Dear fellow Industrians,

If someone had told us - Steve and I - five years ago that we would be one day away from releasing our own game on September 29th 2021, we would have told them to stop dreaming. But here we are – one day away from the release of INDUSTRIA. It's a really cool feeling, I can tell you that! But also totally surreal. The release of INDUSTRIA means the conclusion of a whole period of life for Steve and me.

For five years we did nothing but to work on our game besides the daily work and university, in our free time and during our holidays. Many people don't even know us without "our project". My girlfriend, for example. We've been together for a few years, but she doesn't know me without INDUSTRIA. So what comes next? What comes after INDUSTRIA?

In addition, INDUSTRIA was never just a game for us. We sank endless hours into the development and combined all the things that shaped and influenced us both as gamers and creatives. We fought our way through many ups and downs - I don't know how many times we wanted to give up on development. We had a lot of situations when we no longer believed in INDUSTRIA - but that's what made it a true affair of the heart for the both of us!

And today? I can't tell you how proud Steve and I are of what we have created. We laid the foundation stone and started this whole story. But especially in the last 1.5 years, so many people have joined and supported us. Be it new members in the Bleakmill team, or the great encouragement we received from you players out there after the official announcement. It's been – and it is – mind-blowingly great!

Because all the interest that was shown to us was the best motivation to keep pushing INDUSTRIA to the limit and beyond. And to get the best possible out of our small indie dev team. But despite and all, INDUSTRIA is and remains an indie shooter. We are often compared to Half-Life, Portal or Metro - and this is a great honor, as we are all big fans of these exceptional games! But we can't offer you anything like that. Let me tell you frankly and honestly what INDUSTRIA is:

• INDUSTRIA is about 4 hours long
  
• It is priced at 20 USD
  
• It is a pure single player story experience with mysterious Lynch-esque vibes
  
• INDUSTRIA is our very first game
  
• It was made by 2-6 people in their free time and bedrooms

That’s it. No more, but no less either. INDUSTRIA is a love letter to our favourite games. But it’s not comparable to them, whether in length, price, perfection or size. But its full of love, inspiration and passion. And if that sounds still interesting to you, we'd really be more than happy to welcome you to the streets of Hakavik tomorrow.

In any case, I want to thank you for being a part of this wild journey. Your interest has always spurred us on and your feedback has helped us a lot. So: Thank you very much for that! ❤️

See you all in the streets of Hakavik tomorrow!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/

Greetings fellow Industrians,

We are getting closer! It's only a few days until the release of INDUSTRIA – days among the absolute most exhausting and exciting days of our lifes for sure. Since we can no longer sleep anyway, we are working almost around the clock to bring the big puzzle INDUSTRIA together. And one thing I can tell you for sure: It feels really good to unify all the various elements to one big picture and experience.

That's why we don't have the time for an extensive making-of update this week - I hope you'll forgive us. Instead, I would like to introduce you to the team that has created INDUSTRIA over the years:

Steve Chapman
Steve is co-founder of Bleakmill and the calm and thoughtful thinker of the team. So it's no wonder that he's mainly concerned with development, level design and problem solving. But due to the size of our team, he was also involved in concept and design. We met each other while working with a huge remote team on another game and at some point decided to go our own way instead. So in 2015, work began on "Project 15" aka INDUSTRIA.

David Jungnickel
I am the second founder of Bleakmill and more busy on the creative side of things. Steve is the realist, I am the dreamer – that’s makes up for a good mixture! In such a small team, you inevitably have to work in a generalist way (I love that!), which is why I took care concept, writing, 3D art, game design and level design. In many areas, we shared the work. I also took care of INDUSTRIA's communication on the social channels.
Steve and I are the only ones who have worked on INDUSTRIA "full time" since 2015, in addition to our day jobs and uni.

