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A Game of Survivors 2

* This is a short series of a fictional diary written by some survivor in Dalearch, a secret city under the frozen dead ruins. Minho, as a role-player, is writing this in “Minoese”, to share his ideas & perspective on this world… for fun.

Saturday, 1PM, about 9 months after the city’s end.

Drinking DevesAle, checking a mission contract document from NVC, and thinking about the meaning of this. I’m a very responsible person who keeps my spoken promises pretty well - even most of my previous ones were accidentally accepted while drinking though - so my reputation from SVC is pretty high. Mostly they casually approach me, ask or request something interesting, make me to do it, and clearly reward on my effort. However, SVC scoundrels kept pushing me to sign this contract for this time; which makes me really uncomfortable to accept this deal. Although I’ve checked the contract again and again, and I’m sure this mission has no problem to accept, still, I feel there is some intensional reason why the thugs want to make this. (Just, ask me casually please!)

Actually, I visited the marketplace in this morning to discuss about this with my trustworthy Gumiho friend- Yaesol. She is very cold unlike other "over-pleasant” merchants, but she is a very straight-forward girl who’ve never played a trick on me. Since she well-knows her own culture and the guild itself, I thought she could tell me something about ‘Gumiho’s Contract’.

“You're still alive. Interesting.” She said as usual. I nodded my head and put the contract on the table. “I want to know what this means. Please check.”

“Contract. Directly from Narae Song...”

Yaesol was reading the contract carefully, and had a moment to think deeply. I leaned against the rusty wooden wall of her shop, and waited for her answer.

“Hey, dude. This is important to her, and the failure is unacceptable. If you can handle it, do it. But if there is any chance that you fail it, I recommend you not take it. Your life will be gone.”

“It looks not THAT serious...”

“It looks casual of course. We gumihos are not direct people. I think you well-knows how gumihos indirectly deliver uncomfortable points very well in communications, since your way to talk are bit different from the other natives of Icenaire, but like us. ”

“Yes, I’m still have many obstacles to talk with the natives, but surprisingly SVC guys are really catch what I’m talking about.”

“...I still have. Not I’m still have.” Yaesol corrected my grammar.

“Riiiiight. So this is very dangerous mission, unlike its look. Hmmmm....”

I finished my glass of ale.

Well, but the mission is NOT difficult at all to me. (Of course, it’s “not safe” since I should go upper world for this mission...) It’s easy to any searchers. Even one of them can do this easily. Impact, I can just go up at my next turn, visit the place and grasp the objective, and give them for a small reward. But why they need my sign for it? Why this is a life-and-death mission? Why they warned me that ‘you have to sign it before doing it’? 

Sigh, I’d better meet Narae Song for the detail. I’m sick of dealing with her henchmen.*

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Character Profile: Youngho

Curious about your favorite characters from The Coma: Cutting Class? Never fear. We’re rolling out some fun character profiles. Keep coming back here to collect them all! 

Today’s profile is on our nervous protagonist, Youngho! Sure, he’s not the most athletic or intelligent guy at school, but he may surprise you yet. Youngho can always be found sporting his trusty backpack. Its contents have helped him escape some pretty hairy situations — from school bullies to soul-sucking shades —so, we can’t really blame the fella for sporting this (un)fashionable accessory. 

When he’s not trapped in some sorta shadow realm, he can usually be found at the local PC방 (Korean cyber cafè) playing his favorite game, Spacecraft. A little known fact is that Youngho can play at over 200 apm (actions per minute). Yep, he dumped quite a few skill points into moving his hands fast, ladies and gentlemen.

His favorite class at Sehwa High is English with Ms. Song. Here’s another fun fact: he’s actually okay at it. Well, that means he could probably survive a day in New York City; as the teacher’s pet, he has a reputation to live up to after all.

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A Game Of Survivors 1

* This is a short series of a fictional diary written by some survivor in Dalearch, a secret city under the frozen dead ruins. Minho, as a role-player, is writing this in “Minoese”, to share his ideas & perspective on this world... for fun.

Friday, 5AM, about 9 months after the city’s end.

I visited Lost Lady like other days for drink, and took my table from an old man. He tried to complain something, but when he saw who I am, he silently moved to the next table. He knew I actually bought the table long days ago. It’s a first table which is placed near the entrance, and everyone is able to use it when I’m not around. Only when it comes to my time in this pub, however, this table is my house. I deserve it. 

