Update

Just like that we’re almost coming up to a year since Let Them Come was released, time flies! I want to cover some of the things I’ve learned from that project soon, but that will be a separate blog post. I’ve been neglecting my personal website despite being very active, I want to change that but it will require a redesign and a bit of a facelift. The site is feeling outdated and slow, I want to streamline it to allow faster updates, archive older stuff and enable cross posting from my Twitter. Speaking of which, I encourage you to follow me if you want to see the latest progress on my new game project (more below) and realtime FX tips and tricks I’ve been posting in gif format, coming up to a 100 of those! I want to catalog them on my website soon so you can see all of them in the same place.

I’m working on a new game! It’s early on, I’m still exploring the overall core gameplay and visual style but I’m very excited. I’m calling it Plastic Sea, a sandbox adventure game about exploring and nurturing an ocean environment. I will have more to say about where I want it to go in terms of gameplay in the future but meanwhile, check out the poster I made and a couple of gameplay gifs below. Oh, you’ll play as a hermit crab!

Under the right circumstance the environment will be able to host a vast array of plants and wildlife, it will be up to you to make sure the conditions are right for life to flourish!

You’ll be able to break down different kinds of waste into a manageable resource:

An example of a special natural event you’ll be able to see, baby turtles charging across the beach from their nest to the ocean:

Let Them Come Released!

Let Them Come is now available on Steam and Xbox! Soon also coming to iOS, Android and PS4.

Here’s a short backstory on how it all started that I wrote for Xbox Wire.

In late 2014 I left Rocksteady in London and moved to Vancouver to work for a large game studio. Even though I was working at the cutting edge of games technology, I had been aspiring to also be a part of something more personal at that time. I looked up to successful indie game developers and grew fond of the idea of creating my own game, or being a part of a very small team of developers collaborating on a project.

It all started very innocently, exploring new software and new art techniques. There were no expectations. After all, I was doing this in the little spare time I had. As I got more comfortable using new tools, things increasingly got more exciting. An experience started to emerge, I was creating something truly my own and something others could interact with. I could clearly visualize it then, the game I wanted it to become.

Vancouver has a blooming indie scene. Only a couple of weeks after starting active development, I was taking the early prototype to indie meetups where other like-minded people hang out, a lot of them showing off their own creations. For the first time, strangers played my game and I got to see their positive reactions. I was captivated, there was no going back. I was really making a game! I named it Let Them Come.

I always liked those spectacle moments in first-person shooters where you mounted a gun turret and let loose against a horde of enemies, mowing them down. When I think about those action sequences, franchises like the “Alien” always come to mind and that ended up being one of the main sources of inspiration for the overall atmosphere and feeling of the game. Respecting this strict design limitation of no player movement left me free to focus on finding where the true fun of the moment is and building on top of that.

After about a year of development I partnered with an indie publisher Versus Evil. They came with experience and expertise that would give Let Them Come a fighting chance in a busy and saturated game market. To that end, I was very excited at the prospect of eventually releasing the game on Xbox.

Launching on Xbox One is fantastic, as the team behind certification have been great to work with and throw in the fact that Let Them Come feels great with the Xbox One controller — it’s a win-win. Launch time has finally arrived and with the release right around the corner I’m happy to say I can look back at those early days with a sense of accomplishment and pride.

Please join me in celebrating the release of my first indie game Let Them Come by ripping through alien scourge! I hope you have as much fun playing as I had making it.

Let Them Come – Release Date!

Super excited to announce Let Them Come is launching on October 3rd! First coming to Xbox and Steam, other platforms will follow very soon. You can look forward to more frequent updates in the future, coming first, my thoughts around development and release of the game.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/505630/Let_Them_Come/

Let Them Come, Update

It’s been way too long time since my last post and a lot of exciting things have happened since.

I’ve partnered up with an indie publisher Versus Evil and started my own company, Tuatara Games.

Let Them Come has been to multiple game shows around the world. Pax East in Boston, Rezzed and CoxCon in London and recently Pax West in Seattle. A ton of people and media outlets have played the game and the response has been great. You can read some of the impressions here:

Oprainfall:
“I have to say, I was very surprised by just how much I fell in love with Let Them Come”

Gamer Assault Weekly:
“Man the gun placements, we’ve got a horde of aliens inbound!”

Hardcore Gamer:
“Let Them Come May Be This Year’s Best Dumb Game”

Check out the Twitch stream from Pax West to see me talk about some of the planned Twitch features Let Them Come will ship with. In short, anyone will be able to broadcast the game with Twitch and have their viewers influence the gameplay.

Let Them Come is coming soon so check out our Steam store page to add it to your wishlist!

Let Them Come in the media

With the release of the first official trailer, Let Them Come has been picking up momentum. Click on the logos to read about some first impressions!

Touch Arcade:

Pocket Gamer:

Touch Tap Play:

Let Them Come Update – First Game Trailer

Development on Let Them Come is progressing nicely. I’ve recently completed a marketing milestone where I set out to release the first game trailer and a new website. I’m currently developing new items/enemy types and working on Android and iOS integration.

New game website:
www.let-them.com

Making a game!

For the last three months I’ve been working on a pixel art shoot’em up game in my spare time, called Let Them Come. It’s inspired by retro action classics like Metal Slug and Doom among others. You’re playing as the last survivor on a mission that went sour and you’re not going out without putting up a good fight! It will feature waves of increasingly difficult monsters, item progression and satisfyingly gory combat.

I will be playtesting the game for the first time during this month’s Full Indie meetup, May 27th in Vancouver, BC. Drop by if you’re in the area!

Keep your eyes on this blog and my twitter @Klemen_Lozar, for development updates!