Lukas Zepf aka “No Bloom Now”
Lukas is my adolescense longtime and super close friend. Since he studies sound and music for film and television one thing quickly led to another and Lukas joined us as the composer in 2016. We always did creative stuff together, be it video productions, music or album covers. He is responsible for the beautiful melancholic tunes that underline the world of INDUSTRIA.

Unfortunately, we don't have a very recent team video, but this way you can see some of our faces!

Clemens Ruh
Clemens joined us in 2020 when Lukas asked around in his uni for Sound Designers to help him out on the audio side of things. When Clemens gladly joined we quickly realized we shared the same approach and taste of video game development. Since then, he has turned the entire sound design of INDUSTRIA upside down and raised it to a completely new level! By the way, Nora's voice actress is his partner.

Ben Davis
Ben, based in the US, joined us in 2018. Back then we were looking for someone who could help us animating the enemy robot characters. I tried my best but at some point, we realized, my poor animation skills were not enough. Ben then joined the team and is one of the most loyal, efficient and clean working individuals I have met so far.

Sebastian Ignacio Roman
Sebastian only focused on modeling our three human characters we have in the game. With Source modding background, he fit our style perfectly, making me often think of the good old Gmod Days and messing around with the ragdolls of Dr. Breen in gm_construct.

Gabriel Kirchner
Gabriel is the latest member who joined us, just this year. He knew Sebastian and that’s how we met one day in our Discord Server. Gabriel does first-person animations only and good god, they look good. His animations are super smooth, characterful and in my humble opinion, he could start to work for a AAA studio right away!

Laure-Athénaëlle Deméocq
Laure sadly only worked for us for a few months, but in that time she build an extensive amount of props and environment pieces, which have become an important part of INDUSTRIA's dna since then. We are so incredibly thankful that she worked with us!

That's it for now, friends. We are counting the days till Thursday - I can tell you that!

See you all in the streets of Hakavik very soon!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/

Greetings fellow Industrians,

Once upon a time, many many years ago, INDUSTRIA was a completely different game. Not a mysterious First-Person Shooter. At that time we were influenced a lot by oldschool horror games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil. We wanted to create something as creepy and eerie as those on our own and decided to work with fixed cameras as well. Well, there is not much left from our old plans to be honest. Except for one single room, the very first piece of level for years: it is the receiver room in which Nora wakes up in Hakavik.

We switched from fixed cameras to the first-person view. Back at that time the game looked a lot like a 1920s Chicago - especially in terms of architecture. Not much of that remains in today's Hakavik. The architecture has changed again and again over the course of almost six years of development - mostly due to the fact that we have tried out new ways to build a modular building structure in a performant way, we went to a more early European 1900s style of architecture. Which, of course, also had to look good!


The old US-American style of buildings as we had them a few weeks after starting development.

Of course, this also meant that we had to rebuild the levels each and every time - which ment a change of influences and architecture each time as well. And so Hakavik became a northern European city. (At that time we also changed all names, signs, etc. into Swedish). That was about three years ago. This brought us a good variety in shapes, but our texture work always looked pretty dated and flat. Another problem was performance, one building could mean up to 100 draw calls (one model in a game = two calls for the engine to get that model to render in the final game. The more draw calls, the worse the performance). With a big city like Hakavik, you can imagine that this got out of hand really quick.


This is a screenshot from June 2018, featuring our, yet characteristic, but bland second building system.

And so, more than a year and a half ago, we decided to throw the whole system out of the window and to rebuild it from scratch. The focus was on a) much better performance and b) much prettier, more substantial and detailed buildings. And with that, the exterior of the buildings, and thus Hakavik, changed again. I was on holiday in Prague at the time. And anyone who has been there knows that it is a beautiful city with loads of old buildings, showing off their century old patina and plaster surfaces. I took endless photos, and so the architecture and colourfulness flowed into the overall picture of Hakavik.




Two of many photos I took in Prague on my holiday. I just could not stop taking them, i was way too amazed by the look around me.

