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01-01-2012, 02:50 PM
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, developer Ryan Vandendyck describes the beauty of a sine wave in an innovative wavelength platformer, titled Waveform. A Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/499609193/waveform-indie-game-by-eden-industries) for Waveform is counting down rapidly -- if you like math, space, or fun indie games, give it a look and donate to the cause (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/499609193/waveform-indie-game-by-eden-industries)!
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2012/01/waveform-1325445787.jpg (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/01/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-waveform/)
What's your game called and what's it about?
The game is called Waveform, and you control a wave of light transmitting through space. By adjusting the wave's amplitude and wavelength, you line it up to collect objectives, avoid obstacles, and interact with a whole bunch of objects that affect the path of your wave, and the world around you, in interesting ways. It's a simple and strange concept, but a ton of fun to play. It's designed to be effortless for anyone to jump into and enjoy, but the gameplay hearkens back to old-school action games. We like to think of it as fast-paced fun distilled down to its purest form so it's fun for everybody -- those looking for a unique and interesting game to experience and those looking for a challenge.
How did the idea to play with light and dark matter come about?
Back when I started this game in 2009, I had an idea to make a game that focused around one core gameplay mechanic. And, coming from a mathematical background, I ended up thinking of what it would be like to play a game as a sine wave.
I prototyped that within a few days and found, a bit to my surprise, that it was fun manipulating a wave in a game! But I didn't really know what else I wanted the game to be about. So I started thinking about waves and figured I could either make the game about sound waves or light waves. At the time I had no musician working with me, so I didn't want to go with a highly audio-dependent design -- so I decided on light waves. From there I just started adding features and mechanics that had to do with light, and a lot of things flowed pretty easily from that decision, like adding mirrors to reflect off of, particle accelerators to boost through, and the dark matter to sap your light away. What started out as a simple doodle on a piece of paper (http://edenindustries.ca/blog/?p=131) emerged as a fun game all about wave manipulation.Continue reading The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Waveform (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/01/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-waveform/)
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.joystiq.com/media/feedlogo.gif (http://www.joystiq.com)The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Waveform (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/01/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-waveform/) originally appeared on Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com) on Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds (http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/).
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http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2012/01/waveform-1325445787.jpg (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/01/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-waveform/)
What's your game called and what's it about?
The game is called Waveform, and you control a wave of light transmitting through space. By adjusting the wave's amplitude and wavelength, you line it up to collect objectives, avoid obstacles, and interact with a whole bunch of objects that affect the path of your wave, and the world around you, in interesting ways. It's a simple and strange concept, but a ton of fun to play. It's designed to be effortless for anyone to jump into and enjoy, but the gameplay hearkens back to old-school action games. We like to think of it as fast-paced fun distilled down to its purest form so it's fun for everybody -- those looking for a unique and interesting game to experience and those looking for a challenge.
How did the idea to play with light and dark matter come about?
Back when I started this game in 2009, I had an idea to make a game that focused around one core gameplay mechanic. And, coming from a mathematical background, I ended up thinking of what it would be like to play a game as a sine wave.
I prototyped that within a few days and found, a bit to my surprise, that it was fun manipulating a wave in a game! But I didn't really know what else I wanted the game to be about. So I started thinking about waves and figured I could either make the game about sound waves or light waves. At the time I had no musician working with me, so I didn't want to go with a highly audio-dependent design -- so I decided on light waves. From there I just started adding features and mechanics that had to do with light, and a lot of things flowed pretty easily from that decision, like adding mirrors to reflect off of, particle accelerators to boost through, and the dark matter to sap your light away. What started out as a simple doodle on a piece of paper (http://edenindustries.ca/blog/?p=131) emerged as a fun game all about wave manipulation.Continue reading The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Waveform (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/01/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-waveform/)
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.joystiq.com/media/feedlogo.gif (http://www.joystiq.com)The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Waveform (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/01/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-waveform/) originally appeared on Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com) on Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds (http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/).
Permalink (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/01/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-waveform/) | Email this (http://www.joystiq.com/forward/20138417/) | Comments (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/01/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-waveform/#comments)
More... (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/01/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-waveform/)