Thank you for your unwavering patience. We are finally Steam Deck Verified; enjoy dream-walking to the fullest with Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP ✨



One of our Capys is playing it on the new Steam Deck OLED!

Hello Cosmic Friends ✨

This is CAPY, back from our chilling yet exciting trip at Grindstone Mountain. It was quite different from our time in the Depths, but that was also incredible to uncover. Though we are making progress towards a new, fantastical place, we thought it would be pleasant to revisit Mingi Taw.

We have a refreshing update for Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP! This affects a variety of platforms, such as: iOS, Mac, Linux, and PC. It’s definitely worth a thorough examination in the form of playing through it again!

Oh!

We do have an exhilarating addition to our list of playable platforms: the Steam Deck! Travelling is a fulfilling experience, but we imagine that travelling with Sworcery could be ethereal ✨ Enjoy its mythical musical mystery, all in your hands!

We also want to highlight our update for MacOS — this is the first time it can run on the latest versions! We are incredibly thankful for the patience our CosMAC Friends have for us.

Lastly, you might notice that your journey around Mingi Taw is more untroubled. We’ve done some housekeeping so it can be smooth sailing ahead… or dream-walking ahead, whatever feels comfortable. If we missed something in our cleanup, let us know! Those pesky corners can be hard to reach.

Thank you for sticking with us all these years (12 to be exact!); our otherworldly connection can truly be felt from anywhere we go. Cosmic Friends forever ✨

And yes, we extend that invite to you new folks as well. Welcome!

Wonderfully and joyfully yours,
CAPY 💙

P.S.

One of our incredible Sworcery devs has put out the patch notes in detail here; please give them the warmest appreciation and praise!

Happy 9 years of Super Time Force Ultra 🔫⏱️✨

We’re celebrating its release on PC today, which is why it’s an ULTRA anniversary! Time sure flies by… both for the company and in-game!

Thank you to everyone who has supported this action-packed game; it’s very beloved within the team so we hope the love for it stays and grows amongst you all! 💙✨

Interested in some fun facts and cool insight about the game and its development? Catch our stream on Twitch next Monday on August 28th! on Friday, September 1st!

KOOKABUNGA!

Hey everyone! We want to express our thanks for all your love for Critter Crunch. It’s heartwarming and encouraging for our team, knowing our beloved game has a special place in your life. 💙

We want to invite you to our stream tomorrow at 4PM ET! We'll be showcasing the Capy Classic™ Critter Crunch, in honour of its 15th iOS anniversary and as Bianca's OFFICIAL First Playthrough! 🖥️💙✨ Christian will be guiding Bianca on this exciting adventure! We’re also excited to present some fun facts about the game through its development and release with a special guest!

Not only will it be streamed on Twitch, but on our store page as well! We hope you can join us wherever it’s convenient!

And to celebrate this stream, we’re happy to have another sale for Critter Crunch, at 80% off until August 6th!! Feel free to follow along with your own first, second, third, or maybe even tenth playthrough of the game! 💙🐛✨

Happy 15 years of Critter Crunch! 🐛💙✨ We can’t believe it’s been that long since it came out on iOS… Thank you to everyone who has supported our game and our precious long-tongue boy!

While the Steam version is not the iOS version, we still wanted to give love to our community! It is still on sale for 86% off as part of the Steam Summer Sale until July 13th 🌞 Buy it again, buy it for a friend, your family, maybe even a stranger?

And to those that have it and played it, and even continue to play it to this day, please know we appreciate you immensely! 💙

Have a sketchy, bouncy Biggs!

There's something to be said for 2D pixel paintings, isn't there?

You put a pixel in its proper place, dial in its proper HSB, and so long as your color palettes are in reasonable order, then the pixel will stay just how you left it.

Then, when someone views the image -- or plays the videogame that takes place atop it -- the visual communication can be remarkably accurate and clean. Less to fuss about.




As you may imagine, there's something appealing to me about the thought of someday returning to the relative simplicity of this form of visual communication, working within interesting constraints, particularly after a good long while spent wrangling polygons in deep 3D space.

Speaking of polygons in deep 3D space - JETT's out!

There has been plenty going on lately as we round out JETT: Given Time's launch week.

Come dive into what's going on in JETTs-ville:

• JETT's out and we're feeling great! Why not pick up a controller, fire up JETT on your fanciest screen with your most comfortable headphones, arise into Given time and come spark some wisps with us - it's a JETT jubilee!
  
• We're accumulating player reviews (thank you, fine folks!) and other good words. Of course, the algorithm must be fed, so: if *you* feel so compelled, leaving JETT a quick review would be warmly appreciated, particularly in these next few weeks.
  
• If you haven't already, why not check out our latest JETT news post, with a post launch news round-up of Given Time reviews and press, a detour into Looking Glass lore, updates on our Thursday evening livestreams, AND a hefty JETT dev chat on this week's Noclip podcast.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/3648514058671083277












JETT's out!

Ahhh.... that feels *so* great to say.

With last week's debut of JETT on Steam and with the release of Given Time, we're feeling well satisfied. Our 1000 year interstellar dev trip has run its course, and now a distinct and newly-complete videogame vision is widely available, forevermore.

To those of you who have embarked, deployed, adapted, persevered and/or arisen with us - thanks so much.

This is an odd, ambitious, multi-faceted project. It has been a labor of love for all involved, and so it's very heartening to hear from those of you for whom this thing resonates. It's a thrill to think that people will be discovering JETT for years to come, now that it's out in the wyld. It's our fond hope that it might someday earn cult classic status.

On that topic, hey: if you're enjoying your time in the world of JETT, and if you are so moved, please do lend us hand with a positive Steam review and/or leave a good word someplace, and thanks if you do.

