ALPHAFUNDERS
€2,392
FUNDED OF €80,000 GOAL
15 / 500
WORK DAYS SECURED
NOWHERE is a procedural single player, open world, sandbox game; You incarnate as a floating machine-being in a society of mechanical entities; for lack of a better word, I call them drones. You live the full life of that one drone in this closed ecosystem, which is represented as a giant otherworldly colony suspended in space. When you die, you reincarnate, and you live the next life, until all lives are played out. You go back and forth in time and as every member of that society, you shape what you are as a collective. As the game progresses, you and the system become one.
Witness the unraveling of a visual acid trip through an impossible space, filled with exotic shapes, geometric patterns and appropriate soundscapes, cocooned by the people who brought you Masagin.
Out of Context Press Quotes
"As you can hear: awesome music. As you can see: what the hell?"
-- PC Gamer
"What is this?"
-- Rock, Paper, Shotgun
"This doesn't seem to be a game that can be easily described or understood"
-- Kotaku
What People Often Ask Us...
Wot?
We keep asking that ourselves. Here is a slightly deeper description of the whys and whats of our game.
How can I preorder/alphafund NOWHERE?
For anyone wanting to support the development and keep track of our progress, we offer the option to preorder the game early. To preorder the game click here. Preordering the game will give you access to the regularly updated work-in-progress builds (called "alphas"), which are unfinished early development versions of the game. The beta and finished versions of the game will be priced higher, but available for free to alphafunders.
When will NOWHERE be released?
Short answer: when it's done™. Long answer: turning a game into something amazing takes care and above all, time. As NOWHERE is developed independently, we can afford the luxury of being able to release the game whenever we feel like it. That said, we estimate the beta release for somewhere around 2014, with the final game arriving early 2015.
How far are you with development?
Development started in 2011, with most of the concept development, early prototyping and engine development happening in 2012. Our frequently released in-game videos document our journey to a working concept and give a pretty good impression of what you can do in the alphas (Alpha Number = weeks since first alpha release). Assets and gameplay are popping in and out of existence, e.g. sometimes, there is sound, sometimes there isn't. We are roughly nearing the second third of development time. You get a test map you can roam and a menu you can browse. Graphics and sound are under constant refinement and not final.
What are NOWHERE's system requirements?
NOWHERE is still in early development, so we can't really say for sure. Mid- and high-end PC's will certainly get the most out of it, but we're including low-end graphics settings as well. For the alpha, you will need an OpenGL 3.2 capable graphics card. We consider the NVIDIA GTX 460 a good entry level. Users with older laptops and Intel graphics cards might run into early issues.
What peripherals will NOWHERE support?
We consider NOWHERE a native title for the Oculus Rift (Although we are still waiting for our SDK). The game is currently controllable by Keyboard and Mouse only. Among regular Gamepad support, there will be support for Razer Hydra and Leap Motion controllers. Experimental Leap Motion support has already been added for zooming and panning the in-game IDE.
What platforms will NOWHERE be released on?
The final game will run on all three major platforms, just like the Codex of Indie Game Development that I just made up demands it. We are currently releasing weekly alpha builds for Windows and Linux. Builds for OSX are also available but updated less regularly.
How long will it take players to finish the completed game?
We are aiming for a play time of 48+ hours. It depends on the players problem solving skills and his interest for details. A quick run would most likely be finished in an hour.
Does NOWHERE support modding?
NOWHERE was designed from the grounds up to allow near painless modding. The game is largely written in Python; its source code is editable and resources can easily be changed/extended.
Will the game support multiplayer?
Multiplayer is not elementary to the gameplay and therefore not a high priority, but planned to be added eventually.
I preordered the game, how do I run it?
On Windows, unzip the archive and double-click run-nowhere.bat in the root folder. On OSX and Linux, the script is just called run-nowhere. In the alphas, a shell window will open and output debug information as the game loads. This is perfectly normal. Some of the displayed information helps us to diagnose situations if you can't launch the game, some of it is just in-development garbage that will be gone by the time we reach beta.
I preordered the game and it doesn't run
This happens and is one of the reasons why we are doing the alphas. Let us know and we'll figure it out together. Chances are you're not the only one, and you're helping everyone else get a better and more stable game in the process.
Can I reach you by chat?
We are available via chat now and then. support@duangle.com is reachable by Jabber and Google Talk. We both run highly active Twitter accounts, @sylvia_ritter and @paniq. We also host the IRC channel #duangle on irc.freenode.net.
My question isn't on this list!
My bad. Let us know.