Comments - one-niner

Again, we're really happy that so many like our prototype. On the other side it has become clear that we haven't been communicating clearly enough, and that has lead to some confusion and disappointment. We sincerely apologize.

We, the dev team, are a bunch of students from various Danish universities and art schools that, parallel to our ordinary studies, have joined a game academy. Once a year we get together, sit down for a month straight and work our butts off creating a prototype. We get feedback from industry professionals and then we all head back to our universities untill next year.

The goal has never been to develop an entire game, but only to learn from the process of demonstrating our ideas and abilities. Most of us are about to finish our masters studies and then we will try to make a living from developing computer games. Some will end up in established companies, others will start something on their own and the rest will probably continue to work with games as a hobby.

Handing over rights to another team might be possible, but certainly tricky. We are 13 people that somehow share the IP. The actual code and content is property of the academy. However, if someone out there sincerely wants to take Iris further, please contact me. On Tomsweb.dk there is a mail form.

\tom
Producer, Iris

Iris will probably not be continued, unless someone from the team picks it up some time in the future.

We will be making another mod / prototype - actually we are already in low level pre-production. We will have 30 days of full-time production in March.

We study at various universities and art schools, and get together one month a year for these productions, which are aranged by the National Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment. The academy owns the actual products, but we own the IP. Even though it would be possible to continue the projects, we would have to start over with, or at least modify, the code and assets to avoid future legal issues.

So, untill our next mod is released, you could check out this game that was produced by another academy team: Moddb.com Make sure to complete the level - the outro is hilarious :D

Well, thanks for pointing out that adventure games are not for everyone :)

To the rest of you; thanks for all the kind words.

Now, I'll try to give some background info, that will hopefully explain why a few of the puzzles seem a little weird. Our original plan was that the outcome of various puzzles would interfer with eachother. For instance; if you moved the dumpster you could use it to gain access to the 2nd floor of the bookstore using the roof of the shack But if you both moved the dumpster and removed the fire extinguisher, the shack would be gone and you couldn't use the dumpster for anything. Giving the ball to the guy, that later becomes the bouncer, would result in him having broken a window to the bookstore that was repaired in such a way that you wouldn't be able to climb through it later... and so on and on and on...

The point being that you shouldn't just manipulate everyone and everithing, because that will close more options than it will open. You should actually use your brains to figure out which puzzles to solve and which to leave alone/reverse in order to 'unlock' a level. Due to time constraints we didn't manage to fulfill this vision, and that is the one thing I really regret about this production.

About the story and the scope of the game: We had 30 days to complete it, and we decided to go for a fraction of a greater plot instead of a short but complete storyline. The "Wait - that's not me" ending is actually the beginning of Iris' mission to not only save herself and figure out what the hell happened to her parents, but also to find and free her twin sister, whom she didn't know existed.

I just told our game designer - I don't think he believed me at first, but he's very happy now :D

In some rare cases the installer will "malfunction", so I zipped the entire Iris folder located in SourceMods. If it takes more than just the mod's folder for this to work, please let me know, and I will zip that too - I'm not that tech-savvy :) . I hope this will help the unfortunate few: Tomsweb.dk (261 MB)

\tom

There are currently no plans to take this game further than this prototype.

BTW - talking about the repair dude's shop - anyone got stuck on the roof with the grown up Iris yet? (hint: You're not stuck at all) Trying to figure this one out could actually lead you to another way of getting in to the book store.

There are four distinctly different ways to get the grown up Iris in to the book store.

\tom

Short description and screen shots uploaded.

The installer will be available from the download tab in a moment Ii hope). It has been uploaded. Untill then you can grab it from here: Tomsweb.dk

For a list of team members please see the in-game credit list.

\tom

MrTambourineMan,

Day of the Tentacle were actually one of the great games that inspired us, and we feel pretty comfortable with that. In Iris you can't send items from one time to another and you only play one character (young and adult versions). Besides, the overall plot and motivation are quite different from DOTT.

There are a number of other sources that inspired us, also movies. For instance the German film Lola Rennt (Lola Runs). Everyone who's interested in messing with time in games or movies should definetly see this one.

Like any new creation Iris is put together from known bits and pieces - but in a unique and original fashion. Time travel and humor were known concepts when DOTT was created, but put together in that special way, it made a fantastic game.

\tom