As of this writing we're a week out from January 31st, and here's a round-up of some post-launch news and press, including JETT folks on the Noclip podcast, some positive Given Time coverage on Rock Paper Shotgun and an 8/10 review in Edge Magazine, as well as recent article featuring Looking Glass alum and JETT Squad 1.0 lynchpin Randy Smith, plus some details about JETT Squad Thursday evening livestreams in February, and QA housekeeping including an update on the turbulence some of you may have experienced this weekend, and even a SHODAN cameo (!).

Phew, that's quite the bundle! Let's dig in, shall we?




JETT DEV X NOCLIP PODCAST

We've been chatting with Noclip lately, and a recent JETT dev conversation has been published as a podcast.

🔊 Listen: https://noclippodcast.libsyn.com/the-decade-long-creative-development-of-jett

📺 WATCH: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5U4YhmsRezA






ROCK PAPER SHOTGUN x JETT: GIVEN TIME

Some good words about Given Time from this direction, worth a read!

"A new expansion sees Jett become the soaring sci-fi open world it was meant to be. Given Time has made The Far Shore blossom beautifully into its final form."

Thanks to Jeremy Peel and Rock Paper Shotgun for shedding some light on JETT and Given Time!








ROCK PAPER SHOTGUN x RANDY SMITH - A JETT SQUAD ALL-STAR

Also on Rock Paper Shotgun, and also from Jeremy Peel, comes this recent profile of Randy Smith.

Thief developer Randy Smith says "immersion is totally incompatible with ego"

Jeremy's article covers Randy's career from Thief, back in the Looking Glass days, with some discussion about immersive sims, and the article includes a mention of Tiger Style's Waking Mars, and Randy's contributions to JETT.

Randy came into JETT's orbit initially as a design contributor from mid-2017, helping us here and there, before plugging in full-time in mid-2019, bringing a wealth of production experience and design chops, and becoming a JETT Squad lynchpin through some fairly complex stages of production, up until The Far Shore deployed in late 2021.

I think Randy's design contributions to the project really come through in Given Time, where ecosystem-puzzling and free-roaming gameplay come into focus, and where players are given time to soak in a world that reveals JETT's immersive sim aspirations.

As The Far Shore deployed, Randy passed the torch design-wise to his understudy, dev powerhouse Zack Wheeler, whose name you will encounter again at bottom of this post.



^ Randy Smith is @wavesallday_ on Twitter, and he's presently cooking up a fresh new videogame.




It's thanks to Randy that fellow Looking Glass alum Terri Brosius climbed aboard JETT Squad in 2020, plugging into Priscilla Snow's work on JETT's choral and spoken language (detailed in a recent squad profile), and adding capacity to the dialogue-shaping and story-editing efforts, alongside myself, Randy and Nick Suttner.

Terri, who voiced SHODAN in the System Shock series, also voices Misha in JETT. Misha, as some of you may know, is the level-headed and determined commander of Mei and Isao's scout unit. She is tasked by Space Program Overseer Jao to direct the investigation of Tor's solemn cone -- the source of the hymnwave -- from her perch on the command deck of Ground Control, atop Scout's Prospect.








JETT: GIVEN TIME IS AN EDGE 8/10

It was a delight to see JETT: Given Time get a warm welcome from Edge magazine's Chris Schilling in the March 2023 issue's 8/10 review.

“...this generous and welcoming expansion is deserving of any time given over to it."

The snippets above go a long way towards describing the new campaign. For the full review, and a whole lot more besides, with great coverage on the world of videogames, all beautifully laid out, seek out Edge magazine in print and digitally.

Fun fact: Both JETT: The Far Shore's 2021 release and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP's 2012 PC release scored 8/10 with Edge magazine. That's a pretty decent run, particularly given how unorthodox these designs have been. Feels pretty good!






SPARK WISPS WITH JETT DEVS THIS THURSDAY

On January 31st we kicked off JETT's jubilee, getting together for a launch livestream with a range of JETT Squad folks playing The Far Shore and cracking into Given Time. This is now archived here.

As JETT's February 2023 'Jubilee!' enters its second week, there's more in store.

On Thursday February 9th from 830pm to 1030pm, join Given Time design contributor Richard Flanagan aka @phosfiend and Given Time design/dev/QA powerhouse Zack Wheeler aka @tankooni for the next instalment in their Given Time Debut Playthrough.

Subsequent Given Time streams are scheduled for Thursday February 16 and Thursday February 23rd, kicking off 8:30pm.

Come along and spark some wisps, shoot the breeze, see what JETT: Given Time has on offer, and surface any Qs in the chat.

Oh, and you're playing along, take note: on February 9th they'll be starting in the free-roaming mid-section of Given Time, poking at puzzles, getting in and out of JETT dev rabbit holes. There's a (very) low risk of narrative spoilers, so not to worry, you can join in even if you haven't cracked into The Far Shore.

They'll be streaming right here on JETT's Steam page. It should be a fun laidback time. A few other JETT Squad folks will be around, and may stop by the stream.

Until then - stay sharp, scouts, and go gather them wisps!

c



@craigdadams

@superbrothersHQ

@jettxyz

https://www.jett.fyi/ << hop on the Superbrothers A/V - Enthusiasts newsletter





https://youtu.be/1a12KAlwnJ8

https://youtu.be/ilZo8W8cHFA

Folks, listen: the videogame biz is a weird place.

I can tell you, at least from my strange and specific vantage point as a creator and an entrepreneur, that it seems to be bananas. Sometimes, in good ways. Sometimes something intricate and strange like JETT is able to ride favourable industry currents, reach for the stars, and actually get there. Sometimes you end up with a line-up of interesting people, wishlists in hand, queuing up for what's on offer. More on that in a second, but first lemme get your eyes and ears on today's big item:

This is a great great day. and we're *thrilled* to have delivered on JETT's videogame vision satisfyingly.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3lfq60RO90

Today's the day! Arise with us?

• JETT's Steam debut + New 'Given Time' campaign is now available
  
• Oh and as of now, JETT's on sale: 40% off on Steam.
  
