Karma. Incarnation 1 Interview with Andrey Sharapov

Andrey Sharapov, CEO & Producer for AuraLab is currently working with his team on Karma. Incarnation 1. A "Classical 2D point-n-click psychedelic adventure, permeated with original humor and mind blowing puzzles." but what caught our eye was the dark and spooky world that is held within a vibrant and colourful environment.

We asked Andrey a couple of questions to find out a little more about Karma. Incarnation.

1. Their soundtrack is great, how did they come up with that style of music? John Kukaryamba (from Zmeiraduga band) is a friend of Alexander Kuvshinov (our art director and inspirer), so they knew each other for quite a long time before we started this project. When I listened to the music that Alexander chose for the game - I said that it’s the best choice for our vision, I really like the music of Zmeiraduga band too, so we never had any real doubts about it

2. What’s the deal with the full stop in the name?

The full stop after the name is there because the game’s planned as a series – nothing exciting really. So, for example, the next in the series will be Karma. Incarnation 2 – but future titles may still use the Karma. name, as long as they’re interconnected within the same gaming world we’ve created.

3. Like the visual style. What influenced the character's design, and why was black chosen as the predominant colour for the foreground and characters?

It’s a question for our art director and ideologist Alexander Kuvshinov, I think he has some kind of astral vision, like Pip and he takes images straight from the cosmos or astral world =)) And a some of sources of hi inspiration was the animated series by Zumbakamera and Adventure Time.

4. The game has a very original storyline, combined with unusual gameplay mechanics. What inspired you to come up with this game?

Good question, the games of studio Amanita Design I think, such as Botanicula and Machinarium. We all just love to play these kinds of games and decided to create the game we all dreamed of. I can count all of the good point-n-click adventures published in the last 5 years on one hand, and all of them have great commercial success.

5. We like our retro games on BlastProcess.com, but which did you prefer…Megadrive…or SNES?

Super Nintendo =)

Thanks to Andrey for taking the time to chat with us. 

You can find Karma. Incarnation 1. on  Steam Greenlight and show your support on IndieGOGO.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGw4sGVju4U&w=560&h=315]

Tom + Mat Attack 061 – Double Dragon? Denied!

It’s Tom & Mat Time again kids! On this weeks episode, Mat sets out to concur the Danish car boot scene after watching lots of Game Chasers, while Tom’s too busy accidentally purchasing copies of Virtual Tennis 4 and talking himself out of buying a Kinect. Other than that, the chaps talk Megaman, Danish Supermarkets and an awful lot about retro gaming yet again. Yup, it’s just another Sunday in Tom & Mat Land!

Listen here.

Tom + Mat Attack 060 – Bloody Phwoar!

Phwoar! It’s another Tom & Mat Attack! This week is again a more retro orientated podcast, talking about a lot of classic titles! Tom’s been on Megaman, Mat’s been digging up some Gameboy obscurities and together, the boys have been playing some games set in the ol’ west! With some Red Dead Revolver, Dead Eye Jim, not to mention some Bloody Roar 4, this is a cracking episode! Also learn all about our exciting Tetris contest, in which you can win a Tee, a Gameboy & a copy of Tetris!

Listen here.

TerraTech Kickstarter now Live!

The guys at Payload studios have just launched their Kickstarter for the frankly awesome Terratech! The BlastProcess team checked it out at the Gadget Show this year, and by all accounts it was one of our favourite games at the event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXRb_9jFA_I

Recently the team released a demo as shown off by Craig in his Let's Play vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-4PyFX5oGM

The game is well worth a look at, and if you're quick you can get the early bird rewards to bag the game at a bargain £10 if the kickstarter is sucessful!

Check out the Kickstarter here!

Tom + Mat Attack 059 – E3 Special

My my! It’s that time of year again, it comes around so fast! It’s time for Tom & Mat to talk about the Electronic Entertainment Expo! Covering everything from Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo, to EA and Ubisoft, weighing in with opinions such why Assassin’s Creed would make crap multiplayer, as well as why Splatoon looks like the best thing ever! If you have any thoughts, please feel free to share them with us, we’d love to hear YOUR opinions on all of this!

Listen here.

