(Also the global pandemic might've slowed us down a bit as well.) The Future It took a while, but we feel like we've settled on the right compromise between the two with Earthblade. Prototypes EXOK1–3 taught us a lot, but ultimately we ventured way too far from our comfort zone for them to realistically ever get finished. I've fallen into both traps before, but this time the success of Celeste gave us a lot of runway and we tended to swing too wide. It can also be easy to get stuck in your comfort zone producing lifeless work, particularly when there's a lot of financial pressure. It's tempting as an artist to push yourself too far into the unknown, into a project that's not going to get finished given the constraints of your circumstances (budget, time, motivation, appetite for failure). The comfort zone is safe and easy, but boring. The unknown is exciting, but scary and difficult. The truth is that we don't know how long it will take, just that it will take as long as it takes (and that it will take a long time).įinding the right project is hard! It has to hit that tiny sweet spot between the unknown and the comfort zone.
This time we'll be faster." Now it sounds optimistic to say out loud that Earthblade could be released within 5 short years of Celeste. I was happy to read that, but then I saw the only reply, which was from someone who had evidently followed us since TowerFall because they responded with something like, "Get ready to wait 5 years :/"Īt the time I thought to myself, "No. I think a lot about an exchange I read on a gaming forum (or maybe it was on Reddit), soon after Celeste's release, where a player expressed how excited they were to see what our team would make next. It took us 4 prototypes to find Earthblade, and it's now been over 3 years since Celeste's initial release. In the meantime, now you know the general vibe. When we finally do show it off, be sure to point your feet away from animals and small children, and prepare for your footwear to be blasted clean off your feet. It'll probably be a while before you get more information about Earthblade. But an air of mystery lends itself particularly well to this project, so we've opted to save it all up for a big reveal that will hopefully blow your socks off. While making Celeste, we basically tweeted out whatever interesting-looking thing we were working on day-to-day, when we were in the mood for sharing.
#EARTHBLADE HOW TO#
We've debated back and forth how to talk about this game during development. We also just wanted to let everyone know the name of the game now that we've settled on one, so that we can all stop calling it EXOK4.
We didn't want to reveal much about the game or its story yet, but we think that this well establishes the world and the feeling of being in it.
The poster and logo are by Pedro Medeiros, and the music by Lena Raine. It’ll take some time for Earthblade to finish, but I have no doubt that it will be a quality product.Earthblade - that's the name of our next game! We‘re also showing off this teaser poster, and a snippet from the game's soundtrack. They note how there was a big gap between the releases of Towerfall and Celeste, and how they and the rest of the team have to balance both safe and predictable development choices. In the EXOK Games blogpost, head director Maddy Thorson explains the process it took to get here, and what it will take to finish the game. ceAM80PEaGĪs a trans woman who loves indie games, I’m legally obligated to state that Celeste was one of the best games ever made, but I also legitimately believe that, so I’m jazzed beyond belief for this next title, even without a solid idea of what it’ll be beyond “a 2d explor-action game.” Lena Raine is back to do the music, which helps my enthusiasm: The next release from the Celeste team, coming 20XX.
(It was the fourth prototype the team had worked on since consolidating under the new studio title.) The “vibe reveal” doesn’t show off any gameplay or even story, but it does give us a title: Earthblade.Ī 2D explor-action game in a seamless pixel art world. Extremely OK Games, the developers behind Towerfall and Celeste, have finally revealed their next project, previously just referred to as EXOK4.
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