The Indie Game Magazine February 2015 | Issue 46 | Page 8

GAME WATCH

LOST EMBER by Vinny Parisi

W

elcome back to Game Watch. Before we continue
updating on the status of Lost Ember, I just want to
remind everyone of the team’s goals for the previous
month. The first was that they wanted to have a new website up
and running. In fact, the team planned on having the homepage
ready by the time the January issue went on sale. While they did
decide on a URL address (http://www.lostember.com/), the site
is still not ready to launch. It will ideally be up shortly after this
issue hit’s the proverbial newsstand.

The other two key progress points the team wanted to work on
were creating a trailer, and putting together a demo. The trailer more of a teaser - would be a way to introduce the game concept
to audiences, while the demo would be something they could
show off as a vertical slice while traveling to events. In truth, the
team had a difficult time reaching any of their projected goals. In
fact, they felt it was time to refocus, and de-stress. Programmer
Tobias Graff admitted that, “a small trailer, a new homepage and
progress with the game in general (and all that over the Holidays)
were a little too much to handle. We didn’t want all those tasks
to get only half attention because time was running out [before
Holiday break].”
What sort of solution did Mooneye Studios come up with to manage their workload? “We worked 60h/week for a few weeks, and
already saw that started to have a bad influence on our work, so
we rescheduled them to February,” Graff said. “That definitely was
the right decision for us, as we immediately felt less pressured
and our work was much better from then on, because we didn’t
rush things.”
Once the team settled back into a rhythm, they managed to increase their productivity and make some positive improvements to
Lost Ember. Particularly in the art department. “We optimized our
workflows and now really got the grip on what steps are necessary
to get the look we’re searching for. Overall, the world looks much
better now, the variety of plants and other assets is growing, and
the whole atmosphere improves nearly daily.” The team provided
some new screenshots this month to use for comparison. As you
can see, the game has seen a dramatic shift in art direction since
we first presented it on Game Watch only a few short months ago.
As Graff puts it, “we think it’s really close to looking awesome, and

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Developer: Mooneye Studios
Website: http://mooneyestudios.com/en/
Twitter: @MoonEyeStudios

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