STASIS, I could not ignore the awesome world that Irrational Games has created with BIOSHOCK: Infinite.
Although I have not played the game (seriously, I’m HORRIBLE at finishing games. I haven’t even gotten to the planet yet in Dead Space 3), I delved into the story by watching Lets Plays, and reading up on all of the theories that went into it. Although, the thing that interested me most was the city of Collumbia! And naturally, it needed some ‘Isometricing’, because all games would look better in 2D Isometric.
So, I present to you: STASIS – INFINITE!

STASIS-INFINITE-B.jpg1920×1058

-Chris

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I am amazed… That looks so damn real its uncanny! Thanks for sharing!

Is this something you plan to make a game about, or just something you make for fun?

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Just for fun. Think of it as fan art!

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That level of detail! lovely!

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Thanks for the image, Mr. Bischoff. It’s quite nice!

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Seriously dude, your artwork is absolutely gorgeous!

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Thanks, Chris! Yet another wallpaper for the rotation.

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Man, if Bioshock Infinite had have have a been an Isometric RPG it would have been so much better.

Gorgeous work as ever!

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Thanks so much for the kind words guys. Makes the slog days so much easier!

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Gorgeous. Those trees are amazing.

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http://www.stasisgame.com/stasis-and-kickstarter/

This post has been a long time coming, but I figured it was finally time to throw it into the wild…
One of the questions I get asked most often (ok, second most-the first being ‘When is Stasis going to finished), is:
WHY ISN’T STASIS ON KICKSTARTER?
I think that Kickstarter is a wonderful platform, and I avidly follow quite a few of the projects that have gone up. Project Eternity, Wasteland 2, Torment, and Broken Age are my staples, along with a few smaller ones.
But even these projects seem to be running into issues-and these are projects with multitudes of experience behind them.
.
ISSUE 1
One of the big issues, and one that I think is one of the most important ones, its keeping the community updated on your progress. A big selling point in these projects, and any project on Kickstarter, is that you get to see the project emerging-see how the sausage is made. Now while thats a really cool idea for the gamer who loves these things, its a very difficult thing for the developer.
I personally feel that I announced STASIS way too early. The truth is that I never thought it would be a large project, so didnt see the harm in showing it off in its early states. If I look back at this blog, a TON of time has gone into the blog posts, talking about various aspects of the game, whats happening in the background, why I do what I do. Now this has been beinifial in some way, I think that I can be hurtful in others.
For a game that relies on STORY as one of its major selling points, to have 2 years of stuff talking about the game, without mentioning the story, is VERY difficult. But see-because I view this blog as my personal thing, Im not bound to talk about the game. There are quite a few posts here about…well…other things. Articles I like, other games, and other random ideas. These other projects have to have a media communication plan that’s SPECIFICALLY TAILORED TO THE PROJECT, WITHOUT GIVING AWAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION. And they have to update OFTEN, because this is part of what the backers pay for. This adds in an extra layer of complexity to an already complex situation, and one that I wouldnt want to find myself in.
If you go dark, and have a media blackout, your backers will (rightfully) complain. If you update too often, you are going to start to dilute the games content in the minds of the players. Now with the RPG’s mentioned, this is a little easier, because the idea with an RPG is to create enough tools and rules in the game to let the player craft the story-but in a much more linear game (like STASIS, or Broken Age), its almost impossible. Im surprised that Double Fine actually managed to go for almost a year before even announcing the name of the game, and a screenshot. And people were starting to notice it, and getting agitated with them for being so scant on aspects of the game. Which brings me to issue 2….
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ISSUE 2
People are mean, and artists are sensitive! Ask ANY artist if they enjoy showing people unfinished work, and they will say NO. Unless they are sadists.
Reading the comments and discussions of things like the first WASTELAND 2 screen, or the Torment locations, or the PE level prototype makes me shiver. Complaints about there not being dust on the footsteps, too much blur in the back grounds, ladders not being properly scaled….these are things that can be a bit of a crushing experience for artists, specifically when they KNOW that its not something that’s complete.
Ive been quite lucky, in that the reactions to the screenshots and videos of STASIS has been pretty good-but that’s because everything I release, I release on MY schedule. I release them because they are complete. I’ve done my internal QA, external QA, double and triple checked everything, and when things aren’t correct, thrown them out and started over. There are actually about 3 game play videos that I haven’t released, because I just didn’t like 1 or 2 things with them. Thats the power of NO EXTERNAL PRESSURE.
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ISSUE 3
Lets say STASIS goes on Kickstarter, and I raise $100 000,00. That means, that, before I even release the game, I’m $100 000.00 in debt. I have to give away $100 000.00 of product ON THE DAY I LAUNCH. Now, I know that people have the ‘but without the money you wouldn’t have a product’, and that’s a very fair, and true argument. But the problem with an Adventure Game, is that the market IS small.
The RPG projects have a much wider appeal, and I have NO doubt that they will double, triple, or even make 10 fold what they have put into it. But a smaller Adventure Game like STASIS? I have high hopes for the sales, and concrete plans for what the money I make from STASIS will go into-but I would hate to, at the end of a grueling few years of work, come out with giving away all of the product that I would have ever sold, and starting from square 1. I know thats its a worst case scenario-but the truth is that its a possibility-and on that I need to be very mindful of.
Thats why I don’t think that Stretch Goals are a very good idea. I understand WHY they are there, but I think that the feature bloat they cause, and spending money that you don’t have, isn’t the best way of getting out an ALREADY incredibly complex product.
Looking at Broken Age, the initial budget for that was $400 000,00, with the final funding coming in at almost 8 times that. It would have been better for them to stick with the original goal, and had enough money from that game alone to create another 8 games! Or 4 larger games. or 1 big game and a sequel! Instead, the entire budget, again of money they technically dont have, has been put into ONE SINGLE PRODUCT.
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ISSUE 4.
I’m not employed. If I got a large influx of cash, I couldn’t really quite my job and work on STASIS full time, because I own the company. Its a company that my brother an I built from the ground up over a decade. I have many other lives that are dependent on me to be here every day. Because of the worries of ISSUE 3, I couldn’t go at this full time. Not yet at least.
.
ISSUE 5,
STASIS IS MY KICKSTARTER. I have a goal in mind for how many sales STASIS has to make for me to go into full time Game Development. Make no mistake, that is the end goal. I want STASIS to be the beginning of that journey. I want to create an awesome game, that people will love-and use that foundation to do the same again and again and again. I don’t want people to buy into the promise of future things-because those are fleeting at best, and gut wrenching when they fail.
IN CLOSING…
I think that Kickstarter is a wonderful idea, and I know without it we wouldn’t have some truly incredible projects coming up in the next 48 months…but its not for me, or STASIS.
-Chris

