In The Loop Windows game

Hello everyone, I'm an indie developer with relatively little experience, and I want to tell you about the debut dream game that I've been making with my wife for almost four months, and to make it more interesting, I'll start a little from afar...

Backstory

Even before I learned how to write code, I worked as an Internet and TV connection master. Having received another order for an Internet connection, I went to the bus stop to wait for my bus. The bus arrived, having entered it and having paid the fare, I sat at the window, it took a very long time to go, and in order to pass the time, I stared out the window behind which an endlessly repeating urban landscape flew by. Somewhere in the middle of the way, an interesting idea came to my mind, what if I was stuck in a time loop in which I endlessly ride this bus and the same buildings, trees, lanterns, etc. are repeated outside the window, but what if if at one moment I understood this and tried to do something about it, for example, talk to one of the passengers, but they would not answer me, moreover, they would not show any signs of life at all, what would I do then? I would probably try to break the window, but it would not give in to any influence, in the end I would sit back in my seat and think that this was some kind of bad dream, but what if after an indefinite amount of time some passengers turned their heads into mine to the side and would silently look at me, it would be creepy enough I thought, that's how ten years ago the idea of ​​​​the game that I want to tell you about was born.

In The Loop

Almost four months ago, my wife and I decided to make some kind of game, something that would be within our power. The first thing that came to mind was a puzzle / adventure game in the "Escape from the room" genre, where the player would have to explore the environment, solve various riddles, open new rooms, and so on in a circle. The roles in the project were distributed as follows, she makes models, and I write the code. We started to work.

A day later, a small prototype was ready without models and gameplay, but with the ability to rotate the room, in which, depending on the position of the camera, objects located at different walls of the room are visible or hidden.

Here's what we got

After some time, a display of actions with objects was added

Then we added models that she created in MagicaVoxel, animations, display of different actions with objects and menus with support for different languages.

And finally, different interaction with objects

After all this, it came down to inventory

Added even more models, animations, interaction with objects and environment, camera change and more

Now if several objects are nearby, then you can choose which one to interact with

Added daylight and indoor lighting

And here is the new room

And the ability to watch TV with RGB LED backlight while sitting on the couch

Somewhere around this stage, or maybe a little earlier, my wife and I suddenly realized that we needed something more interesting than "get out of the room", something much more twisted and exciting, and that's where it was decided to base plot idea invented ten years ago, on the basis of which during all this time we have written a script that we even wanted to use for a comic book, but did not grow together, and now there is an engine and everything you need to tell our story.

Result

Plot

Location Russia, St. Petersburg. A group of scientists from the NIIF (Scientific Research Institute of Physics) is studying black holes in order to study how they can affect space and time. After a series of unsuccessful attempts, they get their way and gain control over the creation and control of the black hole. Continuing their experiments, they make a sensational discovery - a black hole can stop time, but not in the classical sense of "stopping time", when it actually stops and everything around freezes. During absorption, a black hole creates a parallel reality for a person with an infinitely reproducing moment in which he was absorbed. This effect will be called - "Loop" (The Loop). To put it more simply, if it swallows you while you are riding in the elevator, then you will endlessly get stuck in this moment and will ride in it endlessly.

Two scientists from the NIIF research group will decide to steal this technology in order to use it for their own purposes, for quite classical purposes, money, power and world domination, imagine what opportunities open up for you when you get at your disposal a unique weapon that can kill anyone and anytime, lock them into a parallel reality in which they will be stuck forever, nothing in the world can withstand such a weapon!

Here's the plot of the game :)

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed reading all this writing, and if so, I kindly ask you to join our Discord - Discord.com, where you can find a lot of additional materials about the development of the game and keep abreast of the latest news about the project. To everyone who has read up to here - thanks a lot!