While listening the duo bards’ music, I enjoyed my beer as usual. Thinking what NVC thugs had offered to me, planning what I should scavenge during the next hunting, and simulating how I should react when I encounter some crazy wraiths. Negotiating with Gumihos? Scavenge what? Run away from ghosts? Those used to be extra ordinary things, but for now, the ideas becomes my real life. It’s pretty normal to think while drinking.

Before long, some guardian visited the pub. I know she has visited here quite regularly, but we’ve never chatted. I’m just a typical scavenger, and she is a protector of the city. That was all.

However, something unexpected was happened. When she opened a wallet to pay her drink, she dropped several documents and letters. Some of them reached to my place, so I picked up those files and handed back to her. “Thanks.” That was her first saying to me. I don’t know why, but I wanted to keep talking with her. 

“You drop by this place quite regularly.” After saying that, I instantly regretted. Come on, why didn’t I just say ‘you’re welcome’? But her response was not defensive then I thought.

“Yea? And I think you are always at this table whenever I visit this place. Did you rent or something?” She smily replied, and actually... I bought this table.

For the first time, we had a nice chat after that. I was surprised that she was not just a stern soldier, but actually humorous. She talked to me about her amazing world experiences, and joyfully listened my shitty hunting episodes. Honestly I’ve never seen someone who actually listens my story in that cool way. We didn’t share even our names, but we drank all night as like the closest friends.

Then... everything became blurred and blurred. When I wake up, I was alone, and the hostess grazed me as usual.

Was it dream? I guess so. The sweat dream was getting faded. It could be not really happened, but I didn’t want to lose the memory. I rapidly grasp my note, and wrote down this. I felt the blurred memory was getting vivid while writing down, which made me somehow, alive.

So, I decide to write my daily life on this diary. I’m not organised, but whenever I have some episode to remember, I will write down. I’m sure she will come back this evening, and wish to write something special tonight.*

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Hey ghost vigilantes, Minho is here. :)

Our 2nd Halloween is here, and Yaesol noticed to me that she will discount ‘The Coma: Cutting Class(2015)’ in half price. If you didn’t play the scary game yet, this is the chance to play this game during this Halloween. 28th to 31st. Don’t miss it ;)

Another news, We have had a collaboration with Room-escape Cafe Sherlock Holmes for several months to create awesome reality games with The Coma theme. The players would be captured into some rooms, just like the Saw series, solve the mysteries and puzzles. They should escape in 1 hour, or else be hunted. xP Unfortunately, the games are currently available only in Seoul, Yeong-in, South Korea.

We are still thinking how to make the next episodes of The Coma, so please support us to make it possible. Your support, which is sharing ‘The Coma: Cutting Class’ to your friends, will boost the development plan. :)

We are still in Vambrace: Cold Soul project, and we are actually looking for some additional indie developers who can work with us. If you are brave to be an adventurer, truly love to make indie games, please contact us. :)

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Dev Diary: How’s going there?

Written by Minho Kim

Hi there,

Minho is here. It’s been a long while to write something by myself on the website, and talk about our current game, known as Vambrace: Cold Soul, in English. :)

Since January this year, the team has had many different obstacles as same as all other indie game development team. We are really fighting against many hardships.

So, we are still survived. We would be slow, but the game has its progress step by step. Graphic assets are getting polished, and our story is solid now. Characters are alive on the story, and musics and cutscenes are working in progress.

We are now reaching to the final design phase, and quite comfortable to imagine what we want to see. Making a demo is our priority goal now, and personally I really hope to see it soon. This winter would be very busy for all of us. 

It’s big, complicated, and tough to make. But we like to make this game, think it would be fun to play, and want to release it in good quality. I hope you believe our passion on it.

Stay tuned for our journey. I may introduce some new members next time.

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Vambrace: Cold Soul & Some Updates

You may have seen the teaser of our next project, Vambrace: Cold Soul. If not, feel free to check it out, and share your impressions with us! We started development in January, right after our last counsel meeting (in other words, just another dev meeting but we like to call em that because it makes us feel more important). We had enough time to plan things out, and how we could make it even better than our last outing. It’s April now, and we know some of you want to know what our actual project is, how it looks, and what we’ve been cooking up.

It may seem like we’ve only been working on the project for three months, but it’s actually much older. We looted the original concept from a story Minho was working on called Project Laiyard (2007). He has been working on that for the past decade. Over that time, he created 10 chapters which have the potential to be adapted into the formats of animation, comics, and games. Every chapter contains characters, concepts, and vague story guidelines which he compiled throughout his twenties. Thanks to T.L. Riven, the project has been reimagined as Vambrace: Cold Soul (VCS).

