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projectastray · 1 year ago

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August Q&A with Questions from Patreon!!

hello hello & welcome to the

🎆 PROJECT ASTRAY QUESTION & ANSWER EXTRAVAGANZA : AUGUST EDITION 🎆

i asked my patreon discord for questions about project astray's development and, given the limited amount of info out there about the game (intentional), i was curious to see what kind of curiosities folks would have!

and now i'll share those here, too! enjoy~

Q from Raccoon:

Q: What was the kind of original idea for Project Astray, like how did you come up with the main idea?

A: This is gonna start way off target, but: Back when I was working at ArenaNet on Guild Wars 2, I designed a story quest that involved a sort of passive stealth system where you were invisible at all times to enemies, unless you wanted to interact with something, in which case you revealed yourself. I thought it was a fun way to solve the 'challenge' problem with stealth in an MMO, where there weren't real systems in place to do stealth that felt 'fun' in a traditional stealth game sense... but still let you feel sneaky. So it became an order of operations problem: if I open this gate with a switch, there's an enemy looking my way, so I have to knock them out... but another enemy is looking at THEM, so I have to wait for them to turn their back, knock them out too, then the way is clear to open the gate.

Anyway that was a fun little mission, but years and years later I still looked back on that design process fondly. I was also starting to think about thematic material for a 2nd game project after ESC... and I kept brainstorming various systems ideas for games centered around my experiences with social anxiety & social stealth. And so I thought that would be a fun idea to explore.

The actual systems that have come out of that initial spark of an idea are very different, but you can probably see some of the origins in there once I reveal the full game's mechanics.

Qs from Nicola:

Q: Are you composing all the music 100% yourself or are you collaborating with someone else one a song or two?

A: Mostly, yes! It's what I'd probably call at 99% me game, where I'm leaving room for possible collaboration or assistance if it sounds fun, but the vast majority of the music will be all me. Naturally! I do have one or two possible collaborations, though, which I'll think more about once I'm in the music phase of development.

Q: Are you still spending time on coding the core mechanics or have you already finished those for the most part, and are starting to assemble the game more? (Iirc in the last update you wrote about working on combat mechanics, so kind of related on its progress)

A: The core mechanics are about 75% there! Everything is in a place now where I can primarily build out content, and the remaining 25% is all stuff that is coming from any time I can't do something specifically as I'd like to, in which case I have to start adding more scripts or actions to enable me to do more with the systems. But the core is solid! I'm still on track to get 'chapter 1' fully realised this year, which is exciting.

Q: What kind of Ashtray is this? Is it a plain metal one, maybe a colored glass one, or a decorated painted ceramic one? (I think you've written something about the working name of the project, but I can't remember what exactly and where.)

A: One of those really old ones with the sort of bubbly glass texture, fully transparent, with a frosted crescent moon baked into the bottom of it.

In all seriousness, Astray!! Thematically it'll always feel relevant. Lots of things are astray in the game, its characters and setting. "Away from the correct path or direction". But who defines what is 'correct'? Where are they going? All important key words and concepts to think about.

As a bonus fun fact: the final game title also starts with 'A' but doesn't involve the word 'Astray'.

Qs from LaurentDS:

Q: what are things that you learned from your years of experience making music that helped you in the non music related aspects of Project Astray

A: Pacing, mostly. I always think of storytelling and gameplay and transitions in games in terms of the pace they take in a musical sense. What tempo is this all running on? How will it feel if it takes X seconds to happen, can I speed it up? Slow it down? Getting it all to feel right and 'in tempo' with itself is a really important part of design for me. And it also makes composition a lot easier, or even composition can help make finding the tempo easier. Because once it all meshes, nothing will (hopefully) feel out of place or rushed or sluggish.

Q: Your music and Project Astray are done in parallel. How do you juggle between those? Do you see it as a way to break artist block (work on one when you need a break from the other, etc)?

A: Yeah, absolutely. I still think of my music work as my 'main' job because it's for folks that have hired me for my time, so I always place a priority on that and fitting the development schedule. But when I do have a choice between game design work & music work, one absolutely helps me bounce back and forth if I'm feeling stuck in one area or the other.

Q: What has been the most fun aspect or detail of its development that you want to share?

A: Honestly, getting all the gameplay elements into a state where it's actually super fun to just sit down and play for a bit... There's still a lot of work to do, but seeing the possibilities now that it's in a state where you can play for a bit, it's so exciting to potentially get more friends in and testing it out so I can see how it feels for real people that aren't thinking about it every single day.

Qs from Jodie:

Q: what parts of Project Astray's development do you plan to share in things like teasers or update posts, if you choose to share anything? Will it be limited to character showcases and some screenshots or will we also get the occasional technical post if that interests you?

A: I'd love to delve into technical aspects once I am at a place where it makes sense to talk about those things!! Obviously not until I've revealed more about the game, but coding is a fun troubleshooting game that I'm always game to share anecdotes about.

Outside of that, yeah absolutely character showcases are among my next things to share... There's a lot to get into.

Q: Once it gets close to release, are you planning to release Project Astray as an early access title and release the game in chapters or do you plan to release it all once its 100% complete?

A: I definitely won't be doing early access. I don't think it plays well with a linear story game. The only early sort of thing I'm considering is doing a 'demo' of the 1st chapter before releasing the full game, but the timing & decision on that are pretty unknown until I get far enough along that I feel confident about it. And especially with a personal project that will be many years in the making, showing stuff earlier might help build excitement for the final thing. None of that is final, though, it's just me thinking out loud.

Qs from Aeris:

Q: What are your inspirations for the game's setting/world? And are there any aspects of magic/otherworldliness to the setting?

A: There's so much about this question that I can't quite share yet, but I will try to answer it without revealing everything: The sense of 'otherworldliness' is going to be very high. While there will be a concrete world to explore, not everything might seem logical or real. This has a lot to do with the setting itself. As a normal person in this world, things might change one day and leave you wondering if what you remembered is really true, or if it's always been like this. Time might suddenly advance with a gap in perception. You might dream of another state of existence, so real and tangible, and then wake up and go back to your usual routine. But there's a nagging in the periphery of your mind that it isn't right. That you were supposed to do something else. Our main characters have felt this deep down and have pushed past the instinctual drive to return to normalcy. They've chosen to EXIST, and whatever that might entail.

Q: also, not super important, but what engine are you using for the game?

A: GameMaker Studio!

Thanks so much to all my discord dreamers for their really thoughtful questions!! I had a lot of fun answering these, and hopefully they give you even more insight into the game at this early stage.

Until next time~

#project astray #indie games #indie dev #game dev #indie game dev #finding tag permutations is my passion #q&a

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