• Did I mention JETT is pretty great on Steam Deck? Well, yep - it is!

I'd love it if you checked things out and took the plunge.

“...this generous and welcoming expansion is deserving of any time given over to it." - Edge magazine

If you love #sworcery, odds are good you'll find a fair bit to love in JETT. Sure, on first glance they're wildly different, with JETT's 'Metroid Prime on a snowboard' mechanics and complexity, but on closer inspection they're cut from the same cloth. Both offer a fresh approach to design, a distinct A/V style, characters with soul, a rich audio experience and some kickass music woven into the fabric of things.

If you do take the plunge, I should mention that February 2023 is a great time to play JETT, as we'll be playing and streaming too. More on that below.




Patrick at Pine Scented and I have been carving out the unusual genre-space and distinctive universe of JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time for a thousand years err.. I mean… a decade now. It’s a cool project and we’re plenty proud of it, and we’re so glad to have delivered on the vision, and in a satisfying style. Feels good.

Bringing JETT to Steam in its now fully-realized form, with the brand new Given Time campaign hitting across the board on Steam, Epic and on PlayStation, feels cool-as-hell.

This a special one, one we hope will find its people, stand the test of time, and go on accumulating JETT-heads from here on out.




To mark the moment we've lined up a Devs Launch Day Livestream from 12pm ET to 3pm ET on Tuesday, January 31 at JETT on Steam. I'll be hanging out on stream with JETT Squad folks like scntfc, Richard Flanagan aka @phosfiend, Pine Scented, Priscilla Snow aka @ghoulnoise, Sam Bradley, dev powerhouse Zack Wheeler aka @tankooni, and more. Come on over and hang out?

We have some other livestreams on the calendar in February 2023, with some of us playing through Given Time over the course of three Thursday nights. More info on that towards the bottom of this post.




In any case, we hope you dig JETT's unorthodox videogame vision.

Tsosi bless!











Oh, as for the misc videogame biz musings...



I'm a dev and creator, dreaming dreams and then building them, day in day out for years. Plenty of practical problem-solving and production chops involved there too. On JETT I have been serving as producer and publisher, too. Like a lot of other videogame entrepeneurs working in this space, I contemplate trends and ponder success stories, and I follow the twists and turns of the dwindling ranks of the videogame press with interest and concern. It's hard to know what to think about where things are going, this is a strange future and only getting stranger. However, I've learned a fair bit, and lived to tell the tale. Grateful for that. I'm eager to put some of these learnings into practice in future efforts, when the time comes.

In my publisher/comms role, I've been monitoring the murmurings and spikes of our daily Steam wishlist data since late September 2022 with a keen interest. The spikes are exciting, and it has been gratifying to put something out, wait a bit, and then see the needle move on a meaningful graph.



We've put in a fair amount of amount of honest effort in the last several months preparing and publishing some pretty solid materials intended to get the word out on JETT and Given Time, and be a positive contribution in general. This work has involved me working alongside the excellent Dan Berry, Dustin Harbin, Richard Flanagan and Nick Verge at popagenda to get things done.

Just to give you a sense of some of the thing things we've been putting together lately, here's a sampling.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/3632750825578792262

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/5310340507211946263

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/3642880749849600159

Oh, and:

Our launch day post at JETT on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/3642880749849611635

Our recent Given Time showcase post, including a mini-FAQ about JETT on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/3642880749849600159


Go to the JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time - News Hub to see it all.



On the JETT comms-side, I should note: we have another few weeks of goings-on in February 2023 with a 'Given Time Jubilee', including scntfc's JETT: Given Time OST roll-out -- it turned out so great! -- plus we have a series of 'Dev Livestreams - Given Time Debut Playthrough' slated for Thursday evenings in February starting from Feb 9th from 830pm ET to 1030pm ET. Oh, and there may even be few more slabs of JETTdev material in the weeks to come. Hope you dig.





---------------------------------------------------

Where can I find out about more about JETT and Superbrothers A/V?

Look to JETT.fyi for all kinds of info, where you can also hop on the Superbrothers A/V - Enthusiasts newsletter.

Plus there's Twitter @jettxyz @superbrothersHQ @craigdadams and Instagram @superbrothers.

For more on Superbrothers A/V there's also http://www.superbrothershq.com/ and swordandsworcery.com.


To dive deeper into JETT's creation myth, here are recent longreads from me.


https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/3642880749849543862


https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/6926004339899510462


https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/3625990351998747746

Hello hi there. How're things?

Craig D Adams here, from the ol' Superbrothers A/V mothership, creative director on JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time, a videogame co-created by Pine Scented with music composed by scntfc.


I've got some significant top-level JETT news for you today!

• JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time launches on Steam on January 31 2023

To get a sense of what's in store in the new Given Time campaign expansion, please check out this ~two minute showcase clip!



^ So, what'd you think? Interested? Hope so!

We've been crafting JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time for over a decade now. Bringing JETT to Steam in its fully realized form, with the brand new Given Time campaign, is incredibly exciting.


Got any JETT-questions, by chance?
The answers to a few questions lurk below!







I haven't started/completed The Far Shore. Can I play Given Time?
How do the two campaigns work, progress and save data-wise?

You’ll be able to start the Given Time campaign separately in the main menu, whether you’ve played the original game or not. Progress in the campaigns are saved separately, so you can start one and switch to the other, and back again, although JETT is probably best enjoyed chronologically.




How does the story of Given Time relate to < whatever happened > in The Far Shore?
The new Given Time campaign takes place three years following the end of the events of The Far Shore. Note: some very light plot spoilers ahead in this paragraph. As the player character Mei, you'll awaken to find yourself in an emptier and quieter Ground Control. With only one other scout awake and a weathered JETT waiting outside for you, you'll embark on a solo quest to discern the will of the wisps before finally revealing the secrets of the hymnwave and discerning the nature of the wyld, the eons-old entity at the heart of Tor.