This is our second game. It’s what we’ve been wanting to make for a long time. We had a lot of technical issues and mysteries to solve throughout The Coma’s development but we’ve refined approach and have learned a lot from the feedback we received. VCS will be our first serious endeavor into making a truly robust game.

Story aside, some aspects of VCS are comparable to The Coma: Cutting Class. However, we’re taking a different approach to game design this time around. At first glance, VCS looks like a Roguelite. It’s actually more of an adventure title with a turn-based combat system. We’re also incorporating strong elements of “survival” into the mix.

As the title alludes, some major obstacles facing the player in this world will be surviving the harsh cold and maintaining your sanity. The city of Icenaire has been devastated by an unearthly chill and is overrun with maniac wraiths. You’ll need to seriously consider your options before forging ahead with your campaign, lest devastation falls upon your party. On the other hand, this is not a typical roguelite. The player will take on the role of the main character, Lyric, and it is she who carries the story forward. Unlike The Coma: Cutting Class which (spoiler alert) had an open narrative promising a sequel, VCS will have a solid narrative arc. Rest assured, we will still be revisiting The Coma.

So, what are we doing now? Two months after our kick-off, we’ve reorganized all the modules we used in The Coma; we upgraded good things, ditched some bad things, and made a lot of new things. Minho has been working on graphics ranging from environmental objects to character designs. T.L. Riven also had to sift through a lot of old concept documents. He used them as inspiration to reimagine a compelling game world. A lot of these modules are WIP, but the main story is complete and we’re moving to integrate it into the advanced game-world concept.

Minho set the graphical standards in March, and it ended up being a lot higher than The Coma: Cutting Class. (He said, it was a really tough call.) Well, the rest of the team seems pretty satisfied with his efforts so far. We also found an amazing voice actress to help us with the teaser with Mia Palencia. We couldn’t have found a better candidate to voice the sexy, tough, adventurous heroine of VCS!

We are now working toward a playable game demo. We still have a lot of in-house testing to do, but development is proceeding much smoother than our first time around. We’ve been maintaining a low-profile on the social media front, but rest assured that we are still hard at work. Thanks for all your support and feedback. We can’t wait to share more on Vambrace: Cold Soul.

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Fan Art We Love

Okay, the title’s a bit misleading. We love all of the fan art being created for The Coma. If it was up to us, we’d showcase all of it and we’re really going to try our best. At the end of the day, we’re able to do what we love because of support from the players. So, let’s showcase a neat little project courtesy of @Lazy_honeybeee!

Here she is sketching out Yaesol’s chibi face.

Our nervous protagonist joins her.

And the trio wouldn’t be complete without Ms. Song who also gets rendered into cute mode.

A very creative outline of pattern combinations that can be used to create portraits. But what could you do with this?

The final product comes to life. Now this is something the team would love to hang up somewhere. Ms. Song’s earrings are a nice touch too!

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Character Profile: Yaesol

Be warned, if you wanna learn more about this Yaesol, slight spoilers will follow. No other way around it!

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Okay, you were warned!

Meet Yaesol, Ghost Vigilante extraordinaire. Not much is known about this mysterious girl and that’s probably the way she’d like to keep it. What little we do know, comes from her recent interactions with Youngho.

On the surface, Yaesol looks like an unassuming student. She’s decked out in a uniform that does little to conceal the fact she’s not attending Sehwa High. Upon closer inspection, some peculiar details become apparent; the most obvious of these are the bandages wrapped around her wrists and hands. What really happened here?

Not that you’re likely to get close enough to notice this, though. She’s always focused on the task at hand and has no qualms about letting people know they’re getting in her way. Yaesol’s a pretty stoic lady, even by Korean standards. She likes to blend in as much as possible, even if it is a ham-fisted attempt at infiltrating the student body. Whether we’re talking about a school, hospital, or the Blue House (the executive office of the Korean president), Yaesol seems to have a knack for getting in places that are off limits to the average Joe.

Even if she gets caught, we should probably feel sorry for the authorities. She has trained her body to the fitness level of an Olympic athlete. If pressed, she could go toe-to-toe with a Taekwondo grandmaster with ease. How she attained these abilities is beyond us. Suffice to say, she’s a master of fighting her way out of dangerous situations.

As a Ghost Vigilante, Yaesol’s has a prime directive: to prevent Relics (keys that allow people access to The Coma) from falling into the hands of unworthy individuals. When she isn’t diving into The Coma to fight the forces of darkness or rescue trapped souls, Yaesol can be found enjoying the fresh mountain air of Korea. The top of a mountain is the best place for her to be alone with her thoughts after all.

