:: What we've been up to ::
Believe it or not, we're working hard on this game. Here are some updates.
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Curse of the Dead Gods has been in pre-alpha testing for about a month now. We started our closed alpha tests in late September with a few handpicked gamers and grew the community slowly until now.
We are now opening the alpha to a wider public, hoping to reach as many rogue-lite fans as possible! Hence why we decided to launch this monthly dev diary newsletter where we'll share news about the game, community highlights and some goody goodies just for you. Who knows, maybe we'll randomly drop some Steam keys of Curse of the Dead Gods so you can overtake everyone on the waiting list 👀
Be sure to join our Discord server and you'll never miss important announcements!
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What is Curse of the Dead Gods?
Curse of the Dead Gods is a rogue-lite action game made by Passtech Games (that's us!) and published by Focus Home Interactive. What we mean about "rogue-lite game", is that you're going to die a lot. But that's expected, right? Success will come with experience and skill learning. A bit about the story now, which is still a work in progress and could totally change in the coming months:
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Curse of the Dead Gods focuses on Sir Henry McAllister, a greedy-yet-courageous British explorer from the early 1900s. After a long journey, he finally enters the temple of a lost Mayan People, a colossal city where blood and gold overflow. At his arrival, Henry is cursed by the temple's keeper: X’lotl, the God of Death, woken up centuries before by the T’Chals during their offering rituals. Every time you die, you are brought back to the door of the temple, forced to sacrifice your blood and soul to explore the lost city. There is only one way to escape: free the champions from the God of Death and defeat X’lotl once for all.
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What the current build offers
At this stage, Curse of the Dead Gods is pretty playable. The alpha gives access to 1/3 of the game, giving you the chance to demolish the first two champions and the last boss of the Section. Long corridors filled with enemies, precious sanctuaries to restore your health or buy weapons, traps to avoid. Everything in the temple is waiting to kill you. Beware, the dark is probably your worst enemy.
You might find all the information that you need to play the game on Focus dedicated Forums or on our dedicated website!
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What's to expect in the coming months
A lot of changes. Obviously, we're working hand in hand with our community and the game is subject to evolve quite a bit because of it. We're also working on tons of new game mechanics and content. Guess what? We started a series about what's coming next in Curse of the Dead Gods on our Steam Community Hub.
What we're aiming for Early Access, coming February 2020
Curse of the Dead Gods is a passion project and one with a huge variety of possible development directions. We want to get community feedback and opinions on what the best thing to do would be. It is also a modular and replayable game, which we think fits Early Access to a tee. Naturally, we have a development roadmap and a plan to get to release, but we’re willing - and, indeed, excited - to adapt and change as the community finds what they love about our game.
We’re also interested in developing the story and world-building across a decent period, and Early Access is the perfect fit for that.
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:: Paris Games Week 2019 ::
Sometimes we're incredibly lucky and we get to attend cool events around the world.
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What a beauty of a booth! And I'm totally not saying that because it's ours...
Thanks for everyone that joined us on Discord after the PGW!
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:: Meet the cursed ones ::
Have a look at the team currently busting their asses off to make this game.
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Sylvain Passot
Lead Game Developer & CEO @ Passtech Games
Before founding Passtech Games 7 years ago, Sylvain used to work in the video game industry for over 10 years. After bravely creating one game by himself (lots of stars in his eyes and sweat on his forehead), he decided to bring along some friends on his team, mostly because he felt lonely.
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What is your job on Curse of the Dead Gods?
So, I always have trouble describing my work, even to my parents. That's why I don't talk about it outside the studio. I run Passtech Games since 2012 and I'm mainly in charge of the making of the game, so for it to become a reality. More precisely, I work in the programming field, where I ensure the technical viability of the project over the long term so that we have a quality game at the end. Both in terms of the precision of the game mechanics and the stability of the game. I particularly enjoy creating tools that will allow people to do their jobs better. I kind of specialized overtime on the edition of game elements as data, which we usually call data-driven programs.
How do you work with the team?
We are still a small studio so we don't have a very precise hierarchy. We ask everyone that is working on the game to be as autonomous as possible. We set common objectives so that all team members can move in the same direction, and we try to follow up with the "persons in charge" of each major field – who remain referees in case there is a question to be dealt with –. The leads are the ones who validate everyone's work, both internally and externally. We have a Lead Game Designer, a Lead Art Director and myself, the Lead Developer. This does not prevent other employees from being free in the organization of their own work.
As for working together, it depends on the job. As the CEO, I have to make sure that everyone has the means to do their job and know what they need to work on. And as my work as a programmer – which is the part I like the most – is to do the assembly of all the bricks of the game made by our team members (modeled objects, animations, game design elements, VFX, etc.). I’m necessarily in contact with everyone in the studio to make it all work together.
What's the decision making like for a game like Curse of the Dead Gods?
Design topics are often launched by Adrien, our Lead Game Designer. Then we discuss it at length in a small community of three before sharing it with the rest of the team. Anyone can launch a subject, though, especially after playtests where we realize that a subject is problematic and a solution must be found. We’re always looking for more feedback about our game, with our community, but also within the team.
Big decisions about Curse of the Dead Gods were mainly made during the design phase by Adrien, where he dug into the Mayan mythology and associated the three main Gods of our game (Jaguar, Serpent, and Eagle) together. However, when we started to think about the project, we wanted a Temple that could be perceived as quite timeless: Greek, Roman, Egyptian… But we quickly discovered the diversity and variety of the Mayan culture. Our plan is not to faithfully reproduce the Mayan civilization but to get greatly inspired by it.
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:: While waiting for Curse of the Dead Gods ::
We recommend this great content.
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How to make a trailer – Mark Brown's Game Maker Toolkit
Everyone loves a good trailer, right? But what is so difficult in making an engaging, attractive and dynamic trailer for video games, especially in the Indie scene? We're clearly not at that stage yet for Curse of the Dead Gods, but we'll have to think about promotional material very soon. After all, one of the first things that people see of a game, is its trailer.
In this video, Mark Brown (a.k.a. Gamemaker's Toolkit: we recommend all of his videos which are mostly brilliant) makes a good point of connecting an intense action moment with an introduction to the world of the video game. You obviously don't want to reveal everything, most parts of your game should remain a mystery. When creating an Indie game trailer, you'd have to start wondering what makes your game unique. What's your "hook"? Readability and clarity are key elements in the construction of a game's trailer. Never forget about the sound and music though...
🠞 Go further: Salvage your game trailer with these 12 tricks, by M.Joshua.
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:: Join us on social media ::
Your feedback, suggestions, bug reports and deep conversations about poodles are necessary.
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Come, my children. Our lovely community will welcome you to our private Discord Server. Sounds like the beginning of a horror movie, isn't it? Promise, there's no trap 👀
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Head over our Steam community page to discover a magical world full of Screencaps, Achievements, Videos, and Trolls. Well, we do our best to keep our Trolls under a bridge.
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We're also very talkative over there:
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