But here the transformation is not over yet! Since INDUSTRIA started in East Berlin in 1989 and there is a connection between that time and Hakavik, many Berlin influences have also been added since then. If you live in Berlin like I do, you might recognize some of the buildings that also characterize the face of Hakavik. Building entrances, hallways, rooftops and shopfronts directly modeled after apartment buildings just down my street (including the pavement model we use all over the city, which I walk on every day when going to the grocery store).


The actual Berlin pavements from down my street.

Okay, so whats in the bag then after all these years? The first US-American approaches, followed by the Northern European over buildings inspired by Prague architecture and ending at direct Berlin neoclassicism. In addition, influences have made it into the game that have no "real" reference. Steve and I are both huge Half-Life 2 fans, so it's no coincidence that many of you out there feel Half-Life vibes in INDUSTRIA. We often just sat down, doing level design together in a shared screen call and went all into creating interesting back alleys and streets like we used to do in the Source Engine for Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike mods. That results in areas that have an architectural influence that people immediately pick up as Source-ish, though that probably often has to do with light and color as well.

Over the years though, Hakavik has developed its very own townscape and atmosphere. Of course, we would have saved ourselves many hours of work if we hadn't rebuilt the levels over and over again. But then we wouldn't have this unique and pretty city in front of us today. You learn from mistakes, and after all, this is what INDUSTRIA is for us: a giant learning experience as a first step into this industry.

See you all in the streets of Hakavik soon!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/

Dear fellow Industrians,

after almost six long years of Steve and I working on INDUSTRIA, we have reached another important milestone: We finally have a release date! We already announced some time ago that INDUSTRIA would release in Q3 2021. We are completely exhausting the third quarter and releasing INDUSTRIA on the very last possible day:


To celebrate the release date announcement, there is also a brand new trailer that focuses besides the gunplay on the mystey aspects of INDUSTRIA as well. I hope you like it!


The next two weeks are going to be one hell of an exciting and surreal time - a mixture of anxiety and anticipation! We can't wait to finally press the release button and open the gates of Hakavik for all of you. But of course we are also super nervous and hope that you will enjoy INDUSTRIA. That we can meet your expectations.

Thank you for accompanying us on our adventure INDUSTRIA for so long! Let's manage the last two weeks together. ❤️

All the best and stay healthy!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/

Greetings fellow Industrians,

because of gamescom, there was no new update on the development of INDUSTRIA last week. To compensate, this week we have kinda "double" update that was created together with our producer Tim. It's about how the contact with our publishjer Headup came about and how the whole project has developed through the collaboration. And here we go!

Tim/Producer: If I remember right the first contact with INDUSTRIA for Headup was in September 2018 at EGX in Berlin. At that time we presented Trüberbrook and Textorcist there and David approached our PR manager there. Everything took its typical course, email addresses were exchanged and relatively little happened over the following months. We were sent a build that was light years away from how you all know INDUSTRIA today. It was really difficult to assess what the project could - or would - become. Therefore, it was put aside for the time being.

David/Dev: So when I attended EGX here in Berlin, I did not really plan to show INDUSTRIA to anyone. It was my first real game convention I attended (yes, I've never been to gamescom). I met a few guys from Backwoods who had just released Unforseen Incidents, as well as Steffan Hövelbrinks who had shown a little bit of Death Trash. And there was the Headup booth and Gregor. And suddenly I thought, why actually not show him INDUSTRIA!


Tim/Producer: I was undecided at the time. Of course, INDUSTRIA - developed in an early version by only two guys - had many rough edges. But it also had a charm all of its own, and a lot that flipped a few switches in my head right away. The many mysterious and Lynch-esque aspects immediately drew me in, as did the story and the idea based on the Library of Babel. Even though Headup didn't officially talk to David and Steve about INDUSTRIA at the time, I did in my spare time.

