- GDC 2023 Steam Deck Pitching - 14 March 2024
Pitching a game on the SteamDeck is great! There’s something great about being able to shove it into people’s hands and say – look here is our game, play it! Anyone else view it as an essential bit of kit? As GDC approaches I was looking at some photo’s from last year, and remembering all the fun we had taking our steam deck whilst pitching our game - Mechinus. The locations ranged all the way from swanky hotel suites with giant buffets and merch for the taking, right down to being perched on the edge of a noisy bar while shouting over the crowd. We even managed to get some pretty cool people to give our game a play - here are some pictures of Daniel Mullins (Inscryption) and Prof John Hare (Sensible soccer, Sociable Soccer, Cannon Fodder) which was pretty cool! The Steamdeck was so much easier than a gaming laptop or a console as its so portable, and you can literally just thrust it in…
- Would there be flowers in a world that evolved mechanically? - 6 February 2024
The core concept of the game is that its set in a world where life has evolved mechanically, rather than organically. Evolution has shaped the mechanical eco-system over millions of years, and created a living breathing (sentient, refuelling?) environment. The first level is set in the equivalent of a mechanical jungle. The idea behind these ‘Flowers’ is that they use their petals like funnels to collect and process falling fluids. Over years of use the erosion has caused the petals to become more colourful. As the environment they exist in is filled with predators and prey, the creatures will retract their petals by reflex when they sense movement nearby. What do you think? What are some small details you’ve used in the background to help flesh out the worlds that you are working on?
- Using the power of prototypes to craft a show stopping demo - 28 January 2024
I wanted to talk a little bit about how, when we see a finished feature in a game, we don’t see the months of prototyping that goes behind it, and how each of those prototypes helps to solve a problem and builds upon each other to get to an end goal. The video attached shows some of the protoypes we went through while developing a pitchable demo for our game - Mechinus - as a bit of a case study. I think people new to the games industry don’t necessarily know what we mean when we say “start small” and want to just start working on their dream game straight away – but you’d be amazed at how creating simple prototypes to focus in on one aspect of your game and drilling down into that can help you build something much bigger. In Mechinus, the main character is a cog that rolls around the world. It was important to us that he had a very particular feel to his movement – there needed to be a…
- Dreamhack Beyond Indie Showcase - 14 December 2023
Mechinus has been selected for the Dreamhack Beyond Indie Showcase! This means you have another chance to play the demo, starting tomorrow!
- Mechinus at Gamescom / Courage Cologne 2023 - 28 August 2023
What a week at Gamescom! We kicked off in style showcasing Mechinus at Courage Cologne, which was held at the world famous Bootshaus night club, then onwards to Gamescom itself. We were lucky to get a spot beside a fire exit at Courage, which provided some much-needed ventilation on an extremely hot and humid evening in Cologne. At 7pm, doors opened to press, influencers and publishers, and we picked up a stack of business cards. Then everybody else began pouring in from 8pm. Like the other indie exhibitors, we had drinks tokens to give to people who tried the demo, and we also came prepared with special Mechinus themed keyrings to hand out - no two exactly alike! We got fantastic feedback from players on the demo, and numerous important business meetings were held at Gamescom itself. A fantastic week in a beautiful city.
- DEMO in the Dreamhack Beyond Summer Indie Showcase - 16 August 2023
We are excited to announce that Mechinus has been selected to be part of the Dreamhack Beyond Summer Indie Showcase, and this will include a DEMO of the game for a limited time! Play as Cognito for the duration of the showcase, as you meet Bumble, and explore the enchanting mechanical ecosystem together.
- Mechinus Selected for Courage Cologne Showcase! - 4 July 2023
We are proud to announce that Mechinus has been selected for the Courage Cologne Showcase, running alongside Gamescom 2023. If you are attending Gamescom this year, we'd love to see you at the event and get your feedback.
- Mechinus Shortlisted for Indie Cup Playtest Prize - 27 June 2023
Super proud that Mechinus was a finalist in the special play test prize at the Indie Cup 2023.
- Mechinus at Format - 30 May 2023
Last week we had the first ever publicly playable build of Mechinus at Format in Manchester, UK: We kicked off with the VIP industry event on Wednesday, with Mechinus being displayed on the big screens along with other games from exhibitors: Then, on the Thursday night the public came to play at the main event. The feedback we got from players was incredible, and we also got details from a host of streamers, journalists and podcasters who want to run features on Mechinus - watch this space!
- London Games Festival Official Selection - 5 April 2023
Mechinus has been participating as part of the London Games Festival "Official Selection" - an exclusive curation of upcoming games. This included: Being listed in the curated Steam showcase A Mechinus page on the Official Selection website A YouTube premiere chat with the developers, and first look at gameplay (see below)
- MIX Showcase & GDC 2023 - 26 March 2023
What a week it's been at GDC 2023. On Monday Mechinus was featured in the fantastic MIX Showcase, and on Tuesday we braved the extreme San Francisco weather to take Mechinus to the European Showcase down at pier 17. We brought two Steam Decks to GDC, which made showing the demo at impromptu meetings in noisy hotel lobbies a breeze (compared to carrying around a bulky laptop and controllers). The response to the demo was extremely positive, and some people told us it was the best pitch they had seen all week at GDC - a testament to the brilliant work done by the dev team in the run up to the event. Still, although we were delighted with the demo we arrived with in San Francisco, there's always room to polish and, naturally, showing the game to new people reveals new bugs. Each evening we would update the JIRA priority list for the dev team back in the UK to work through, so we awoke each…
- Finding Cog's Voice - 11 November 2022
Cog was designed as an emotive character, able to react to events around him in the world of Mechinus. In many games, the player is looking at the back of the protagonists head, or if their face is visible, it's often relatively small on screen. Cog has a large, expressive face which is always pointing at the camera, providing a golden opportunity to build an emotional connection between player and character through his expressions. During pre-production, we went searching for Cog's "voice". While Mechinus is designed in the spirit of silent-storytelling, which means no dialogue, we decided this didn't mean Cog should be voiceless. Even if we don't understand his language, we can understand his emotions. Since Cog is a mechanical being in a clockwork ecosystem, we needed his voice to be distinct and unmistakable. The test we set ourselves for all of the audio design in Mechinus is that…
- Day of the Devs - Mechinus Showcase - 20 July 2020
Today at 11:00am ET / 8:00am PT / 4:00pm BST / 5:00pm CEST the #DayoftheDevs showcase goes live, and will feature the world-first reveal of Mechinus! Tune in via your preferred live stream platform below: Youtube 👉 https://www.youtube.com/user/thegameawards14 Twitch 👉 https://www.twitch.tv/thegameawards Twitter 👉 https://twitter.com/thegameawards Facebook 👉 https://www.facebook.com/thegameawards/