What can I expect, gameplay-wise, in Given Time?
You will have to use your JETT scout knowledge and skills to survive in this rich and distinctive ecosystem, proving yourself as an aviator and a scientist. This solo journey offers more freedom and less dialogue, as you investigate new and mysterious phenomena. Given Time's gameplay revolves around finding rainbow resonances and hatching brine wisps, which are hidden in unique locations and offer interesting problems to solve.




The expansion offers a more open-world experience with a player-driven adventure, where you'll be able to explore and discover the game world at your own pace. There is much to uncover and explore, and the story will tie up some of the threads left dangling at the close of The Far Shore campaign.




Can you sell me on Given Time in just a couple sentences?

The Given Time expansion is a generally relaxing open-world sci-fi adventure where you'll encounter action-packed puzzles, challenging survival elements and visual prog-rock spectacle. With the release of Given Time, JETT's vision is fully realized.




Is there any early buzz on JETT: Given Time, and if so, what is it?

We think Given Time is pretty cool, and encouragingly it seems as if the fine folks at Edge magazine have enjoyed their time with it a fair bit, judging from a Given Time preview in issue 380, from a few weeks ago. We're eager to see how it goes over in the review.




Where can I find out about more about JETT?

Look to JETT.fyi for all kinds of info, where you can hop on the Superbrothers A/V - Enthusiasts.


To dive deeper into JETT's creation myth, here are various longreads from me.

• How No Man's Sky and Firewatch relate to JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time

• How JETT's design relates to Metroid Prime, Monster Hunter and Fumito Ueda

• Superbrothers: from #sworcery to JETT - a catch-up post

Imagine: it's 2013, you're a small team, you've previously made a small but well-regarded game, something like Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP just to choose a random example, and now you're swinging for the bleachers with an ambitious new design.

You and a pal have been cooking up a science fiction videogame where you explore a planet and survive from two perspectives: you can walk around and talk to people, then you get in a jett and you can zip around the planet's surface, gathering things and figuring things out in an interesting wilderness built with procedurally-placed ecosystem tools.

Now, imagine you tune into a 'The Game Awards' type broadcast (the last of the VGAs?) in late 2013, and you see this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCgWabJssVI

Whatever you may think about No Man's Sky, there's no getting around the fact that from that first trailer, it has drawn a high level of attention.

So, back to imagining you and your small team and your 'walk around a bit and then get in a jett and zip around a mostly procgen game-world gathering and crafting things' videogame. Well, now might be time for a little reflection, to tease apart how your vision aligns, and where it contrasts, with the new 800-pound gorilla in this genre.




We kept on with our vision for JETT through 2014 and into 2015, with all its Monster Hunter and Metroid Prime -inspired nuances and wrinkles, getting to know what we could and couldn't do with procedurality.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/6926004339899510462



We were working through designs that involved gathering and crafting, and figuring out what kinds of scenarios could hold people's attention, while we kept the focus on the science-discovery angle and attempted to side-step the usual extract-gather mechanics.



We had our Destiny-inspired menu system up and running, and when we saw that's what Hello Games was up to with No Man's Sky we felt ah well, yep, that makes sense.



In the wake of No Man's Sky emergence, attention was drawn to the enigmatic singularity of procedural generation through 2014 and 2016, the whizbang of it and the endless possibilities and such, and I found myself remembering playing and enjoying Frontier: Elite II back in the day, a miracle-work in hyper-ambitious interstellar procgen that ably demonstrated to me both the allure and some of the limits of this approach.

Once the whizbang of procgen wears off, you've got to actually play the videogame: to get a grip on the controls and comprehend its systems and find them interesting or meaningful, and find a groove in its rhythms and patterns. In any case, at length I had to admit that Frontier: Elite II was just not my cup of tea.

Still, Frontier: Elite II is absolutely worth a look-see, if you're unfamiliar!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJdz7x9hpUA

My most vivid positive memory of playing Frontier involved parking at a base on a moon in orbit around a gas giant, then ratcheting up the flow of time x10 and watching a cosmic ballet unfold before my eyes, with the moon I was parked on wheeling around the gas giant, day turning to night, the stars in the heavens whirling, every start representing a potential destination, and with the other moons and planets in the surrounding solar system visible in the distance, moving in their orbits. Magnificent! (FWIW: My least positive memories of playing Frontier tended to involve me setting a destination, setting a course, switching on my autopilot, ratcheting up the flow of time and kicking back.... and then suddenly colliding with an unseen planet or somesuch. Alas, haha.)





With my Frontier: Elite II experience in mind, and my 'proc-gen is an endless miracle' expectations securely in check, I'll admit that I found a great deal to appreciate in the vibe, style and craft of No Man's Sky when it shipped in 2016. Those colors! That music! The pizzazz! It's a pretty magnificent thing, no doubt. Still, as anticipated, I struggled to find my footing in the actual videogame experience.



For one thing, I learned that as player, I tend to prefer experiences that are more curated and feel contained and completable, even if they feel vast at times. Or, put another way, from a designer's point of view, I identified that my player type, whatever type that is, needs an immediately engaging on-ramp -- hook me!! -- and then I need some meaningful-to-me structure to motivate my continued engagement, and ideally at some point I could use some characters to start to relate to and begin to care a bit about. These reflections helped me recalibrate my feelings about what JETT could and should be.





Something else I spent a lot of time considering relates to the underlying narrative/mechanics in science fiction / space fantasy exploration games.

As a teen I was so blown away that Frontier: Elite II contained a universe at just ~500K, and I recall having no particular qualms with how vacant and colonial everything was. The narrative premise seemed in-line with 50s and 60s science fiction, the kind probably written by European white men, authors like Clarke and Asimov that I had been reading at that time. In the 90s, the deeper scrutiny of 'explore/conquer/extract' fantasies hadn't reached many teenager's bedrooms, or at least it wasn't particularly itchy to me at the time.