David/Dev: I still remember all the talks and calls I had with Tim about INDUSTRIA. Every time we had something new I sent some screenshots over. Tim was very much into the concept and story. He understood what we wanted to achieve and patiently waited for the game to become better and better.

Tim/Producer: Little by little with exactly those endless chats and calls, I got to know the whole idea of and behind INDUSTRIA and the whole universe as well. I helped them on the creation of the Steam page and Twitter channel, and everything worked well. And it was during this time that I really came to LOVE the project. That's why I stayed on the ball, and tried to open the internal door for INDUSTRIA once again. Which eventually worked out in March 2020, when INDUSTRIA was added to the portfolio.

David/Dev: Yeah, then March 2020 happened. We now officially had a publisher. A big push for us, as we nearly dropped the project 6 months earlier. With Headup's involvement and branding on the product we surely knew that we had to get things going now. We went full steam ahead (pun not intended) to make INDUSTRIA even better. Especially the visual side of things changed dramatically on that time.



Tim/Producer: Also with me producing the game thenceforward, it was still what it had been before: an ambitious idea and project by just two developers, with support from their friends. But that changed radically in May 2020 when we announced Bleakmill and Headup's collaboration on INDUSTRIA. The feedback from players and press was amazing! Of course I had hoped for positive feedback on the announcement, but I didn't expect THIS. Seems that we had hit a nerve with INDUSTRIA.

David/Dev: The announcement. I took a week to produce the best trailer I could possibly do, we took a few new screenshots and pushed the thing out there. The response was a little overwhelming for us. We saw that Tim and the rest of the Headup team were pretty suprised as well. Our Twitter channel got a lot of visibility (thanks DuskDev!), we had a publisher and numerous press outlets were writing about our announcement. We would not be happier!

Tim/Producer: As gratifying as it is when a project is so well received, it is also a bit frightening. Especially for a project like INDUSTRIA. Because public perception brings with it expectation. And INDUSTRIA was associated very early on with monsters like Half-Life 2 or Portal. So for all of you out there: Nope, INDUSTRIA will not be a Half-Life game. INDUSTRIA is something of its own. Yeah, there is first-person gunplay, but that is not the main focus. It is a narrative mystery first-person shooter, that has a story to tell.

David/Dev: The Half-Life 3 comparison is a cursed one. The game was made by 2 people, now being supported by a handful more people and this is everyones first project. HL3 is literally one of the most aticipated games ever. Valve is a gigantic studio with loads of professionals working fulltime on games. No chance we could ever reach this quality level. But we would lie if we did not try our best to get close to it. Nowadays I'd call INDUSTRIA a homage, a love letter to Half-Life 2 and Portal. Nothing more, nothing less.



Tim/Producer: But despite all this, it was clear that something more had to come out of INDUSTRIA. Mission accepted! And - perfect timing - shortly afterwards the guys got a MegaGrant from Epic. We became the opportunity to significantly improve the quality in many places. And so, over time, INDUSTRIA unfolded more and more of the potential that I had already seen slumbering under the then still somewhat ugly duckling.

David/Dev: Epic's MegaGrant pushed INDUSTRIA into other dimensions! Suddenly we were able to pay a few freelancers upfront, a position that was completely new to us. We could not be thankful enough for what Epic's Grant enabled us to do.

Tim/Producer: So, what about today? Is the duckling a swan now? Well, that's for you guys out there to decide. I can only tell you what INDUSTRIA is for me: A project I really enjoyed working on - and still enjoy working on. And yes, I also spend my free time with it. But hey, that doesn't matter, I work on it with friends. And I'm really excited to see how you all like our little baby when it finally sees the light of day.

David/Dev: Same here. This journey has been a long one and we are so damn excited to send INDUSTRIA out there, to each and everyone of you. Its certainly the best game we could have done! Greetings from the whole team and talk to you next week!

All the best and stay healthy!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/

Hey fellow Industrians!

Our most important news for this Saturday: We are going to stream INDUSTRIA as part of gamescom today!

