The year of the Spryke

Part of the deep-sea base that forms Spryke's base of operations

2015 was a big year for Spryke. 2016 will be even bigger. 

2015 saw Spryke go from a blocky prototype full of placeholders to something starting to resemble a game. I began giving the world a look and feel, with some detailed graphics, an in-world alphabet, and procedural background animation systems.

Spryke herself took shape, after countless iterations. Several test levels were designed and built, and the game got an official logo. The backstory and narrative got some love and care too, though that part is still marinating. 

Perhaps most importantly, Spryke received a substantial funding grant from Film Victoria, a government Arts agency in Australia. Emotionally, this was great validation for me. It's one thing to passionately believe in your own project, but it's another to see that others believe in it too. The grant will give Volnaiskra extra stability in the coming year, and will ensure that I can enlist the help of extra developers and/or whoever else I might need to help make the game as good as it can be. 

That was just the beginning though, and 2016 is where everything really will come together. Right now, I'm concentrating on character animation and gamefeel. Spryke had only the most rudimentary of animation until now, but she'll get a total overhaul now. You can expect something approaching the level of the Rayman games.

Over the coming months, you can also expect to see some interesting and unique new locales take shape too, alongside the futuristic city that you see in the current screenshots. Plus new enemies, mechanics, effects, and plenty of new levels. Maybe even another alien alphabet or two.

I have a top-notch composer lined up, and Spryke will get a full outfit of original music this year too. 

In general, I hope you'll be able to learn much more about Spryke over the coming months than you've been able to so far. The last post on the Volblog was over half a year ago, and it wasn't even about Spryke. That's just not good enough. 

There's actually a lot of stuff that's already in the game but that I haven't yet shared with the public because I've been so busy developing. But I'll endeavour to keep you guys more informed this year, so look for some posts revealing some of Spryke's mechanics, story, as well as some behind-the-scenes stuff that you might find interesting. 

I'll also need to expand my pool of user testers soon, so look out for a playable demo early(ish) this year too!