However, as an adult in the 21st century, a witness to the impacts of our civilization and its values, I've found that I struggle to resonate with stories and designs that replicate and dress up those capitalist/colonial concepts. I get that there's a reason our species enjoys these types of activities, and that these designs are reliable in videogames; but for me, I can't help but ruminate regretfully that this is the case.

As we carved out JETT's cosmology, we talked about how it might stand as an interesting work of science fiction, something that could soar with spectacle and escapist thrills, hit notes of awe and dread, and carry within it a story that involves characters who represent the best of us, within a reasonably enlightened and thoughtful culture, struggling to tread lightly while they see to their survival.

Science fiction can be a pretty fantastic lens through which to view complex interrelated science and nature concepts afresh, particularly concepts that involve processes that function on timescales other than the human lifespan, and it can be fascinating to contemplate our species and our lives from other vantage points. So, it's hard for me to not to get a bit bummed out when the role I'm offered in an expansive science fiction videogame is limited to being a cog within a society engaged in thoughtless conquest and the relentless extraction of materials from pristine new worlds.







FROM PROCGEN TO STORYTOWN



In any case, as we continued to explore JETT's design space we had plenty of other avenues to consider, and we began to shift and narrow our focus. At some point in 2015 or 2016 we ended up jettisoning crafting entirely, and pretty drastically limiting the gathering, in part to avoid having to accommodate things that felt extractive, in part so as not to have to bend our fiction too much. (Another upside: less UI work for the two of us to get bogged down with, haha.)

We made sure to re-center ourselves on JETT's core vision -- the feel of snowboarding, the various Metroid and Monster Hunter ideas, the vibe and tone and our philosophical approach -- but we started talking more about how to strengthen the narrative elements, and how to get those elements to more reliably surprise, intrigue and resonate.




JUST ADD "JUST WALKING"


walking around Ground Control's habitation room, circa 2016

I was growing fond of the world and the characters we had been carving out in JETT, and I could see a lot of potential, but by 2015 we just hadn't spent much time building these elements out. I began to see a path forwards that would involve putting more attention to the narrative and on-foot spaces.



At this time we were looking towards Blendo Game's 30 Flights of Loving (2012), which we had as our reference point for narrative-first DIY first person, with its smash cuts and clever lo-fi staging. We looked over at the interest in first person narrative experiences, with the A/V focused Proteus and the more literary Dear Esther coming up in early conversations, then Gone Home, and then Campo Santo's Firewatch, announced in 2014 and released in 2016. We asked ourselves: if we aspired to a high level of care for a few of JETT's on-foot spaces and sequences, in what ways could that deepen the overall experience?

I loved everything about Campo Santo, from its Campo Santo Quarterly to all the all-stars at that studio to their lovely debut Firewatch, and of course I'm psyched about their upcoming effort Valley Of the Gods. In any case, I thought Firewatch was a treat to play, nice and finite with some good momentum throughout. (Fun little Firewatch x JETT crossover: In 2017 we had Firewatch design person (among many other things) Nels Anderson step in for some JETT design consultation).



One thing the Campo folks wisely did was avoid encountering living characters up close in game, similar to Gone Home. This avoids a lot of complexity. I seem to recall there being a fair bit of talk about 'forensic storytelling' around this time. However, for JETT I thought: damn it, let's commit to encountering characters who are living their adventure alongside us. Sure, it's a type of madness for a tiny two-person team to aspire to tackle all that, but we had a 'maybe we can figure this out' spirit.



My bet was that we'd find our way to a good enough level of animation and emoting, but stylized enough to be feasible. I figured we could problem solve the scope and production processes. We had a plan of attack on how to avoid the kind of complexity that would come with English voice-over, by relying on written dialogue primarily and working out our own distinct VO path.



It took a fair bit of honest effort from a lot of folks on a lot of sides to deliver on JETT's on-foot narrative ambitions, but I'll admit that I love where we landed things. I feel JETT: The Far Shore is a distinct and interesting work of science fiction, and I like that some of the characters and their concerns come through, as they overcome obstacles and stumble reverently forward. I'm psyched about what's in store for people in the JETT: Given Time campaign, with its distinct premise and approach to narrative, as it progresses, deepens, reveals and concludes things.







EVERY ATOM PROCEDURAL PAIN-STAKINGLY HAND-CRAFTED



In any case, the path we set out on from ~2016 to 2021/2023 was one where we kept the things that felt would make the best and most distinct JETT, and this involved some streamlining of doodads and fussiness, while keeping the action, expansiveness and imagination, while we made efforts to raise the bar for our first person spaces, pulling in people to help, and putting some pressure on our collective storytelling chops. We figured this unorthodox synthesis of design elements might have a decent shot at carving out a genre-space all its own, something that could be familiar enough for people to hook onto, while being distinct and interesting enough to linger in their minds.

So, if you were drawn to No Man's Sky but you wish there was some meaningful narrative concepts and thoughtful mechanics to get a grip on, or if you loved Firewatch but you were left itching for an opportunity to dig deeper into some ecosystem-puzzle-gameplay, well then may I say that I fondly hope you'll find some of what you're after in JETT.

If you haven't already taken it for a spin, I'll mention the JETT demo is up now. JETT in its entirety is launching on Steam real soon.








OVER AND OUT, FOR NOW

If you read all the way to here then... wow! Hope you enjoyed this, and thanks as always for your attention.

If you'd like to read up on how sworcery led to JETT, and how JETT's interstellar demo came about, you might enjoy the following post.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600?emclan=103582791472437081&emgid=3625990351998747746


If you're curious to read about JETT's deisgn inspirations, among them Metroid Prime, Monster Hunter and the videogames of Fumito Ueda, here's a longread about that.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1761600/view/6926004339899510462


As ever, to get in the loop with Superbrothers and all things #sworcery, please like and subscribe and so forth.