We are going to show you some gameplay of a completely fresh build that includes tons of new stuff like the new voice actress for our protagonist Nora and the completely reworked UI for the very first time. Don't miss it!

When: August 28th, 9:45pm CEST / 12:45pm PST
Where: Here on the INDUSTRIA Steam page

See you all in the stream in a few minutes time!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/

Fellow Industrians,

Right in time for gamescom our publisher Headup hosts their second online game showcase event today and tomorrow: The AHEAD gamescom Edition live stream! They are going to give updates to upcoming and released games, play live, discuss the games with the developers and tons of more cool stuff!

I, David, will join them in the stream, discuss Industria and I am going to comment some brandnew gameplay out of Hakavik. I will also be part of a RTX talk right after our Industria showcase.

But you should definitely take a look at the other games in the live streams: Tinkertown, Crowns and Pawns, White Shadows, Firegirl, Source of Madness, Escape from Naraka, Gigapocalypse and The Fabled Woods.

When: August 26th and August 27th, 6pm to 10:30pm CEST / 9am to 1:30pm PST
Where: Twitch and YouTube

See you all in the stream!

Until then!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/

Fellow Industrians,

today I want to tell you a little bit about how INDUSTRIA started all these years ago, and especially how the team found itself. This is going to be a loooong reach into the past, so fasten your seatbelts and follow me into the year 2014.

Everything started when me, David, and my friend, colleague and business partner Steve met in an independent game development team working on a third person shooter called “Dark Dorm: Ascension”. The team was huge, sometimes up to 30 people. But it appeared that Steve was taking care of a huge level as a level designer and I was assigned as a prop maker working exactly for this level. That's how we started to work together.

We’ve never seen each other in real life at this point, but we quickly realized we shared the same love for Half-Life 2, Bioshock, atmosphere and very unique designs. As the project began to struggle, Steve left the team after contributing to it for 2 years. I left the team as well shortly after, being not satisfied with the creative vision and work environment.

This was the perfect moment to start something together. 2015 came around and the first experiments were done in the new Unreal Engine 4.The project was called Project 15, often referred to as just “P15” and the first maps and mechanics were created. We had some crazy design documents, yes, but we changed everything all the time (because we essentially did not know what we were doing), resulting in various types of levels, genres and mechanics. We did not know exactly what we were creating, but we always had the same base ideas and mood in mind: a game about danger, story, loneliness and despair with strong influences from Resident Evil, Half-Life 2 and Amnesia. Here are some of the first level concepts I drew back then:



“Project 15, Rough test scene” - This is the concept I've ever created for INDUSTRIA, back in May 2015. It's crazy to look back at this, as while it's a different art style, it still transports the feeling the released game will strive for.



“World 2 Trainstation” - from May 2015 as well. Alone the name that refers to multiple worlds is very moving for me to read again.

With weeks and months of activity but also downtime due to my final school exams, slowly but steadily something like a game emerged from the depths of the Unreal Engine. When my long time school friend Lukas Zepf aka No Bloom Now joined the party, we even got the first music and sound ideas combined with the first test maps and props:



Some suitcases and the UE4 mannequin. This is literally the first ever screenshot, ever, taken from anything created for INDUSTRIA. The JPG is dated to the 17th of january 2017, evening time.



This is one of the first tests of creating a modular set to build the city the game should take place in.

I also have something to listen to from that time. Here is one of the first soundscapes Lukas created back then. It still holds up so well in communicating what INDUSTRIA is to its core, even today:

https://lukaszepf.bandcamp.com/releases

When I look back at this, I understand why Industria took so long, and to be very honest, I still wonder how it all came together to an understandable product that will soon be released. So many loose ends. We really only had a rough mood as a reference, everything else just developed itself over time.

Then came december 2016 and I went down to Wales where Steve lived back then. We saw each other for the first time in real life at the airport, drove to his place, made some tea and created the first actual cohesive level plans and deeper game concepts. It felt great to work together, in one room, face to face, and discuss our exciting vision.

