High Strangeness (2008-2015)
“High Strangeness is a rad indie game that jumps between 8-bit and 16-bit worlds.”
High Strangeness is a game that started as a passion project being created by one person — My first game. It also holds the honor of being the first-ever crowdfunded game on Kickstarter, in 2009 — once a novel concept, now commonplace in the gaming industry. High Strangeness raised a mere $1,500 to aid in the development of the game, paving the way for the millions of dollars that would be commonplace in the crowdsourced projects I would later become involved in.
I designed High Strangeness to be an homage to gaming of the ‘80s and ‘90s, beginning by assuming the role of director, artist, audio engineer, programmer, writer, and designer. I illustrated and animated the game’s pixel art by hand, designed sound effects, coded basic functionality, and designed the game’s core mechanics. I spent years alone in my Portland home, dodging rain storms outside, soaking in the glow of my computer monitor for years, learning to code in Flash and GameMaker, writing a hundred or so pages worth of an intentionally cheesy script, as well hand-illustrating level maps and key concept art for the game, and developing the core concept of allowing the player to shift between parallel 8-bit and 16-bit worlds. In time, additional team members would sign onto the project, assuming each individual role in my place, allowing me to work on the game as the lead designer, director, as well as audio duties that included sound design and mixing the entire game.
“Strangeness is meant to evoke the feeling of an old school RPG, using elements of both 8-bit and 16-bit adventures, meshing it into what the developer calls ‘the 12-bit realm,’ [...] it definitely has an EarthBound-like feel to it, with snappy jokes, real-life oriented weapons like a flashlight and firecrackers, and an otherworldly plot. The writing has the charm of a typical Pokémon game.”
Almost a decade later, the team consisting of two musicians, two artists, two programmers, and an illustrator, from across the globe who went on to complete High Strangeness after adapting a more conventional workflow than just working on it whenever we felt like it. We started using more professional game development engines like XNA and then Unity, and tracking our progress with Agile workflow applications like Trello. Proprietary and third party tools were used for our tile-based maps and worlds, all filled with pixel art created in Photoshop and other sprite editors for manually-illustrated animation. Original music was composed and scored by Disasterpeace (Fez, It Follows, Bodies Bodies Bodies) and Cheap Dinosaurs using authentic chip sounds from the 8-bit and 16-bit era.
It took some time, but we ended up avoiding the pitfalls that so many other indie game developers fell into, meeting their vaporware demise.
Aside from the creative elements contributed to the project, I took on many other responsibilities like creating marketing materials, performing quality assurance, taking part in press junkets with media outlets (IGN, Destructoid). To additionally promote the game, we attended gaming conventions like MAGFest and PAX (as part of the Indie Megabooth), to connect with other fans that might enjoy the retro-romp we had created. Soon after, we were approached by Midnight City, a new indie game publisher, under the umbrella Majesco Entertainment, pushing us one step closer towards finalizing the game after an emotionally draining development process.
Almost as hard as creating the game itself, so was the process of certification for when the game was to be released via Nintendo and Steam. Months of working with both companies in order to meet the strict technical and stylistic guidelines put forth by their respective target platforms meant hard work resulted in being one of the first indie games to be “Greenlit” on Steam, and being published by Majesco Entertainment for Nintendo’s WiiU console, featured as part of Nintendo’s inaugural third-party supported indie developers, also known as Nindies. Both were honored before the systems became more commonplace to hobby developers and those without certified publishers. High Strangeness would go on to be featured by Nintendo on the front page of their digital storefront, alongside blockbuster titles like Mario, Metroid, and Legend of Zelda (the latter of which is my favorite game series).
Co-Director, Programming: Ben Shostak
Programming: Krist Truitt
Art, Illustration: Sam Bennett