[Aspettando] Kôna - A Survival Adventure Game

[Axios2006]

Kôna

Explore, investigate and survive in this VR-powered interactive tale, which takes place in the 1970's wild and cold Northern Quebec.

Early Access su GOG - Il gioco completo si comporra' di 4 atti venduti separatamente.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...adventure-game

Narrative demo by Ulukaii: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7hTns1yGEg

Kona: Day One is the first act of a narrative-driven interactive tale of mystery, exploration and survival, set amid a powerful and ominous snowstorm in a northern village in the 1970s.

You play as Carl Faubert, a war veteran now private detective who must travel to Atamipek Lake in Northern Canada to solve a simple, yet lucrative case. Your client is a rich industrialist and copper mine magnate who goes by the name of W. Hamilton. He accuses the local Cree community of vandalizing and stealing from his summer residence and hunting manor. The Crees are no friends to Hamilton, as they blame him for destroying sacred lands for the sole purpose of increased profits.

From driving to shooting to scene-searching, Kona combines the atmosphere and immersion of a modern survival title with the deep storytelling and puzzle-solving aspects of a traditional adventure game.

Step into a surreal interactive tale of mystery and investigate the perplexing quietness in the entire town.

Explore a vast, frigid Northern environment and battle the elements to survive.

Go back in time with a vintage look and feel reminiscent of 1970s rural communities.


http://www.gog.com/game/kona_day_one 10,99 €


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October, 1970. Another long and cold winter is beginning in Northern Quebec, Canada. The local Cree community clash with rich industrialist W. Hamilton, copper mine magnate in the region. The Crees accuse the latter of destroying sacred lands for the sole purpose of increased profits. Suspiciously, Hamilton’s summer residence and hunting manor is subject of vandalism and thefts. Convinced that the Cree are responsible, Hamilton calls Carl Faubert, a war veteran turned private detective, to handle the affair.

Carl never refuses an easy case, especially when the client has such deep pockets. He jumps in his faithful pick-up truck and heads up north to meet with Hamilton. Unable to find his client at the meeting point, Carl starts to search for him. After knocking on some doors, the detective finds not only the rich man is missing... but the whole area is deserted.

Where is the local population? What happened to Hamilton? Are the Cree involved?

Welcome to Kôna, an episodic game about investigation, exploration, survival and the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of W. Hamilton and the neighboring inhabitants.

Gameplay

Kôna combines the atmosphere and immersion of a modern survival title with the deep storytelling and puzzle-solving aspects of a traditional adventure game.

Objective

The main objective of the game is to solve the mystery surrounding the disappearances. You can expect to do the following:

Explore vast, open environments
Solve various puzzles
Try to locate people who could help solve the mystery
Search for clues (artifacts, notes) related to the investigation
Take pictures of evidence and group the meaningful ones together to replay scenes of the past
Survive
As you may have seen already, you actually get to drive Carl's Pickup Truck and, later on, a snowmobile. Unlike similar games in the genre, you have full control of the vehicles.

Challenges

Kôna is a game built for people with brains. There are no such things as waypoints or mandatory tutorials. You have to figure out how to progress in the game yourself, using the tools available to you.

You also have to worry about your survival in those hostile northern lands. You might need to use a weapon against unexpected threats. You could also get trapped in a bitter blizzard. If you are losing blood or freezing outside, your time is limited. You must heal your wounds or find warmth before it's too late.

Encounters

In Kôna, you will encounter at least one Wendigo and it looks like this:



While the Wendigo looks creepy, we have to make it clear that we are not going to use it to create useless jump scares during the experience. This half-beast is in Kôna for a reason that fits with the story. We cannot tell you exactly why it's in there because we want to keep this page spoiler-free.

Here are some non-story-related facts about the creature:

It has a heart made of ice. Any heat source will keep it away or destroy it.
The creature influences the weather. It creates strong blizzard and harsh weather conditions hundreds of meters around it. So the closer you get, the more intense the weather will be.
The Wendigo area of effect also makes other animals, like wolves, more "agressive".


Taking pictures of several evidence will allow you to replay scenes of the past. Once you have enough pictures of a specific scenario, Carl will imagine how it all happened. The game will send you back in time and will allow you to play the scene and try to figure out what happened.


Similar to games like Dear Esther and Stanley Parable, a narrator constantly adds depth to the game. The pieces of story that are revealed to you vary dynamically according to your in-game whereabouts and actions.

Narrator Perspective

Kôna's story is told through an omniscient third-person narrator. Imagine playing the main character of a captivating campfire tale. That’s what this game is all about.

