Humans, Robots, and Dark, Tight Spaces
As Chris has already announced, we’ve just released our newest title, Sanctuary 17. It’s been just over six months since our first game, Where We Remain, came out, and after a very brief pause, we got to work on Sanctuary 17 with the hopes of knocking it out in a few short months. Obviously, that didn’t go entirely according to plan.
Sanctuary was born from my desire to re-imagine one of my favorite games from my childhood: Night Stalker (for the Intellivision). A very simple game about a man trapped in a maze with an endless parade of deadly robots coming after him, it still managed to push my childhood fear button with great effect. Taking those feelings – isolation, fear of what was coming next – and putting them into a larger context was the driving force behind my early designs for Sanctuary.
The game has changed a lot from my initial thoughts, both in story and in mechanics. The world was more limited at first, more linear, but as we went through the early stages, the (to me) thrill of exploring the unknown almost demanded to be given more focus. The plight of the survivors went through many iterations, until it grew into the story of a handful of dreamers with thoughts of freedom being exiled into the darkness. With each change, more and more moving pieces came into play, and the project grew larger and larger.
Chris, as usual, kept it all together, deftly implementing our changing goals. It was a learning experience for both of us, but certainly a good one. Of course, as a project drags out longer and longer, you start to just want it finished. When all was said and done, though, I feel we’ve created something we can look upon proudly, and hopefully something you will enjoy playing.
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July 22nd, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Hey I just beat Sanctuary 17. It was a fun and challenging adventure into the unknown. Thank you!