Happy Stories Are For Sharing!

A little over two years ago (time really flies!), we shared the story of a boy who overcame serious social difficulties through playing Ultimate Chicken Horse. This remains one of our most treasured stories about the game. We are of course perpetually thrilled to know that many people out there enjoy this lighthearted creation that is so dear to us, but knowing that we have had a significant positive impact on someone’s life definitely makes us feel pride and joy on a whole other level.

Earlier this week, we received another email that made our hearts grow a few sizes, and we immediately knew we wanted to share that story too. Without further ado, here is the message we received from a lovely person in Germany named Jana:
 

"I just wanted to tell you about how we use your game in the residential home I work at. I created a really easy level with your level editor just to try if our elderly are able to solve it and they loved it! I even had to make a level more difficult for some of them. It is really awesome that I can switch to the building mode so easily and adjust the difficulty if it is too hard or too easy. Even residents with dementia could play the level and they really liked the animal characters."

Jana also shared with us a (German) video report on how this retirement home introduces its residents to games like Ultimate Chicken Horse, as well as VR experiences. How cool is that?!

We’re so thankful for people like Jana who introduce games to under-targeted demographics, like the elderly, to enhance their quality of life. It’s an absolute honour that our own game is being used to that end. As Jana puts it:
 

"There are so little videogames for elderly people, especially for the ones with dementia, and we hope that we can spread more awareness that videogames can be used in such a fashion. And we hope maybe in the future there will be more videogames suitable for the elderly and their special needs."

Aside from sheer pride, a big takeaway for us is that making games more accessible to a variety of players and play styles does not have to be a hard task or detract from “normal” game development! We didn’t have this specific group of people in mind when we added rule customization options and the level editor – we were simply expanding the possibility space within the game because people asked for it and it could be done without changing anything in its core design. This is certainly something that we will keep in mind as we move forward in our creative endeavours.

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If you'd like to know more about Caritas-Altenzentrum St. Maternus, you can find them on Facebook and on Instagram!

Switch Update, New Team Member, Fan Art and more!

Hi friends!

We’re back this month for another update about what’s going on at Clever Endeavour Games. There are a few things to update about, so we’ll talk about the Switch, our new addition to the team (Geneviève!), fan art, and some links from the team.

But first, the Steam Summer Sale is officially on! Now would be a good time to grab that copy for a friend! :)

Switch Update

We’re still working on it! I know that you know that, and probably want more details. Well, we’re in the home stretch now and we’re waiting on a couple of content updates to be finalized before sending the game off to Nintendo for certification again. We think we’re close, and hopefully our next certification round will pass, but of course we never know what could go wrong or what could be dug up.

We do feel, however, that the changes we’ve made to the game regardless of the Switch port are going to be important in providing new fun to players, and expanding the possibilities of what can be done in our game on all platforms. Stay tuned, I promise that we’re working on it and getting things done as quickly as possible.

New Addition to the Team

Around a month and a half ago, our old community manager Kate Gray left to work full-time in narrative design, to pursue her dreams in the field she truly loves. Around a month ago, we hired a new employee full-time who’s going to take care of community management as well as QA, and she’s awesome.

If you’ve been hanging around in our Discord or following us on Twitter, you’ve surely interacted with her. She’s also been helping with making community videos, like this #AskClevEndeav video:

Along with the community management, we mentioned that she was responsible for QA. It’s the first time we’ve ever had someone in-house, and the amount of bugs found and feedback gathered is pretty monumental. Not only do we know most of the things that we have to fix, but we’re getting a better understanding of what the community actually thinks are the greatest strengths and weaknesses of the game.

Fan Art

We’ve received some lovely new fan art that we wanted to feature here. It’s always amazing for us to see people dedicated enough to our game to take the time to create wonderful art, so check it out. This time we have a comic strip made by a dedicated Kickstarter backer and his son:

If you want to submit your own fan art, send it to community@clevendeav.com and we’ll feature it on our website here. You can also share it on our Discord or Tweet at us and let us know if you want it featured!

Links from the Team

As we’ve done the last couple of months, we’ve got some fun links that have been shared by the team:

Kyler would like to share an amazing quadruped animation system:

While Alex has a slightly different animal video...

Fabio shares with us a showcase on how the internet is an ever-growing monster.

Genevieve reports on the fascinating interplay of art style, game audiences, genre literacy, and gameplay accessibility. "How could Gowland ensure the game was fun for the hardcore players that enjoy the genre, while still satisfying the sort of people that might be caught by the art style as they browse a digital store?"

