Spring Update
She appeared to me
Like a flower on the cliffside
A single stalk rooted on hard soil
Swaying precariously to and fro
And yet above the windy bluffs
She blooms in spring
Faithfully
As the sun sets
Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us for our fourth anniversary of A Summer’s End’s release. We appreciate everyone’s support and care! We’re continuing to make steady progress in the production of our next game, In the Ocean I Learned to Float. We want to share a preview of our development progress and a few updates from the studio.
Since our last post, we added a Korean translation to A Summer’s End. A Summer’s End was also recently highlighted at an event by Forum des images as part of their Portrait of Hong Kong feature. We appreciate the mention and we’re honoured to see A Summer’s End among celebrated films and video games.
Portrait de Hong Kong Design ABM Studio – Visuel : Accident © Collection Christophel ; Septet : The Story of Hong Kong © Metropolitan FilmExport ; The Grandmaster © Wild Bunch Germany ; Opération dragon © Collection Christophel
Photo from Fabien Mauro @Fabfuzz
In the Ocean I Learned to Float has evolved as story quite significantly over the course of its development. We had the pleasure of meeting several individuals over the past two years who offered to share with us their personal accounts as queer and lesbian women in the 1970s-1980s. Whether in Hong Kong, Canada, or the US, they shared similar stories of resilience and strength in adversity. Despite the societal pressures and marginalisation they faced, they individually found community and led very vibrant lives. We’re deeply moved by their accounts and we’re honoured we could be given permission to include some of their experiences in our next story. In the Ocean I Learned to Float is inspired by the lives of many people and the main storyline is a fictionalised account of true events that took place in Hong Kong during the 1980s. In the Ocean will examine sensitive subject matter reflective of the experiences of these women. We want to present the experiences of these women candidly with integrity and with sensitivity. We hope through this story we can impart the wisdom and experience of one generation to another. Although some of the people that inspired this story are no longer present in this world, we want to uphold their beautiful memories in our next game.
We wish to present in our next game their stories with greater realism than we presented in A Summer’s End. The art style of In the Ocean has also evolved during the prototyping phase to better match our current vision.
We’ve done quite a bit of research into the architecture and interior design we want to present in our next game. The story is a roman a clef of sorts, and we want the setting to closely match real locations as described by our story leads. Many of these locations that will be depicted no longer exist in their past forms and have since been renovated or redeveloped. We referred to photo and video archives from magazines, books, and films to recreate the scenes.
Character design has been a work in progress for much of the early prototyping process as we want the art style to differentiate from that of A Summer’s End. When basing a story on real persons, creating a stylized character art style that displays likeness is a unique challenge. We want the game to feature an illustrative art style that has elements of realism and 1980s flair. We looked to iconic fashion artists and illustrators of the 1980s such as Antonio Lopez, Patrick Nagel, and Pater Sato for inspiration. Our character designs have changed much throughout the prototype process. Below are early design sketches of key characters. We’ll share more about them over the course of the development process.
We hope you can look forward to our next project and future updates!