I’ve been pretty silent on everything but twitch and twitter the past few months. It can be difficult, as a single person, to develop a game, make weekly blog posts, make YouTube videos, and be active on all social media. Now that some of the dust has settled from Kohate development, I figured I’d talk about what I’ve been doing!
WHAT THE HELL IS KOHATE?
After I launched Our Secret Below back in July, my plan was to jump directly on to The Mortuary Assistant. But I took a step back and thought about Halloween coming up.
I COULD just do a sale on my current games and let that be it, but then I thought it could be fun to try and have something new and small out in time for Halloween.
Instead of spending 2 months spinning up Mortuary Assistant, which has no assigned launch date, I could possible produce something small and fun for people to enjoy for Halloween (and maybe get another title out that could get people aware of my work)
DONATIONS FROM THE SUBJECT
Obviously 2.5 months (by Oct.15) isn’t much time, so I looked to the very first game I created, The Subject, for a potential base. I thought it would be neat to expand a bit on the universe I had set out to make in 2018. The premise also worked well for re-use.
A huge, nightmarish, testing facility out in deep space. The plan was to create a new test, with a new character, in the same complex. This opened up all the assets from The Subject for use.
LOTS OF NEWNESS
Obviously, I didn’t want to just re-arrange the assets from The Subject and call it a day. That’s not worthy of a new title. I spent a long time create lots of new rooms, props, and writing story/content to expand on the concept. There’s even multiple endings and lots of voice over content. I think the player will enjoy finding all the little bits and pieces of lore.
I’ve also sunken a great deal of time into the atmosphere of the project as I am a huge fan of mood and world building in my games.
NOT LIKE IT’S DAD
Kohate is far removed from The Subject in play style. While the theme is the same, there are no large puzzles, nor is there a hugeantic maze to get lost in.
This complex is much smaller, with the game play focused on progressing through the test and the cat and mouse experience with the monster (though there is an option to play without it). It is far more straight forward and tailored to a shorter, single sitting, experience.
THE HEAVY LIFTING
I spent a lot of long days modeling new assets, animating, and recording VO and mixing sound FX but the coding was the largest undertaking.
I didn’t want the same game so I made sure I developed a lot of new mechanics around the monster and the experience in the complex. Mechanics like noise generation that triggers the monster, a fluid hiding system involving stealth, natural evasion, and specific hiding spots, physics objects that need to be carried to complete certain tasks, a special intro to better setup the story, and events that give a more cinematic experience within the game.
I also created three alternate endings for launch and some fun steam achievements. I’ve been busy!
THE SHORT SHORT VERSION
So that’s what Kohate is. A smaller horror game spun-off from The Subject, designed to be something fun for people to grab for Halloween. I’m putting everything I have into this project as I do with everything and it’s specifically designed to be a smaller experience which is why I’ll only be charging $4.99 for it.
I had a lot of fun making this game and I think there is a lot to enjoy in it. I hope you can wishlist it (or pick it up if you are reading this later)
Kohate will be launching on both Steam and Itch.io on October 15th! Thanks for reading!
-Brian
STEAM:
Store.steampowered.com
ITCH (live on the 15th)
Darkstonedigital.itch.io