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Character Profile: Taehoon

Say hello to Taehoon Jung. Rumors abound that he “attempted to commit suicide” in Sehwa High the night before final exams. But, is that the full story? While we may never know what actually happened in Sehwa’s hellish corridors that night, we’re pretty sure something more sinister is afoot.  

Taehoon wasn’t a particularly ambitious or outspoken guy, however, he did possess a natural creative spirit. From a young age, he was fascinated with photography and used to take pictures with disposable cameras. Over the coming years, his aptitude with cameras naturally improved; it evolved from a hobby into a full-blown passion.      

Like many Korean kids, Taehoon always had to cope with the daily stress to perform well in his classes. Despite this, he still found ways to dedicate more time to his creative work. He started watching documentaries and became interested in the idea of one day filming his own. Coming to Sehwa High presented some new opportunities; the school had a dedicated film club and joining it was his first priority.

Unfortunately, Taehoon shared Class 1-B with Myung-gil. Even worse, he had to sit right in front of the bully. He endured this torturous predicament with dignity, but the mental stress was high. Visiting the school counselor, “Mad Dog” Ma only seemed to exacerbate matters too.

Still, everything would change one fateful cleaning day. After being assigned to clean up a dusty storage room in the school, Taehoon discovers an old photograph. In it, was a woman that looked eerily similar to Ms. Song. The similarity was enough to cause Taehoon to muse that perhaps Sehwa’s English teacher was a vampire. The secret of the photograph would propel him on an interesting journey to defend his school against the forces of evil.        

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Some wonderful art from a dear fan. :)

Very nice Korean horror game. Anyone have STEAM please try to purchase the game

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Character Profile: Myung-gil

Thanks for tuning into our third profile highlight. Remember to visit the blog every day for a new feature!

Today’s profile is on Sehwa High’s token school ruffian. Myung-gil revels in his status as the school bully. Despite this, his antics aren’t lost on the staff either. In any case, Myung-gil is a pretty conniving fellow and knows how to worm his way out of a tight spot. He’s refined his technique for pulling Ms. Song’s heartstrings for sympathy when he’s been reported getting into no good. Even worse, Myung-gil happens to be on “Mad Dog” Ma’s good side — that’s the school math teacher who doubles as a counselor (in other words, a recipe for disaster).

He can often be found prowling the halls of Sehwa with his crew of delinquets. When he’s not causing grief for Youngho, Seho, and Taehoon, however, he can be found at batting practice improving his swing. The guy has helped the high school team perform well this year, so he’s not a complete bad apple. He even hopes that one day he’ll be able to make the cut for his favorite professional baseball team, the Woosan Flares. Myung-gil is blessed with enviable natural athleticism, so it’s easy to see why he poses such a threat to our docile heroes. Even Youngho remarked that punching him is like connecting with a block of granite.

Still, despite that tough exterior, we reckon that Myung-gil may still have a chance at redemption. There’s one person that can tame this beast: Mina, Youngho’s neighbor, and childhood friend. While playing hooky and drinking beer is usually par for the course with Myung-gil, all bets are off when Mina is in the vicinity. At that point, Myung-gil’s “chick-sense” starts to tingle and he does his best to put on a nice face. Too bad he’s usually too oblivious to realize how much he annoys her.

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Character Profile: Seho Gil

Welcome back to our second profile highlight! Remember to come back everyday for a new feature!

Today’s profile is on Youngho’s trusty friend, Seho! These two don’t go way back; they actually met quite recently. Seho shares the same homeroom with Youngho in class 1-E. Sometimes they help each other with Ms. Song’s English homework. This is how he somehow picked up the strange habit of referring to Youngho as “duder” (though, not from his teacher).

Seho shares quite a few of the same hobbies with Youngho (watching anime, playing videogames, etc.). Myung-gil, the school ruffian, has called them both “otaku” at some point. In other words, he thinks they’re nerds. Seho doesn’t care though. After all, he’s one of the top 3 students of the freshman class. By the time Myung-gil ends up in a correctional facility, he’ll be blazing his own trail to success...that is, if he can make it through his daily fight for survival against Sehwa High’s bullies.

He does have his own set of eccentricities; he leads a dual life online as a self-confessed keyboard warrior. That’s a slightly better way of saying he trolls people for fun. That aside, he does use the internet for more positive things, like looking for cool game, comic, and movie concept art to fuel his creative passion for drawing. Seho’s sketchbook is full of neat fantasy tropes like skull-crushing barbarians and busty pub wenches.   