Wishlist JETT on Steam and Download Demo - it helps!

• Play the prologue to get warmed up, and ensure your PC rig works.
  
• Note: We recommend playing on a controller, with headphones!

Hop on the Superbrothers A/V - Enthusiasts newsletter via http://www.jett.fyi


Thanks for giving JETT some of your time, scouts!

sworcery symbology, yuletide edition by Cory Schmitz
STUMBLING REVERENTLY INTO 2023

Hey, Craig from Superbrothers here. As 2022 winds down I sincerely hope that wherever you are, you’re getting through things okay, whatever the odds and the obstacles, and that you’ve got it in you to be who you want to be, and be good to each other, as we all stumble reverently forward into another year living together on this troubled, miraculous planet.

So, listen: I've prepared a hefty post for you to enjoy over the winter holidays. it's about how I moved from #sworcery's pixels to JETT's polygons, and why JETT took the shape it did, with mentions of Metroid, Metroid Prime and Fumito Ueda, among others. I hope you enjoy it, if you take the time to traverse it.

This one's a long read, a big ol' yule log of a post. If you're interested in the process of creating videogames, and the specific and maybe-unusual Superbrothers A/V approach, then perhaps you'll consider returning to this post at some point over the winter holidays in a an idle moment, with a mug of warm cocoa in hand.


#sworcery fan art from the AV jam
FROM PIXELS TO POLYGONS

First off, a question: d'you happen to remember the #sworcery AV Jam, that eruption of fan-made sworcery-inspired art that we collected on tumblr back in April 2012? There are some legit gems in that mix: https://sworcery-vibes.tumblr.com/

There's an image that dates back to this time that I wanted to mention. It's a painting I had made for a Moon Grotto music release, depicting The Scythian's < spoiler alert > funeral pyre.



When I painted the pixels for this scene in #sworcery, I'll admit I got a bit choked up. It was strangely moving to be laying The Scythian down to rest so soon after getting to know her. Then, a year later, I revisited the scene with a tablet in Photoshop. This time time I was taking my leave of sworcery's pixel style, and I was contemplating how to go about mounting a videogame production involving 3D characters and locations. This was a daunting prospect, given the depth of my experience at the time, and given the tiny-team-size constraint I thought it prudent to work within.



Early on after my move from Toronto to the woods of Quebec, starting in 2013, I set to work sketching and building up the foundation and conceptual scaffolding for a dream project called 'the future'. I was reading up on science fiction (revisiting Dune, Clarke's The Deep Sea, Asimov's Foundation, LeGuin's Vaster Than Empires...) as well as relevant science and space race history books. Meanwhile, my old pal and JETT's co-creator Patrick at Pine Scented in Japan was in touch, getting his life to a place where he was ready to commit to build something together with me.



Common sense suggests that one shouldn't attempt to go from 'scope-limited 2D mobile game' (sworcery) to 'vast 3D PS5 videogame with unorthodox immersive sim elements and characters emoting and speaking' (JETT). Both Patrick and I knew we would have to learn a whole lot to actually deliver on the kind of maximalist vision we were cooking up with JETT, and we knew it would take a great deal of time and effort, and you know what, we were right, haha.

All's well that ends well, as they say, and now, ten years later, we're on the home stretch JETT-wise with Given Time, the upcoming free expansion to JETT that'll be 'alighting' early in 2023 alongside the Steam release. It feels great to be rounding this corner.

Given all that, now feels a good time to broadcast some thoughts about JETT's gameplay design and what inspired it, including mentions of Metroid Prime, Monster Hunter and the videogames of Fumito Ueda.

Before we dig in, I should ask: if you haven't already, and if you like this kind of thing, then please do go wishlist JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time. Take the demo for a spin, and stay tuned for more: the Steam launch and the free expansion are











A LOOK AT JETT GAMEPLAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5v4vEqmgQ0
The most efficient way to get you up to speed on JETT's final design is to direct you to this two minute clip from 2021, where I explain some things about how The Far Shore plays.

As that clip demonstrates, JETT's gameplay is an unorthodox thing, with chunks of walking around and absorbing moods and narrative concepts, in-between chunky jett-centric gameplay where you're snowboarding around and solving a series of scenarios that involve exploring, inspecting things, poking and prodding at things, then using the jett's tools and applying some problem-solving to survive and persevere.

As for how JETT's vision took the shape it did, and what we were aspiring for: read on!




THE 90S 3D MOTION HEYDAY


For me, an inspiration for JETT's gameplay is how fun 3D motion can be, outside of the context of controlling a person walking around on-foot.

In the 90s, when 3D motion was new and novel, there were so many great videogames with unusual approaches to surfing, flying and racing.

I loved Magic Carpet, TIE Fighter, Descent and so on when they emerged into the 90s PC scene. On console I was there to play WipeOut, F-Zero X, Waverace and the various snowboarding and future racing games of the era.

In those olden times there was a fair bit of originality and exploration in this genre space, and it felt like there was a decent-sized audience playing them. Then, in the 2000s, as that novelty began to wear off, the audiences seemed to diminished and there was perhaps a bit less going on in that genre-space. The racing, skating and snowboarding games that did emerge weren't taking as many wild swings.


3D MOTION VIDEOGAMES IN THE 2000s

Thatgamecompany's fl0wer had a feel that was an occasional reference point for us on JETT (eg. see 'hopping on ghokebloom').

Also, I should note I've been pretty inspired by many a racing game over the years, notably Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, a game I revere, whose aesthetics and engine cool-down mechanics directly inspired JETT's scramjet stability system.


MY FIRST VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY GIG
In the mid-2000s I had completed my studies in illustration and 3-D videogame art production, and I took a job at a Japanese videogame studio in downtown Toronto (odd, but true), on a future racing title called Fatal Inertia EX, set in natural landscapes, built using the then-new Unreal Engine 3. I joined that project late, but I ended up chipping in on a variety of elements including skies, lighting, sound, and even trailer capture/editing and pitching on art direction. It was a cool time and an excellent learning opportunity.