Back in Berlin and being stuck in an apprenticeship, my girlfriend pushed me to focus on the project and actually start to work on it fulltime as much as it was financially possible (being a student back then brought me quite a few advantages obviously). This was mid january 2017. Since then, this project, soon to be called INDUSTRIA, is an integral part of our lives. We never had any other bigger project next to it, nor did we ever stop to work on it. All freetime, weekends and holidays were filled with INDUSTRIA from now on. We identify with INDUSTRIA and we reached a quality level and direction of it, we never dared to dream of.



This is actually a snapshot of the Steam Greenlight page.



And this is our first public Alpha hosted on Itch.io. The first moment of publishing INDUSTRIA to a wider audience.

The second Alpha followed, accompanied with a moment where we nearly dropped the project out of being completely overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. But we went on and got our publishing Deal with Headup Games came around. The first Steam Next Fest, the second Steam Next Fest. And now we are here, closer to release than we ever were.

The only question that remains is: what will happen after INDUSTRIA? How will our private lives change? How much do we identify with working on this game? Every friend and family member in the last years always got the same answer to the question of what we are doing. “You know, I am working on this game. Not sure when it's out”. This will be over soon. It's scary, but damn is it exciting to see what's next.

Next week we will talk about the collaboration with Headup and how that, yet again, changed the project and its scope. See you then!

Fellow Industrians,

When I look at versions and builds of INDUSTRIA from late 2019 and early 2020, I see a different game. The idea and feeling was the same. But if you compare it quality wise with the current version, it's like night and day. What has happened since then? How did the game change? And most importantly, how did the public awareness suddenly change the game in itself?

Before the announcement by our publisher Headup in early 2020, we pretty much only had people in our, back then, tiny Discord server and on our Instagram account. The project has existed since 2015, sure, but we never had any press coverage or trailer out. There was not even a Steam Page. The only big thing we did before the announcement were some kind of closed Alphas of the game we hosted in itch.io.



Our Discord members got exclusive access to the early builds and we gathered feedback early. Our skill sets back then were very limited though. There was no sound designer, no extra 3d modeling help and the two of us were still learning a lot of fundamental things about modeling, level design and development.

When I look back at these old versions, I keep thinking "how the hell did we just keep going?". The project was always way too big for us, especially with the limited experience we had. It was the classic beginner error: choosing a way too big project for the first gig. But we did it, and pulled through the down times of frustration, realization of these facts, combined with almost canceling the game.

And then came early 2020. We finally managed to get signed by Headup. We did a lot of new content, I cut a trailer, we created a Steam Page and boom, may 28 2020 came about. Here is the announcement trailer we published back then:


For us, the announcement was the biggest thing yet. Thousands of views on the trailer, numerous news outlets writing about our little dream project. It was some wild days. People on Twitter compared us with Half-Life 2 and Bioshock, numerous AAA devs reached out to say how much they appreciate the project. It was beautiful.

All this obviously gave us a lot of motivation to push even further. The successful announcement, the Steam Wishlists and all the comments, all these things pushed us to bring the quality yet to another level. We reworked AI systems, all weapons, animations, levels, sound and so much more.

We continued to post on Social Media, especially on Twitter under the #ScreenshotSaturday hashtag. We got joined by our Sound Designer Clemens Ruh and by our First-Person Animator Gabriel aka AnimatorFox. The German gaming news magazine and YouTube channel GameStar interviewed us a number of times. We got to cooperate with Nvidia to implement Ray-Tracing.



This project really experienced a bump since the announcement both in terms of public awareness, but also gradually got better in every single aspect. In game development, and especially in our first project INDUSTRIA, it is always interesting to think, "How would the game be if this or that did not happen?".