Seho also harbors a secret crush for Mina (Youngho’s childhood friend). How will that play out? Only time will tell. Seho has been rather aloof lately though...

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Character Profile: Youngho

Curious about your favorite characters from The Coma: Cutting Class? Never fear. We’re rolling out some fun character profiles. Keep coming back here to collect them all! 

Today’s profile is on our nervous protagonist, Youngho! Sure, he’s not the most athletic or intelligent guy at school, but he may surprise you yet. Youngho can always be found sporting his trusty backpack. Its contents have helped him escape some pretty hairy situations — from school bullies to soul-sucking shades —so, we can’t really blame the fella for sporting this (un)fashionable accessory. 

When he’s not trapped in some sorta shadow realm, he can usually be found at the local PC방 (Korean cyber cafè) playing his favorite game, Spacecraft. A little known fact is that Youngho can play at over 200 apm (actions per minute). Yep, he dumped quite a few skill points into moving his hands fast, ladies and gentlemen.

His favorite class at Sehwa High is English with Ms. Song. Here’s another fun fact: he’s actually okay at it. Well, that means he could probably survive a day in New York City; as the teacher’s pet, he has a reputation to live up to after all.

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How To Catch A Scammer: Devespresso Games Edition

I just came from this thread and have a similar experience to share with you all. I do, however, wanna go on the record saying this is not about our personal loss, but to warn other indie devs about this guy. Who knows how many keys he has scammed out of the community to sell.

I received an e-mail from this guy requesting 2 keys for The Coma: Cutting Class for the sake of a review. I asked him to verify his Youtube account by sending me a direct message from it. 

It checked out. He has around 3,000 subscribers, seems to post regular content, and some videos have quite a few views, so I didn't think anything of it.

 So, I sent the key.

Flash forward a few weeks and I happened to google my game and find it being sold on G2A.com for $5.38 (Steam price is $9.99). 

Curious, I clicked the link and the key being sold and saw an address in which first and last few characters were revealed. I dig through my own email history and find an address that matches that and contains the exact same number of characters. It's him.

I did ask him right after that when he was planning to post content, and the key was mysteriously removed from the site right after.

So, just spread the news to other devs, and don't reply to this guy's e-mails.

TL;DR: Steven Liam scams me out of a key (under the premise of making content about my game) and then sells it.

[devespressogames-blog]

Happy Pepero Day!

Seasons greetings! What? You’re saying it’s a bit early for Christmas, or even Thanksgiving? You’re exactly right! Because today is a different type of holiday in the “Land of the Morning Calm.” That’s right, today’s Pepero Day! A day when friends and loved ones come together to show affection by trading cookie sticks dipped in sugary goodness.

But why today? Because November 11th = 11/11 (and that obviously resembles sticks of Pepero, right?) To be honest, it’s a pretty clever marketing ploy by Lotte. Anyway, you’ll never hear me complain when I get batches of homemade Pepero sticks from my Korean friends.

On to other news! Devespresso Games recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Joel Couture of IndieGames.com for an interview about The Coma: Cutting Class. Our very own Minho Kim illuminated some of the design decisions that went into crafting the title. If you’re interested in getting a peek into that side of the game, please check out the full article here. 

Would you like to see more content like this? We’re happy to share more information about our experience with game development, Korean culture, etc. Feel free to get in touch right here to suggest topics. 

Tristan, over and out!

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Hello World!

Welcome to the definitive source of news updates from the Devespresso Games team. Things have been moving fast. Yesterday, The Coma made its big splash on Steam. It was a new experience for all of us and a huge milestone that we have been working toward for the past year. So, we’re happy to share this experience with you and want to connect with our players here.

Let’s start with a little background on the team. First, we’re all gamers. We grew up with games. For us, games weren’t just a hobby. They were and continue to be a major source of creative inspiration. The influence this medium has had on us is staggering. But what’s important is that we were able to take that passion and craft something from it.

We also have something else in common; we had our professional start in the gaming industry in Korea. Some may say, “well, that goes without saying!” So, a little background: Devespresso (pronounced Dev + espresso for those that are curious) is based in Seoul, the largest city in Korea and the fourth largest city in the world. Despite its larger-than-life presence in e-sports, the indie game scene isn’t well understood here. The industry is dominated by huge companies. Our small team was brought together in some ways by chance. That said, it has taken a lot of motivation and much midnight oil has been burned to get The Coma: Cutting Class to the finish line.

We’re excited to share our work with you, and look forward to hearing about your experiences with this project of passion.