79

Great post.

Keep doing what you’re doing!

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Looking at Kickstarter pledges as debt doesn’t make sense to me. It is advance sales, which is revenue. There is no possible set of events which could occur that would result in you having to return that money. I understand that your advance sales will cannibalize your future sales and that might be a concern, except that the end result is still the same amount of net sales - so where is the problem? That said, your other concerns with regarding Kickstarter seem valid.

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A lot of Kickstarters use the reward tiers as loss leaders.

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It’s unearned revenue and is a liability.

I understand that your advance sales will cannibalize your future sales and that might be a concern, except that the end result is still the same amount of net sales - so where is the problem? That said, your other concerns with regarding Kickstarter seem valid.

His concern seems to be that any funds(i.e. sales) raised via kickstarter, are for the project only. They’re not profit, or to fund more projects/games, they have to be put into STASIS.
Also, in business, how your revenue comes in is almost as important as your overall revenue!

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A debt is an obligation owed by one party (the debtor) to a second party.
The thing with the Kickstarters is that they are NOT presales. STASIS will have a presale period, but once the product is complete, and a % of those sales will be focused on the marketing of the game.
I know its a very grey area, and is more of a way of looking at things, but I think that using money for a product to create the product that doesnt exist that people have purchased…its just a bad idea.

It’s unearned revenue and is a liability.

This.

His concern seems to be that any funds(i.e. sales) raised via kickstarter, are for the project only. They’re not profit, or to fund more projects/games, they have to be put into STASIS.

And this.

It comes down as well to what the backers expect-and the thing with Kickstarters is that the expectation is that more money is put into a larger game.

Like I said, I think that Kickstarter is amazing-but its not the right platform for what I have in mind.

EDIT- I was wrong!

Just wanted to post this ‘retraction’ from my posts. I still think that some of my concerns are valid, but essentially, most of them were flawed.

http://www.stasisgame.com/kickstarter-revisited/