Tom + Mat Attack 058 – Waggle With Me

Hold onto your controllers folks! Tom + Mat are back with another exciting look at the news, latest releases and what the chaps have been buying and playing! Mat’s still knee deep into his Gameboy gaming and Watch Dogs, while Tom’s been on the Neo Geo Pocket and Capcom’s latest offering to the fighting world, Street Fighter IV Ultra!

Listen here.

Steam Summer Sale 2014

It's that time of the year when wallets everywhere scream out in terror as we all download games that we may not have even installed by the following year!

That's right, the Steam Summer Sale is upon us yet again!

From today until the 30th June, Steam will be offering their wares at reduced prices, with a rotating selection of daily and flash deals! Bargains are to be had such as The Witcher 2 for £3!!

Make sure to keep an eye open for the community voted flash deals - as these tend to offer the biggest discounts.

As usual, there are also trading cards up for grabs that can be crafted for special rewards, or just sold on the market to fund your digital addiction!

Steam Summer Sale

Tom + Mat Attack 057 – N-Gaging Experience

Capping of this week’s triple bill, we have a host-filled episode of TMA. The boys talk about the big 3 games of the last few days, namely Wolfenstein, Mario Kart 8 & Watch Dogs. Are the remains of the classic FPS still in place? Are Blue Shells still a nuisance? Were Tom & Mat watching Corgi’s and not Ubisoft’s latest free-roaming epic? All of that will be revealed, as well as a first impression of the Neo Geo Pocket, discussing which Multiplayer games are the best for local multiplayer, and why spending £18 on an N-Gage game is a really silly idea…

Listen here.

Tom + Mat Attack 056 – Mike Bithell

The second in a TMA-Triple bill is a great one! After almost a year’s worth of podcasts after we made the terrible ‘Thomas was not alone’ pun title to podcast 002, we’re joined by British Indie Developer, Mike Bithell, creator of the fantastic Thomas Was Alone (Now on iOS!). In the podcast, the boys discuss education DOS programs, the rise and fall of gaming manuals, as well what constraints in the design process can mean for the game’s creator. There’s also a lot of talk about the great Thomas Was Alone, Mike’s next game, Volume, as well as #SpacePantsGame. Space Pants, Space Pants, Space Pants!

Listen here.

Tom + Mat Attack 055 – Jonathan Smith of TT Games

On the first of this week’s TMA-Triple Bill! Tom + Mat talk to the wonderful Jonathan Smith of TT Games. We discuss Jonathan’s earlier career for various Retro Magazines, the fantastic LEGO titles made by TT Games as well as a lengthy discussion on Tom’s favourite topic, the Phillips CD-i. But don’t be alarmed, we’ve screened this podcast for you and thankfully it is not too funny, because that would be chaos…

Listen here.

The Crow's Eye new teaser available. First person horror game!

Press Release:

We at the 3D2 team are proud to announce the new teaser trailer for The Crow's Eye, our upcoming horror game that mixes crafting, survival and research through a macabre adventure. We'll be ready soon to show some gameplay, in the meantime we hope you enjoy the new teaser trailer, introducing new characters.

Second teaser - Holidays:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ImS8eGjIJI&w=560&h=315]

And here's the first teaser in case you missed it:

First teaser- A close night:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aliETXNwb0c&w=560&h=315]

About The Crow's Eye

The Crow’s Eye is a story-driven first person horror adventure. Learn to survive while you investigate the disturbing fate of the missing students in Crowswood university. Craft items, defend yourself from unknown threats, and forget all you thought you knew about survival horrors. They say you can’t hide, but you better do… or be the next.

Features

Craft: It is not enough by opening the inventory and combining items; we’re going further than that. You must look for recipes which will be scattered around the levels and find a crafting table to create new items, parting from crafting supplies and simpler items.

More about crafting: http://3d2entertainment.com/?p=475#middle

Survive: We will dispose of crafted items to confound the enemies or trick them, although stealth is the most valuable weapon when you have nothing at reach.

Investigate: Solve a great variety of puzzles, and progress through your investigation in different ways. You’re not supposed to investigate everything along the game… but Crowswood University holds some mind blowing riddles that you’re gonna have to pass through to unveil its mystery.

More about puzzles: http://3d2entertainment.com/?p=402&lang=en

More info soon!

