The fourth annual Norwegian nationals in Gameplay

To start off the new year, we decided to join in on the annual Norwegian nationals in gameplay. Hosted by the Norwegian Film Institute (NFI).

It’s a 10 days game development competition hosted by the Norwegian film institute (NFI) at the beginning of each year, where the contestants are presented with a theme:
This years theme was “temperature“.

Great! But… why bother with this when we are at the end of our stressful deadline with Shadow Puppeteer? Don’t we have enough things to work on?

We believe that to be able to create something good, you need to be engaged and motivated. When working something for such a long time, as we have been with Shadow Puppeteer, it is easy to forget what the purpose of our game is and why we do what we do. It is because it is our passion, something fulfilling and fun. That is why we felt the need to work on something new. To get a new perspective, and to get some distance from the concept we have been working on for so long.

Because of other work, and the holidays, we were not able to start working until halfway  through, but it did not take us long to have some ideas ready. Dividing into two groups, the Shadow Puppeteer team were quite nicely divided with the rest of the company.

We had two ideas that were quite similar (in that they wanted to utilize the way water changes properties through different temperatures). The first, a puzzle platformer,  had an artistic approach. Focusing on the story of a water princess desperate to rescue her prince.

The other had a more humorous origin with a puzzler-labyrinth. Starting with the image of Fred, the apathetic fish, kept safe in a pool of water that the player has to control. Through use of an accelerometer and touch, the player has to get Fred safely to the o’ so holy toilet.

Although we did not win the competition, we did have incredible fun and cross-department bonding.

We do not know what will befall these noble ideas, maybe you will hear about them in the future?

As of now we are back on track with our development of Shadow Puppeteer!
We have many exciting news(and delicious cookies) coming up. So make sure to visit our site every weekend for our updates.

Oh and if you were wondering; visit http://blog.moondrop.no/ to read about the game that won! (the awesome people fighting crime with us here at HGC).