From Ben: Linda Moulton Howe may be the world's foremost expert on animal mutilations attributed to the UFO phenomenon. Here's a good introductory talk on her life's work:

Lastly, Rich suggests that you watch a video that you haven't seen in a while. If you haven't seen it ever, your life has been lacking meaning and needs improving. Also, consider Narwhals and Kenya.

Geneviève's Thoughts from E3

In this second part of our blog post about E3, Geneviève talks about the most interesting things she saw, and recaps the highlights from the show. Our first part of this included Rich's thoughts, which you can read about here.

Geneviève E3 Thoughts

PC Gaming Show

The indies really shone during the presentation by PC Gamer, which is always a hopeful thing to witness. Also, I couldn’t help but notice all of the Community Managers representing their game on stage. Maybe one day…

Here are thoughts on some of the games shown:

Satisfactory, which seems to play somewhat like No Man’s Factorio, wins the prize for best game name.

There seems to be a new genre in indies: taxi driver games. Between Neo Cab’s futuristic dystopian Uber vibes, and Night Call’s Noir fiction atmosphere, the future promises opportunities to nosily explore the lives of passengers while trying to solve a greater mystery. The idea of using fleeting social encounters to paint a bigger picture certainly sounds interesting.

Untitled Publisher appeared and introduced three eye-catching games. Bravery Network looks like a Cartoon Network fighter and… smoocher? Morning Star cleverly taps into everyone’s play-farming desires before lifting the curtain and offering something much, much bleaker. Finally, Overwhelm (which is out now!) looks like a stylish and juicy pixel art shooter metroidvania. That string of words is music to my ears.

The game I am by far the most excited for in the PC lineup is Sable, an absolutely breath-taking exploration game with an underused graphic novel art style. Just upload my soul straight into this game, please and thank you.

On the other hand, my favorite segment was when they showed Two Point Hospital. A completely bonkers game and some brilliantly handled technical difficulties came together to create an adorkable presentation. This is exactly why the PC Gaming Show is my favorite every year since its inception: the vibe is gleefully casual and wholesome, in no small part thanks to Sean “day[9]” Plott who is crazily charming as a presenter and totally an inspiration for me as a public figure in games.

Other highlights: Jurassic World Evolution’s trailer was narrated by Jeff Goldblum (yaass); Stormland looks gorgeous but is a VR game (boo); Klei is being delightful as ever with their upcoming expansion Don’t Starve: Hamlet; the ambitious Noita is a procedurally-generated rogue-like where each individual pixel responds to physical events (!); Ooblets looks ever so jolly but gameplay remains a mystery; and finally Maneater had the best trailer and I won’t say more because you should just watch it.

Others

EA simultaneously announced and released Unravel Two, a magical-looking co-op (or solo) sequel to the game that charmed us with its adorable yarn character on a mission. Their other game that caught my eye was Sea of Solitude, which seems both vibrant and gloomy and has got me under its spell.

Microsoft showed gameplay footage of Ori and the Will of the Wisps, which somehow looks even prettier and more endearing than the first game.

Sony went all out with the queer in their trailer for The Last of Us Part II, and if you hadn’t heard this already, I’m not sure how you managed that. In any case, it was a beautiful trailer for sure, and the contrast between Ellie’s normal romantic teenage life moment and her fighting in a post-pandemic world was striking to say the least. I wonder how (or if) that will translate in the actual game.

Ubisoft’s trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2 was also cinematically pretty awesome, with an exciting reveal of Jade’s presence in the game, which fueled both my excitement at the promise of this prequel and my anticipation about whether it’ll feel anything like the original.

Of course we were also treated to more cinematic footage for Kojima’s unquestionably unique brain-child Death Stranding. It’s starting to make more sense, but also, kind of not? The very first shot of the trailer might encapsulate my feelings at this point most aptly. (Look it up, you won't be disappointed.)

One thing I did not see coming was Captain Spirit, a standalone game in the Life is Strange universe about an imaginative young boy, as well as my strong interest for it. I haven’t engaged with the LiS games at all, but there’s something about the magic of childhood imagination that looks so beautifully captured that I want to experience it.

In the midst of their totally unhinged “fake” conference, Devolver Digital announced My Friend Pedro, a tactical shooter platformer where you embody a character who is just as graceful as he is badass. Ballet, gunfights, and skateboards? I’m in.

Finally, Nintendo’s e-presentation showed the same kind of restraint we’ve come to expect from them in terms of announcements about their franchises. In short, the trailer for Mario Party showed some interesting use of the Switch’s touch screen, other party games like the indies Killer Queen Black and Overcooked 2 (which has online multiplayer!) are also coming to the console, and the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate announcement alone took up over 20 minutes of air time, which was interesting but a little weird.

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That's all for our E3 talk, hope you enjoyed, and look forward to another blog post soon!