Tag Archives: blog

Podcast Talk about the History of chronerion entertainment

By Christian on

Check, check, one, two, three. Anybody still here? Yes? Good 🙂 It’s been almost five years since Selina’s story came to an end. Fife years ago I stepped away from game development in my spare time and shifted my focus towards Webvideos, Music and general Media Creation (again). Among several projects, I recently started a Podcast named “Das Medienformat” where dear friend Florian Scherz (who composed the music for A Fragment of Her, btw) and I are talking about Media, Media Culture and Media Creation. In the latest Episode, I finally talked for over an hour about the history of chronerion entertainment, my entry into game development and the making of A Fragment of Her, Being Her Darkest Friend and Ceasing to be Her Demise.

Oh boy, what a trip down memory lane! You can listen to the Podcast Episode here
or watch the YouTube Version, beginning at timestamp 2:27:00.
Unfortunately, the talk is held in (Austrian) German.

GAME OVER.

By Christian on

It’s high time for an update. More than 2 years ago, in February 2016, the last webisode was uploaded and since the completion of Selina’s trilogy in July of the same year it has become quiet around chronerion entertainment.

When creating Selina’s trilogy, so the three little Point & Click adventures “A Fragment of Her“, “Being Her Darkest Friend” and “Ceasing to be Her Demise“, my little team and I worked almost continuously for two years and afterwards we just needed a break to relax and recharge our batteries again. During this break I had plenty of time to try out various other projects and think about chronerion entertainment and game development in general. Now, almost two years later, it is time to take action.

But please let me digress a little. It all started sometime in 2009 when I got the idea that I want to make an extraordinary adventure game, because something similar hasn’t been done yet. Over the next few years, I spent almost all my spare time making this idea a reality. I even got a job in the game industry and tried to learn as much as possible about game development. It was a very exciting time and I am very proud that our small team was able to realize the three short adventure games and that they were really very well received by the players, so by you.

In the almost 9 years since my idea was born, I have also had to realize how complex and intensive it is to develop video games, let alone to sell them commercially successfully. I became aware that I’m still extremely far from realizing the vision of the game I’ve been thinking about since 2009. Selina’s trilogy was just a tiny little apprentice piece in comparison, and to realize the “real” game, I would need a relatively large and professional team and therefore also a quite high budget. I just don’t see any way to create this game only in my spare time, without a budget and only with a voluntary team.

I’ve had plenty of time to think about chronerion entertainment the last two years and it’s become clear to me that I see no way to realize my vision in the near future. I still believe in the potential of the game and the whole universe I built around it. But the circumstances have changed so much in the meantime that I have decided to put chronerion entertainment on hold until further notice and devote myself to other projects apart from game development. Maybe in a few years there will be a new chance to revive the project and actually make my vision of the “extraordinary adventure game” a reality. But right now I just don’t see a way to do that.

So, this webisode is the last episode of chronerion entertainment for the time being. There will be no more updates on the website, Twitter, Facebook and Gamejolt, but the accounts will remain. So if the adventure continues one day, you will get informed through the usual channels.

I would like to thank my little team, without you Selina’s trilogy would never have been possible! I would have been totally lost without you and I can’t thank you guys enough. My infinite thanks also go to all those who accompanied us on our journey and gave us courage time and again. And of course a huge THANK YOU to everyone who played and enjoyed Selina’s trilogy. Thanks to all of you!

If you are interested in which projects I am currently working on, please visit my Website and my new Video-Website. I would be happy if we could still stay in touch.

That’s really it now. Thanks for your support, see you around!

Bye!

Christian aka humaldo

Blog: AFoH Design Principles Validation

By Christian on

A while ago we published our twelve so-called “Design Principles“. In a perfect world, a perfectly crafted game would fulfill every single one of these principle, but when we produced “A Fragment of Her” for the Point & Click Jam 2014, there were several constraints which prevented us from fulfilling all of them. Let’s check and see which principles were fulfilled and which were not. Have fun 🙂

1 – RESPECT THE GAME.
AFoH is mostly reading texts, clicking on a couple of obvious things, and reading texts again. Because not much “game” made it into the title, we called it an “Interactive Short Story” instead.
Verdict: Failed.