I met Patrick at Pine Scented at this time, and because we were sometimes tooling around these in-game locations in-editor, we'd experience these rich environments outside the confines of a race, where you're required to careen around in circles.






BABY JETT

Flash forward a few more years, right after #sworcery in 2011, and Patrick and reconvened at the Toronto Game Jam to gin something up to scratch a videogame design itch. Patrick has a great #JETTdev Twitter thread that begins there.

Even after only a couple days of work on the weekend of the jam, we could see there was something here that we were pretty intrigued by.



We had a tone, a style and a feeling of motion that we liked and that we were intrigued by. We found that we were interested in creating something substantial enough to interest people for a long period of time, so others could enjoy the experience we were having playing around and getting good.


THE FAR SHORE'S NARRATIVE CONCEPTS

Early on it occurred to us that our design aims would be perhaps best served by narrative concepts that would have us taking our first steps exploring an unfamiliar planet, a planet where we could invent creatures and entities to serve our gameplay vision and have our in-game characters be encountering them for the first time.

I started to imagine how this concept might look and feel, and how it might have interesting and meaningful ideas woven in, and I puzzled over how a team of two people might go about building something like this out. In conversation with Patrick, who handled all the technical aspects and co-authored the design with me for years, and we began to carve out prototypes to scope out relevant concepts.










METROID PRIME

As for the kinds of videogames we were talking about in those early days, well, we invoked the Metroid Prime series a reference more than once, I can safely say.

I love Metroid Prime - what an outstanding collection of moods and seamless vibes! It was so cool to inhabit Samus Aran's attitude, a calm and tenacious problem-solver, while discovering and incrementally disentangling initially puzzling locations and scenarios. When Metroid Prime is in its stride you're purposefully hiking from location to location, fluidly using tools to traverse spaces and overcome obstacles, pausing to better understand some detail, peering at some mystery to uncover what's hidden, gleaning some insight from an onboard computer, and then occasionally you find yourself suddenly spat out into some spectacular trouble when a boss battle erupts around you. There was plenty for us to aspire to there!

We were only two people so we had to have a strategy on how we might deliver on some of this with JETT. For example: we opted to put you into the snug space boots of JETT's silent protagonist, Mei, letting you walk around in first person, to immersively inhabit that experience and understand the world from that perspective, but we kept a hard limit on gameplay complexity for these onfoot sections, keeping the focus on mood and narrative. That way we could keep our action and gameplay centered on the jett, a simpler rig that would give us everything we were after.

While I love and appreciate the Metroid Prime series, I'll admit that there's not much about the writing in the series that intrigued me, and that's fine, that's not where it's coming from. However, this, too, was an inspiration JETT-wise. I was eager to carve out an appealing science fiction world, and to populate it with characters that players could connect to, who are living an interesting story. My calculation was that connecting with players on these levels could deepen the vibe.

I love a lot of where we ended up with JETT's narrative concepts, but I'll admit that in The Far Shore campaign, our focus on story and character sometimes trips up the mood... which is why I'm so thrilled about the Given Time campaign, which is where JETT's Metroid Prime-inspired design really shines, as a tried-and-tested Mei arises from torpor and sets out on a free-roaming adventure in a quiet vibes-heavy world, relying on her tools and her wits to figure things out.




MONSTER HUNTER


Another series that we talked about a fair bit in those early days was Monster Hunter.

The Monster Hunter series has you encountering large creatures that you'll end up learning the ways of. You're tasked with getting familiar with the tools, ecosystems and rhythms of the world in order to survive and thrive. There are a ton of doodads and complexity, and plenty of repetition, and some things are fussy and awkward and inscrutable, but there was so much else to be inspired by with this series.

There are ways in which Monster Hunter's appeal overlaps with Metroid Prime, but Monster Hunter is a broader and deeper design, where the various elements relate to each other in complex ways, and there's much more variability in how things play out.

It can be such a thrill to go out into a large natural landscape, gathering and preparing for what's to come, then seeking out a particular creature, observing its behavior and deciding on an approach, then dealing with that creature in a series of encounters, putting your knowledge and skills into practice, duking it out over a prolonged period of time, often with lulls and breaks in-between altercations.

Of course, with Monster Hunter you're constantly slaying these creatures and harvesting their corpses to build new weapons and armor, and while these are core and satisfying aspects of Monster Hunter's design, we actually took pains to avoid relying on these mechanics with JETT. Our interest was in zipping around in the vicinity of large, interesting creatures, getting in and out of trouble with them, using our jett skills and tools to defend or outrun or problem solve while we pursue goals not rooted in belligerence. In order to keep JETT's science fiction tone and concepts intact, and to keep the characters from becoming heels, we found we had to look for the high road and avoid clumsily trampling indigenous flora and fauna underfoot.

As for the jett's locomotion and controls, well, they're admittedly a bit unorthodox, and some of the DNA there goes to the Monster Hunter series, which is also an acquired taste for some. For example, in JETT you'll often be 'toggling scramjets on/off', which feels a bit like sheathing and unsheathing a weapon in Monster Hunter. In JETT, with scramjets toggled on you'll zip along at a steady cruising speed, perfect for traversing the world while looking around. Then you'll come across a location of interest and you'll toggle scramjets off, so you can go as slow as you like, letting you use the jett's various tools -- resonator, light, grapple -- to understand and manipulate entities in the world. Then oops, something comes up and it's time to hit the road, so you toggle those scramjets on and get up to speed. It's a mode-switch, or a gear-change, and it's unusual, but just like Monster Hunter's sheathe/unsheathe mechanic, once you've grokked it, it makes a lot of sense and starts to feel pretty cool.