Would the game be already out without the announcement? If so, undoubtedly in a very different state. Much smaller, much more buggy and much less complex and good looking. Not to speak about the wonderful human beings that joined us we would not have met or all the additional people that joined our little community on Discord, Socials and Steam that grew since then.

We are incredibly thankful for the journey we had so far, and we can't wait to see how far this will go. Next week we are going to look into how INDUSTRIA came to be 5 years ago. A true look into the past. See you then!

All the best and stay healthy!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/

Fellow Industrians,

the release of Industria is getting closer and closer. We would like to take advantage of the coming weeks and let you know more about the backstory of INDUSTRIA. And now that I think about it, the backstory is already pretty darn long at almost five years. First I want to tell you how the works of David Lynch, Jorge Luis Borges and my hometown Berlin merged into one.

The Library of Borges

Back in 2018 I found the website https://libraryofbabel.info/, a very interesting page that lets you search a finite but vast virtual library of volumes over volumes of combinations of the 24 letters of the latin alphabet. It's all based on the novel by Jorge Luis Borges, written in 1941. The concept is simple: combine all 24 letters with each other in all possible combinations and get everything that was ever written or said, will ever happen or will be said, including this very text here I am writing. In theory, somewhere in the library is a book that contains the story of my life, exactly how it will happen. What if I find it, and read it?



This concept that actually works on the website (based on a super clever algorithm) fascinated me. I instantly bought Borges' book and read it multiple times.

Borges did not invent the concept, but built up on it, with a very human view on the library: the view by its inhabitants. How they eat and sleep, endlessly wandering through the gigantic library consisting of hexagons, book shelves and volumes of books. Most of them hold gibberish like „sulaushf sihda alis dli“. You can be happy to even just find one word that makes sense. The concept is huge and perfectly fits INDUSTRIA. I don't want to spoil how exactly we used the concept of the total library, you have to figure this out yourself.

Whooshing wind and sparkling electricity

Another big inspiration for me and us are the works of film maker, painter and musician David Lynch. A few years ago my brother out of the blue asked me if we wanted to watch this old series together. I heard the name of it before but had no clue about it, nor who made it or what impact it had on television and the medium of film altogether: Twin Peaks.

Two strange words that struck something I wasn't able to define. Oh boy, how much I wish I could go back to this day where I heard the iconic title melody for the first time, accompanied by strange footage of a waterfall and a saw mill. Slowly, one episode after the other, I began to understand the vibe, the atmosphere Lynch and Frost created with Twin Peaks. More and more the crime series developed into a surreal and abstract order of scenes and character introductions. More and more questions came up. More and more fire awoke in me, until Lynch's style of mystery and surrealism was deeply engraved in my brain. I was truly in love with it, something that happens rarely for me.



We were already working on INDUSTRIA back then, so it was inevitable that Lynch's DNA had to be somehow introduced into our passion project. If you saw our announcement trailer, you may have seen a black and white theatre scene with a woman flying upwards. A little hint, with a bit more to explore in the released game.

Berlin Backyards and familiarity

Last but not least, my hometown Berlin. I guess a lot of people can relate when I say that the place where you've grown up, has a special spot in your heart. I love the old apartment buildings, the backyards, the slow summer breeze when walking through busy streets, dry air contrasted with cold air when entering an ancient apartment stairwell. The subtle noises of your neighbours when standing next to an opened window, looking into the shady backyard.



All the history that happened left a mark. Imagining all the people that slept in your living room, back when there was no electricity or water in those buildings built for the workers. I still have only scratched the surface of Berlin, while spending all 24 years of my life there. When playing Half-Life 2 and Dishonored, two of mine and the teams all favourites, you can experience these very European and authentic urban environments. It's a fest of familiarity, combined with Alien structures.

This all just naturally came together, and suddenly there was this mix up of very different things, forming into something new: our mystery shooter INDUSTRIA.

Next week we will have a look at our initial announcement back in early 2020, and how the public awareness it created changed the project and its scope. See you there!

All the best and stay healthy!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/