NeonLore: To Read or Not to Read…in a Video Game?

After passing all the certification exams, it was time to get excited about the release. NeonLore, the usual sense of anxiety wave hit me: What if gamers don’t understand what we are trying to achieve here?

Myself and my team would probably be classified as true indie developers. Allow and excuse me to make a bit of pun here by adding the word “real”. Our studio employs fewer than 10 people and is not currently in any financial obligation.  We have published a total of 12 titles over the past three years, but haven’t received any outside investment.

Indie developers likes us have a different kind of anxiety when we launch a game: “Will the game sell enough to cover costs?” is usually replaced by a more tangled question:

“Will the gamers understand us”?

If our studio is not in good standing, nothing will happen. NeonLoreThe economy is in crisis. We’ll continue to make and release indie projects. Because we have gotten thick skin, it is easy to forget that most gaming journalists view five-dollar-priced video games in the same way they look at 60-dollar game reviews. Sometimes we need inspiration to push on and take chances and do something new. Yes, it is hard to run an indie studio and make it a profitable business. But managing a viable business can be just as exhausting as boss fights in FPS games. But, we can only get the support we deserve from fellow indie developers. The inspiration to write this article came from a recent interview that I had with. [email protected]’s director Chris Charla. He indicated how much value he gives to indie games by saying, “They don’t have to try to be everything to everyone.”

Yes, indeed. NeonLoreThis is a very small game. But in it has some big ideas, maybe it might turn into a whole different genre, maybe it won’t. We can’t know, we don’t want to know. We did the right thing as indie developers. However, our resources were limited so we tried new things.

NeonLoreSome will refer to it as a walking simulator. To us, it experiments by incorporating audio books into the game, which we believe to be an interesting way to bring books to different audiences who normally wouldn’t meet with that kind of medium. Chris Charla continues in the same article: “Indie games are the most exciting content on the planet”, which inspired me to further elaborate about NeonLore, and what we are trying to establish as a genre by starting with this game : What if you wake up one day and your Xbox app notifies you that your favorite author’s latest audio book is ready to launch on your Xbox system in the form of an adventure game? Who wouldn’t not want to listen to Stephen’s King’s latest book while walking around locations inspired from that very novel, on the big screen, with glorious 4K textures around?

It would be a great gamer.

This would be an amazing opportunity for a game designer with a background in literature. It will also open up new sub-fields in the socio-cultural realm of videogames. Are teachers and mothers complaining that their children don’t like to read books? Are they missing the most important milestones in classical literature? Well, it would be great if They did really read the books, but as precursors in this medium, we can suggest an alternative : Let’s travel back in time to early 20^th century New York City and let’s see the world through Nick Carraway’s eyes, and while walking around in such envrionments where we don’t have to worry about shooting zombies, we listen to Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby.

Let’s see if other gamers would agree with me or not: in NeonLoreWe hope you enjoy four different short-novels written by Sci-Fi authors, exclusively for this game. You can also look forward to cyber-punk themed views and puzzle-solving.

Last but not least, a big thanks to the Xbox team, for their support and encouragement of indie developers working on such high-risk projects. NeonLoreXbox Live!

NeonLore

Playstige Interactive

☆☆☆☆☆
5

★★★★★

$5.99

Neon-Lore can be played as a free-form exploration game for first-person. You’ll meet interesting characters and discover what had happened to human race in the near future.
As you will roam along the neon-soaked streets, you’ll discover what the world has become, how life goes on in a world of intriguing fusion of chaos and technological advancement.
In Neon-Lore, you will solve puzzles and encounter with various characters and learn about their past life, dreams and fears…And get a chance to discover deeper about the social transformations that has impacted human life in the 21st century…

Features:
*Discover the world at your own pace.
*No failing or quests, you decide about how you explore the world.
*Beautiful, cyber-punk themed environments.
*Meet 40 different characters and learn about their backgrounds.
*Get access to 4 different audio books that contain 4 different cyber-punked themed novels, written exclusively for this game by sci-fi authors.
* Relaxing and exciting cyber-punk themed soundtrack.