About 3D2

3D2 Entertainment is an independent studio born in 2011 in Barcelona. Emerged by the hand of young artists from diverse disciplines such as programming, design and writing. Their shared love for video games lead them to envision The Crow’s Eye, a story influenced by folklore horror stories, and modern games storytelling like Bioshock and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. When they’re not summoning monsters under the candlelight, you can see them wandering through those corridors:

Website: http://3d2entertainment.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/3D2Ent Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/3d2-Entertainment/227162957374997 Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/102619668459216444235

TerraTech E3 2014 Demo Out Now!

You can now download the latest version of TerraTech from IndieDB.

E3. Electronic Three. The E Triple. It's all going to get very busy in the games industry next week, but we're ahead of the game at TerraTech Towers! You can download our E3 2014 Demo from IndieDB right now!

Play with the new building blocks: wings, hovercraft fans, big thrusters and fuel tanks.

Save your vehicular creations for the first time and share them with friends.

Experience the new desert environment in the Flight Challenge.

Not sure what TerraTech is? Checkout our video interview here or see some Let's Play footage from Chris.

Nintendo's Recent Fortunes

Friday marked the release of Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U! Hurrah!! A very exciting time for Nintendo fans worldwide. Unfortunately the Wii U hasn’t done very well since its release in November of 2012. The console had everything going for it pre release, but has failed to live up to the hype. Already in the Wii Us short life, it is evident that it won’t be able to keep pace with the 2 new powerhouses, the PS4 and the Xbox One. Unfortunately 2 major issues let it down and Nintendo is still feeling the effects of them financially. These reasons are:

Games

The software library of the Wii U is slowly gaining pace. At launch the notable available titles were, New Super Mario Bros U and Zombi U. More games were available, but weren’t great. Both games were ok, but lacked that special something.

With a new console it can take a while for the truly great games to become available, (I’m looking at you 3DS) but it seems like the Wii U is struggling to find many at all almost 2 years into its life. We have Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3 and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. 3 great titles in 2 years isn’t good enough when the console itself set you back £300 at launch

Marketing

The marketing team for Nintendo really dropped the ball on this. I still talk to people today who do not have a clue what the Wii U is! For a console that has been on the shelf for 18 months, that’s not good at all. Especially when everyone and his rabbit knows what the PS4 is. Lack of advertising and awareness meant that the Wii U was going to have a tough time before it even started.

Nintendo is far from financial ruin, they have had consoles fail in the past and have only come back stronger. For example, the DS family is now over 200M sales. But from the point of view of the Wii U, things need to improve.Now trying to focus on some positives. The Wii U is an amazing console, with truly unique features and experiences to be had. I have mentioned 3 games on this post, but there is an absolute slew of downloadable games that are fantastic. Runner 2, Mighty Switch Force and Mutant Mudd’s Deluxe to name just a few.

Hopefully the release of Mario kart 8 will make people want to buy Nintendo’s little black box and experience the uniqueness that it offers. The review scores are all very positive and as we all know, these games are excellent when being played with friends. As mentioned, there are other reasons why you should own a Wii U. Its feature list is huge. With NFC connectivity, Video calls and Miiverse (A Nintendo exclusive social network) built into the console, there is a plethora of things to explore on Nintendo’s overlooked hardware. Nintendoland is amongst a few games that you need to play to fully understand what Nintendo are trying to achieve.

Future releases offer hope to Nintendo also. Super Smash Bros, a new Zelda game and Bayonetta 2 will all sell consoles. How much though, is anyone’s guess. I’m sure Nintendo has more up their sleeve though, and with E3 round the corner, I’m sure we will see what Nintendo’s plans are.

Guest post by Johnathan Foxley.

If you'd like to have any articles or videos posted on Blast Process please do get in touch via contact@blastprocess.com, tweet to us @BlastProcess or post a comment on facebook.com/blastprocess.

Tom + Mat Attack 054 – How Much!?

It was an early record for us in the TMA Shack this week, which means that Tom has only really street passed this week! Fortunately for us all, Mat has cooked up a game that smell’s suspiciously of Ebayonetta from the old Blast Process Podcast. We explore the ludicrous secondary market for Retro Gaming in Denmark, Supergiant’s latest offering Transistor, as well as talking about the latest news and the week ahead! Hopefully there’ll be a few more games in that one!

Listen here.