New myst-ical puzzle game I've worked on for 3 years

[Aloys]

(Oh dear, the pun in that title is horrible..)

I haven't been really active here lately; because something special has kept me *very* busy. And I'm happy to finally be able to announce it.
I've always worked on games development, and eventually I grew tired of working on other people's projects so, 3 years ago,I started my own company, Littlefield Studio, and for the last 3 years we have been working on an atmospheric puzzle game. (Myst and Uru lovers should feel right at home)
Introducing: Machinika Museum.





Without spoiling too much Machinika takes place in the future in a museum dedicated to alien technologies and artifacts. You find yourself working here as a technician where you must study and fix alien machines. But today's latest delivery is different: you're being told it is urgent and no one will tell you why. Only one way to get answers: solve mechanical puzzles; and find clues to understand what is really going on...
Machinika will be available in a couple months for iOS and PC. It was always developed as a mobile game (I am a fan of the series 'The Room'), but I thought, hey, why not do a PC version as well..
(Later we might look at making a Mac version too; there are people still playing on Macs right?)

... >> Demo available! <<

The full game will be here in a couple months, but today we are releasing a demo! The very beginning of the game, just enough to give a taste.
It's available for PC on on itch.io. >> PC (Windows) Download
And on the App Store >> App Store

Until then; if you've read this far, congrats you deserve a gameplay video: >> YouTube Video.


- - - - -

Random facts:

Engine: Unity 2017 (started on v.5; and we won't migrate to v2018 this late in the project)
Other tools: Blender (yay!) although the other artists use Max or Maya..
10 people have worked on it. Right now we have a team of 4 people working full time. Plus the odd outside help here and there.
Location: Paris, France (yes, that is a useless information).
Last time I took a real vacation: 7 months ago.
Release date: nothing set in stone yet. Most likely april.
Publisher? Not really, at least nothing set in stone here either.

[Christian Walther]

Yay, that looks great! Congratulations!

I spot a suspicious book there. Is that alien technology from Hunrath (or Australia)?

Bummer that it doesn’t run on my iPhone 5. Yes, please consider making a Mac version, I’m not sure I’m desperate enough to put up with Windows yet…

[Aloys]

Yay, that looks great! Congratulations!

Thanks.

I spot a suspicious book there. Is that alien technology from Hunrath (or Australia)?

Somebody has got a good eye.. I couldn't not put at least a small reference to my favorite linking book.. Recreating the texture for that book was probably my favorite part of the whole project. :p (btw, the title on the cover reads "Journal, 1993")

Bummer that it doesn’t run on my iPhone 5. Yes, please consider making a Mac version, I’m not sure I’m desperate enough to put up with Windows yet…

Sorry about your phone. It runs decently on my iPhone 5s, but the hardware difference between these two models is actually not small..
The demo might be able to run at a decent framerate (~30) on a model 5, but I know later parts in the game will definitely not.

[Charura]

This is really well done. I played the demo on my PC and it was flawless except when quitting the game after finishing chapter one. My cursor arrow went away after I went to the main menu to quit. Used task manager to quit. I can't wait for the full version. Are you taking pre-orders?

[Sirius]

Congrats on the demo release ! Didn't check the demo itself yet, but will definitely buy the game when it's out anyway !
I hope you're having fun with development (and wish you that the full release is a success )

[Aloys]

This is really well done. I played the demo on my PC and it was flawless except when quitting the game after finishing chapter one. My cursor arrow went away after I went to the main menu to quit. Used task manager to quit. I can't wait for the full version. Are you taking pre-orders?

Thanks! About the bug cursor: yes, I saw that too, I have just fixed it and updated the download link.
Pre-orders? Nothing set in stone here. But thanks for asking.

I hope you're having fun with development

I am. But to be fully honnest, after 3 years of full time development and very little time off, I am also ready to complete this project and move on to something else.

[Aloys]

* bump *
I don't mean to toot my own horn. (okay I totally do), but Machinika will finally be released very soon! On the 23 of this month it'll be available on Steam. (with iOS and Android version coming up not long after. We are also thinking of Mac & Linux versions but that's more complicated)

[dendwaler]

thanks Aloys for the demo,
i liked it very much,
It gave me the same feeling as the first "The Room" from Fireworks did.
And that one for the first time. gave me the "Myst " feeling we all love.
So yeah , you did a great job on this one.
The lightning is also done well, may be somewhat static during movements, like no shadow from flip during opening the box .
i agree it is not much of importance, a bit nitpicking.
I am looking forward to play the full game after a few weeks.
very well done!

[Aloys]

Thanks for the nice comments! I'm glad you liked the demo.

The lightning is also done well, may be somewhat static during movements,

That is correct, it is static, as in: we don't have dynamic shadows in the PC version of the game.
And this is something I'm very frustrated with But the reason for that is because originally Machinika was a mobile game. It was quite late that we decided to include a PC version. And now that we have to manage a Unity project for multiple platforms it is all kinds of problematic. Enabling proper dynamic shadows would be easy if the game was only for PC. But having to maintain compatibilty with less powerful platforms is problematic across the project but especially when it comes to lighting. We had to use all kinds of tricks and optimisatons to have the lighting look decent on smartphones. We can't just enable or disable dynamic shadows because then all kinds of things would look wrong. Doing it properly would require quite a lot of work.

[Chacal]

On my wishlist.
I will buy this if I have to sell my only son to the meat market.