THE VIDEOGAMES OF FUMITO UEDA


In 2001, Fumito Ueda and SCEJ's Ico was released, and it had a tone all its own, similar only to Eric Chahi's Another World or Heart of Darkness. In some ways it felt like an indie acoustic cover of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarinia of Time, with a plucky young hero saving a princess from a fairy tale castle, but with all the cute kid stuff pulled out. Playing it felt like looking through a window into a world, with living people running about, people with hearts and souls.

It's fascinating to think of how Hidetaka Miyazaki, then a 29 year old systems admin at Oracle, was inspired by Ico to pursue a career in videogame development. I can feel some of Ueda's peculiar magic lurking in the corners of Miyazaki's design sensibility, that inscrutable remoteness and austerity that suffuses Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and so on to Elden Ring.

It was such a thrill to play Ico, and it was validating in a way. Here was someone else who could see what videogames could be, and they got this made, and it's excellent. Incidentally, the day I played Ico was the day I warmed up to PlayStation, and it has been a thrill to work with the fine folks at that legendary company on JETT.

When Shadow of the Colossus hit in 2005 I was living in a place in Toronto with my old pal (and The Long Dark concept artist) Roberto Robert, and we happened to have a projector on-hand, and a slanted roof in our living room, and let me tell you: that was a pretty ideal venue. We were maximally hyped, and Shadow pretty much floored us. So many memorable encounters, such a mood.

For Patrick and I, in the early days of JETT, we had the vibe of Fumito Ueda's games in mind thorughout: that forlorn beauty, those feelings of regret and the emotional heft of things, the awe that comes with sighting a colossus, the intrigue that comes from observing an intricate world with it's own inscrutable logic.


a pic from a 2012 Japan trip
Speaking of Ueda, here's a maybe-amusing aside...

Around the summer solstice in 2012, I found myself in Japan, alongside #sworcery co-lead designer Kris Piotrowski. We were in town because the excellent people at 8-4 Ltd had prepared a Japanese edition of #sworcery, as well as a star-studded remix album, and they had lined up launch events involving various industry legends. Suda51, who voiced Logfella in the Japanese edition of #sworcery, was the MC of our launch event, which was attended by the likes of Koji Igarashi (Castlevania), Chip Tanaka (Metroid), and many more.

Among the many highlights of this too-good-to-be-true trip was a sit-down supper with none other than the great Fumito Ueda, who wore a Delphine Software t-shirt of his own making. It was an excellent time, with Kris and I answering many questions through a translate about how #sworcery came to be and so on, while we peppered him with questions about his career and inspirations.

This was 2012, and at that time the status of The Last Guardian was not known. Out of politeness, neither Kris nor I mentioned the project, in case it was a sore spot. However, as we said our farewells, Ueda said 'please look forward to The Last Guardian', and Kris and I responded enthusiastically.

Then, as Kris and I awaited our train, we found ourselves reflecting on the passage of time. At that time in 2012 it had been seven years since Ueda's Shadow of the Colossus, and for us young'uns that felt like a lifetime. "Can you imagine working on a game for seven years?" we asked ourselves. "What must that be like?"

The joke here is that Kris would go on to put well over seven years into Below, and for me with JETT it looks like I'm clocking in at around ten years total. Alas!




THE FAR SHORE FOOTAGE + DEV COMMENTARY

Recently Dan and Craig got together to record some dev commentary, to provide a glimpse at scenarios from early in The Far Shore's campaign.

https://youtu.be/cB2WaSUm59o

The first clip shows how a jett traverses a space -- ideally with scramjets toggled on, while surging and scooping vapor -- and then we get a look at what a jett scout gets up to, discovering and inspecting things while zipping around and taking sweet jumps.


https://youtu.be/0lCF_Ai8ovs

This second clip showcases a scenario that closes out The Far Shore's feature-film-length first real act: "I. Deploy". In this scenario, Mei and Isao have survived their first night on the far shore and they proceed to rendezvous with Wu and Vic in the woods of Tsosi Massif, where the appearance of a massive kolos, attended by retinue of hectors, make for a memorable, precarious moment for the scout unit.



NEXT POST: HOW JETT'S DESIGN EVOLVED

So yep, when we laid the foundation for JETT's grand design in ~2014 we had in mind Metroid Prime's Samus Aran zipping around on a jet ski, inside a Shadow of the Colossus inspired world, scanning things and gathering them, and learning to survive encounters with large, interesting Monster Hunter inspired creatures.

However, our feelings on what JETT ought to be continued to evolve as we responded to playtest feedback. As we found our way forward, we found other videogames to refer to, with No Man's Sky and Firewatch coming up fairly often in 2015 and 2016. No Man's Sky's emergence in 2014 and release in 2016 seemed to suggest that JETT find its own lane, and we found ourselves stepping away from a lot of doodads, gathering/crafting and procedurality. Meanwhile, Firewatch's release in 2016 seemed to suggested we take give our story and characters more attention, and so we began to lean in there.

More on these topics in a future post, probably!




OVER AND OUT, FOR NOW
If you read all the way to here then... wow! Hope you enjoyed it, and thanks.

To get in the loop with Superbrothers and all things #sworcery, please like and subscribe and so forth.

Wishlist JETT on Steam and Download Demo - it helps!

• Play the prologue to get warmed up, and ensure your PC rig works.
  
• Note: We recommend playing on a controller, with headphones!

If you're a streamer or press, and if you'd like to play JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time and help us get the word out, please get in touch!

• We have piping hot preview keys near-at-hand, and we're around to chat.
  
• Get in touch at http://mailto:hello@superbrothers.ca and/or http://mailto:pr@popagenda.co.

Hop on the Superbrothers A/V - Enthusiasts newsletter via http://www.jett.fyi


Thanks for your time and attention, cosmic friends!


If you'd like to read up on how sworcery led to JETT and how JETT's interstellar demo came about, you might enjoy the following post.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1761600/JETT_The_Far_Shore__Given_Time/?beta=1