Postmortem and some 2013 history

From Nowhere to Somewhere

"To Nowhere" was a little demo project with 5 levels which I made back in 2013 while feeling a bit down, perhaps because many of my projects from the time were left unfinished and I just wanted to make something extraordinary simple. This is how I came up with this simple concept and assembled a few levels. I was working with Robert Menus (that's a nickname) composer at the time. He made / sourced the sounds and composed the original track. 

You can check out "To Nowhere" here, you'll find it at the bottom of the project files. Preserving it here for history's sake. 

There you should find some resemblance to Flatline as I did base most of it's style off that original project. 

Ludum Dare 57

I started working on the game from a completely empty project only on the second day of the Ludum Dare 57 jam. My first day idea was actually something even more abstract about zooming in rhombuses (hence the name in the LDJam's link) where you had to tap at the right time and keep up with momentum, but I lost that train of thought due to IRL distractions and early on the second day scrapped that idea entirely feeling I didn't had it in me to make a game for this jam, especially in time. But then I started thinking and figured I could revive an old project which brought me To Nowhere (?).

The idea to make the game about a person in a near-death experience came later when all base mechanics were already finished. Probably because I decided to use a background from my other project that I was making earlier this year which represents neurons and cells in the human brain. So now you know what that actually is meant to represent. Rainesphere's original composition for the game also contributed to that decision as it helped invoke these feelings in me. 

Before that I thought the game would have no story of any kind, but as I had this idea everything came in naturally. I instantly realized what I wanted to do with it and all pieces in the puzzle started coming together. 

Voice Overs

On the impulse, I had an idea of adding VO to the beginning and the end of each level, I immediately reached out to Jerem Watts asking whether he knows anyone who could do male & female voices for me, and while I knew he could do it I thought he would understandably be too busy with his own Ludum Dare project Dreamcyst, but then to my surprise he agreed to do it together with OGma and I am very thankful to them for that, because the game just wouldn't feel the same without their beautiful voices. 

I'm sure you'll love them as much as I do so check out their Twitch channels!

Jerem_Watts

OGma_badparenting101

Base Camp

Alexander named his soundtrack for the game "Base Camp". I only just now asked why he called it like that and he explained

"For every big mountain climb, you start at the base camp. Since the characters soul is just starting his climb back to life, I thought it was fitting"

and I couldn't agree more! 

Rainesphere - Base Camp

Flatlined

The game's title itself came from the SFX I asked Alexander Raines to make for the game over. He sent over a zip file with one of the sounds being named "Flatline", and I as proceeded editing it - I figured it was actually a fitting name for the game. 

The last day of the jam and second day of game's development was starting out very strong. I thought I had plenty of time which is why I was spending too much time polishing mechanics which in the end made it cost for the level design, and while the end result in some levels turned out to be more chaotic that I originally planned, I think it fits with the character's declining condition. 

And that's it! Now you know Flatline's development lore :)

And there is more to come! As after I finish integrating Highscores into the game, I am planning on making a successor project for the Mobile & Browser platforms. It will be our first commercial project!

~Xp