The Storyteller

For the French version of the game, the story is told by François Devost - an experienced storyteller who employs a style authentic for the character and time. For non French speakers, we believe that the game will be well worth playing at least once in its original language - with English subtitles - to truly appreciate the unique, authentic atmosphere of this rich historical mystery.

Don’t worry non French speakers – the game will also come with a professionally translated and recorded English voice track. In that regard, feel free to contact us if you are an English voice actor or if you would like to someone - it would be really helpful!

The Story

The story is written by an talented writer, David Bélanger. David is a PhD student in literature at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He published his first book at the beginning of 2014 as well as several scientific publications over the course of his studies. His skills to play with words and to craft thrilling tales is crucial to Kôna's narrative.

While we quickly translated some of his writings ourselves for the campaign, the final script will be translated by professionals. You can expect the final English version of the story to be equally as good as the French one!

Team

Alexandre Fiset (Producer) has more than six years of experience in interactive media development, including four at Beenox, an Activision-owned studio. He also presided his local IGDA chapter for three years and gave many speeches in Quebec-based schools. With more than six credited retail 3D games, two as an Associate Producer, Alex has the expertise to drive the team to success. He also helps with the code, user interface and level design for the game.

Etienne Lemieux (Artist) has more than five years of experience in interactive media development, including two years at Beenox. He creates shaders and multiple art assets for the game.

Maxime Charbonneau (Programmer) finished his robotics engineering degree in 2012 and joined the two others to found Parabole. His programming skills and his knowledge in vehicle physics are essential to the game's development.

Us

Since we started the company, we've successfully convinced many businesses that we have the talent and expertise to create top quality interactive content.

Now, we don't want our next client to just be some business. We want our next client to be you. We want to use our expertise to create unique games for everyone. The problem is, even with some contracts coming in, we don’t have enough money to bring the project to quality and scale it deserves.

The bottom line is, if you like what you see on this page and want to see this project in your game library, you can make it happen either by pre-ordering the game here or by sharing our project with gamers around you. In return, we promise to deliver one of the most unique first-person adventure games you’ve ever played!

[ulukaii]

Ottimo, iscritto

[Axios2006]

Update del 05 Dicembre 2014:

http://konagame.com/keeping-the-balance/

Keeping the Balance

Hi there!

First of all, thanks to all 35 backers who filled that short survey we sent last week.

We would usually provide cool graphs, but since most people wrote comments inside the form - which we appreciate a lot - it would not really represent the actual content of the answers we received. We also received a lot of feedback by people who played our demo at the Montreal International Game Summit. That being said, here are some answers to concerns some people pointed out:

The Survival Confusion
I hope survival is not a major mechanic in the game. Being constantly stressed out about not freezing, starving, getting eaten etc. is the opposite of fun.

One thing we noticed during the Kickstarter campaign and in the survey is how some people perceive the survival word as survival sim.

Let us be clear with this: Kôna is not a Survival Sim. Like we said in the Kickstarter presentation video and many times in interviews, Kôna is first and foremost an adventure game.

The Silent Hill Case Study
Silent Hill is a Survival-Horror, but the player doesn't have to hunt for food in order to survive. There is simply this constant pressure that pushes the player to avoid wasting important resources. In the context of an horror game, that means the player don't have a lot of munitions and has to be careful as he moves through the in-game world.

Surviving in Kôna
In Kôna, similar to how the first Silent Hill handled its Survival tagline, we want the player to feel immersed in the experience. In an immersive context, we don't feel it is right to spawn - for example - flare gun munitions out of nowhere because the player wasted all of his flares by shooting without purpose in the air. It means that if you ever find a flare gun, you should keep it and not waste its munition.

Another survival element is the weather. The player has a map, a journal and some clearly-defined goals. He has all the information it takes to know where to go and where not to go. We could have placed invisible walls to block the player from running into the woods, but we decided not to do that. If the player walks straight into a forest that he knows leads nowhere, the character will freeze to death. Like in real-life, you won't freeze if you frequently visit houses or pilot the pick-up truck. You will only encounter this difficulty if you don't think a little about where you are going.

Keeping The Balance
So far it looks very promising to combine open world and point and click adventure, but there is a big danger that the player gets lost.

The goal with Kôna is to create a balanced, multi-genre experience. That certainly comes with its dose of challenges.

"The player might get lost" is one of these things we have to be careful with. Our solutions to that is twofold. Firstly, we are creating a map that will reside in the Journal. Secondly, we are making sure that there are visible and memorable landmarks around you at almost any time.