2 – CUT THE CUTSCENE.
AFoH is basically one big cutscene with loads of texts, connected by some light interactive elements.
Verdict: Failed.

3 – DON’T TAKE CONTROL AWAY.
Control is constantly taken away from the player. Most of the time the player character even walks around and leaves the scenes on her own.
Verdict: Failed.

4 – GRANT QUICK ACCESS.
AFoH has no classical title screen and the game starts instantly after clicking “START”. There’s even a web-demo where interested players can test the game withouth having to install it. On the other hand, there’s no save and load options, so players who quit in halfway through have to start over.
Verdict: Passed. (More or less)

5 – FUN IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ART.
We tried to make a fun, short, interesting, and also a bit demanding experience, but it wasn’t our goal to create an artistic masterpiece the academics would still talk about in years to come.
Verdict: Passed.

6 – FUN IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CHALLENGE.
Telling a story straight forward was more important to us than challenging the player with tricky puzzles.
Verdict: Passed.

7 – CHALLENGE IS OPTIONAL.
The only challenge in AFoH is to get as many information about the game world as possible. Going back to Selina’s department more often than necessary to examine everything can be considered as optional.
Verdict: Passed.

8 – DON’T PUNISH.
There’s no fail state and the player can’t do anything wrong. For the few easy puzzles in the game, we tried to give as many hints as possible.
Verdict: Passed.

9 – DON’T LOCK THE PLAYER.
In AFoH, the player is locked all the time, she has to read a lot of texts and she has to solve the (easy) puzzles in an strictly pre-defined order.
Verdict: Failed.

10 – BE SHORT, BE FUN.
AFoH is very short and players seem to like it.
Verdict: Passed.

11 – GAME ENDING FIRST.
Right from the start of the production, how the game whould end was very important to us.
Verdict: Passed.

12 – SOUND. USE THE POTENTIAL.
We tried to achieve the right balance between athmospheric, quiet sequences, and dramatic sequences accompanied by leitmotifs. We also created and used many sounds, some of them have even several different variations.
Verdict: Passed

Blog: There is more in the diary than just the map.

By Christian on

It was the end of June 2012 when I watched Episode 2 of the Double Fine Adventure video documentary and heard about “Free Writing” for the first time.As a big fan of the old-school way of taking notes by simply putting ink (or graphite) on paper, it inspired me to give free writing a try. So I bought a notebook and started to write down everything that came to mind.
To be honest, I never managed to “free write” like it’s supposed to be done. Instead, the notebook became more of a mix of a personal diary, a sketch book, and a notebook (for taking notes) in the classical way. And it’s quite handy for tracking the progress and direction the project takes, too.

In my opinion, working on paper is still the best and quickest way to work out ideas. I love working on the computer, too, of course. But I think the process of working out and developing fresh ideas is best done on paper.

Now, 21 months after I bought the notebook, which I fondly named “Grail Diary”, I finished its last page. Its successor, the “Grail Diary, Part 2” is already waiting eagerly to be filled with stuff the odd grey mass called “my brain” spills out.
GrailDiary06Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Christian
aka humaldo

Webisode #001 – Call To Adventure

By Christian on

We’re terribly sorry for the long silence since the website launched earlier this year. But now we’re back  and we are proud to present you the first regular chronerion entertainment webisode (Watch the pilot here), in which the main-motivation behind setting up the chronerion entertainment project is explained.

Have fun!


 


Transcript of Webisode #001 – Call To Adventure

I don’t remember if Maniac Mansion was the first point-and-click adventure I ever played. But I do know that it left a far deeper impression than Monkey Island, Indiana Jones or any of the other big adventure game classics.

I must have been eleven or twelve years old and already had gathered some experience with video games – when Maniac Mansion was a real culture shock to me. Abstract and imaginative games like Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda and Tetris
Continue reading

Blog: Sharing thoughts is a good thing. So let’s do it!

By Christian on

Welcome to the chronerion entertainment blog!

We believe thoughts and knowledge thrive best when shared with others. That’s why we’re going to talk about interesting things here in our blog and keep you updated on the progress and state of our projects as regularily as it is possible for us.

You are very welcome to comment on our blog to give us direct feedback! For the ones who prefer the more discreet route, we love to get email too.

Thanks for the attention!

Christian
aka humaldo