There is also the danger of having a game that is either too easy or too hard. Our goal is to allow the player to clear some situations in many ways. We want to reward the player who thinks rather than the one who rushes. However, both will likely make it to end of each episode. There will also be rewards for the player who explores, and sometimes for the ones who take risks.

Creating a game that "feels right" is our goal. So whatever you think "don't fit" are things we are really looking for through our posts and surveys. We appreciate the comments that underline those elements that "don't fit the aesthetic of the game". These are at the top priority of our "to-think" list

The User Interface
I don't personally like the descriptions over items you can observe ("broken window). It's a small thing but it makes me feel like someone else, like a senior investigator, went through the scene and put post-it notes on everything important, and I'm just going through and collecting them.

The user interface is still work in progress, but here are things that we plan to do that might answer to some concerns:

Removing the description over interactive objects (no more "broken window" thing). Instead, we will provide a one-word description of the action or - as the quote suggest - a simple logo that means "interact" or "investigate".

Removing the dialog box when you click on objects. Instead, we will temporarly "print" the text on the nearest flat surface in the environment.
Changing the font for something that is more "1970".

Again, it is work in progress and might change in the future.

Translation
From what I have seen so far, the English translation has been very rough. I strongly recommend getting a native English speaker to proofread your translation, or perhaps a contractor to handle localization.

We know about it and the game will be translated by profesionnals, only later in its production. Right now, we are focusing on creating a solid game in French and we translate it ourselves to show it off to the world. Once we will be satisfied with the overall experience in its original language, we will push all the texts to a competent firm and the afformentioned roughnesses will simply vanish.

Consoles
If the game ever comes out on PS4, Xbox One or any other console, backers will have these download links: PC/Mac/Linux + One console. Everyone will have the PC/Mac/Linux version and will also have a console version of their choosing.

We hope it clears things out!

Have a good week-end!

Alex, Etienne and Max

[egounix]

Seguo, poi leggo con calma

[Axios2006]

Importanti news e sviluppi: http://konagame.com/after-pax-and-the-lost-woods/

Early Access su Steam: Luglio 2015

Release finale: Settembre / Ottobre 2015

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[Compulsion]

Seguo

[Gensi2k]

Sembra molto bello, location decisamente angosciante

[ulukaii]

Originariamente inviato da Axios2006

http://konagame.com/content/images/2...post7-img1.jpg

Questo è il mio preferito

[emicad]

seguo.

[Axios2006]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/1200326

Update dell'11 giugno: niente più early access, ma closed beta per i backer....

[ulukaii]

Direi che è meglio così. Personalmente ritengo che essendo un titolo story-driven, realizzare un early access non sarebbe molto saggio (indipendentemente dal fatto che altri lo abbiano fatto).

[emicad]

Originariamente inviato da ulukaii

Direi che è meglio così. Personalmente ritengo che essendo un titolo story-driven, realizzare un early access non sarebbe molto saggio (indipendentemente dal fatto che altri lo abbiano fatto).

concordo, seguo fiducioso.

[Axios2006]

Finalmente qualche news:

http://konagame.com/kona-day-one/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NkdnCIQUl4

[emicad]

sembra promettere bene...

[Axios2006]

Originariamente inviato da emicad

sembra promettere bene...

Si, pare anche a me. Se poi comunicassero di più sarebbe meglio.

Capisco che sono 7 persone + collaboratori vari, ma uno straccio di 2 righe a settimana potrebbero pure scriverlo. Uno screen su Twitter....

In questo marasma di nuovi giochi se non si fanno sentire finiscono nel limbo...

[emicad]

mah, c'è pure tanta gente che crea hype sul web postando il nulla e poi ti rifila la fregatura...

[Axios2006]

Originariamente inviato da emicad

mah, c'è pure tanta gente che crea hype sul web postando il nulla e poi ti rifila la fregatura...

Lo so. Di contro ho visto vari giochi degni di nota essere troppo poco pubblicizzati.

Su Kona ho discrete aspettative. Ma dubito di prenderlo al day one come fu per The Long dark.

[emicad]

perchè ti sei forse pentito di aver preso TLD al day one?
non ci credo nemmeno se te lo sento dire.

[Axios2006]

Originariamente inviato da emicad

perchè ti sei forse pentito di aver preso TLD al day one?
non ci credo nemmeno se te lo sento dire.

Intendevo dire: su TLD c'erano tante ottime info e si vedeva lo spessore del team di sviluppatori a km di distanza. Ergo acquisto al day one.

Con Kona non vedo gli stessi elementi, quindi aspetto recensioni, video e comportamento dei Devs alla release prima di valutarne l'acquisto.

[emicad]

mi pare giusto.