As you probably know, the development of games is one of my greatest passions. In this fascinating discipline most of my creative interests unite. Writing, graphics, game design, programming and many more.
I love the intoxicating and inspiring feeling, to be on track of a great idea. To shape it and to see it grow every step of the way, to create something special.

I was fourteen years old, when I started from scratch to teach myself everything I needed to know about game development.

The console- and computer games of the 80ies and 90ies were a big source of inspiration and the archetype of the kind of games that I always loved and wanted to focus on.

The ideals behind these games, such as creativity, passion, attention to detail when it comes to gameplay and the resulting pure fun when playing, where what made videogames big as a medium, in my opinion. However I felt a change as time passed. Fewer new games remained true to these promises.
I began to develop games for the Atari Jaguar video game system, which had the reputation of being a special challenge to develop for.
Slowly I went from one idea to the next, from one project to the next and with each one, I learned something new and began to outgrow myself. Things that seemed impossible suddenly were more in reach than ever.
It was my biggest interest and I put every minute of my spare time into it, because I dreamt not only to develop something that people would enjoy or find exciting, but I also had the vague hope of making my hobby into a profession one day. I had no idea how though.

A lot of time has passed since. More than twelve years in fact.
In the meantime I studied game design, completed it and worked half a year in the industry as game designer, concept author and “whatever-else-needed-to-be-done”. Of course without pay, how else these days?
Nevertheless I did my best and created promising concepts. One was immediately financed by a big german publisher. In the very moment I gave the concept out of my hands, somebody else quickly wrote his name onto it. I kept working hard, hoping to get a foot on the ground at this company. To actually get a paid job. However I had to realize that it was nothing but false promises, exploitation and that I threw away my talent and everything I worked for all those years. I decided to go my own way.

I had the chance to chase a few dreams. I poured my heart and soul into them and could see them grow. Some dreams came true, for a while.
However I lost track of what really was important to me.
I worked too hard to make my hobby into a profession. I am not a material person and money means little to me, but of course one has to make a living somehow.
I lost track of what my dream really was about.
About self-realization, creativity, inspiration, attention to detail in gameplay, the joy of development and finally fun games. It was about creating something that really convinced me and was exactly how I envisioned it.
However that was not everything. I don’t live to work. I live for life and for the people that are in my heart.
Stephen King writes in his book On Writing: “Life is not a support system for art. It is the other way around.”
The man is right.
I still develop games and I do it out of passion, just the way it is meant to be.

Since the beginning of this year I took a new direction in my profession. I now develop web applications for a living.
It’s fun enough, offers some security and equitably payment, along with decent working hours. All that what I never found in the game industry here in Germany.

I went back to the roots of my passion for game development and I’m richer in experience. I’m still pursuing my creative interests, even if they are more limited by time now.
At least I finally got a big step closer to my Indie-way as I understand it and I’m happy to walk this path.

I’m a writer, game designer and indie game developer out of passion. I create games the way they are meant to be.

On a sidenote, in the near future I’ll re-release my demos and games as donation ware on my website (www.larshannig.com). They will be available as free downloads. It’s your decision if you want to support me and my projects. Of course I would really appreciate it, if you did.

Best regards, Starcat

The 24th of December has come. You’ll not only see the first work in progress screenshot (media section) and updated site content, but also a new announcement.

A message to the visitors of this site…
Eerievale lives and grows under the creative freedom of the team.
We worked very, very hard on it in our spare time and we sacrificed more than we should ever have done.
I invested half a year of full-time work into the project myself. Half a year, Gavia also invested more into the project than anybody could ever have expected or rewarded.
Up to a certain point we enjoyed it, but looking back, we realize, something has to change in the very foundation of how we handle the project, to eventually finish it one day.
Most importantly we will no longer put ourselves under any pressure or deadlines and only work on the project, when we can really afford it.
In the coming year, I’ll go a new route when it comes to my work, which will hopefully bring more security and I’ll only be able to work on the project in my spare time.
I’m certain, all of you, who really appreciate Eerievale and our hard work on it, will fully understand this decision.

Enjoy the screenshot, the updated parts of the site and have a Merry Christmas!

On Euro JagFest we did not only show first impressions of the project as promised.
There were also several important announcements that we of course want to share with you as well.

* We’re designing the game as we’re prototyping our ideas. This means we’re not putting months of work into a design document that may never make it into a game, but we’re developing a game following the design document which is being developed simultaneously.

* We’re developing the game based on an episodic approach.
This does not necessarily mean the game will be released in episodes, we can’t comment on that at this point, as a potential publisher would have to decide about it. However for now we’re working on one episode at a time to make the development more effective.

* We’re looking for new creative talent!
Creating Eerievale as we envision it, is a massive task for a small team. At the moment each member covers a range of skills, which makes the project possible in the first place.
To allow us to focus more on game design & writing in the future, we need dedicated artists who are skilled and enthusiastic about the project.
We’re aiming for a digitally painted graphic novel-like look, if you’re also skilled with pixel art, even better.
If you have a similar style, like creative challenges, and always wanted to be part of an exciting project, don’t hesitate to contact us.

* After the first impressions of the game were shown on the event we got very useful feedback and decided to implement some of it before we show screenshots. In addition, as you know, most of this site content is unchanged since its launch about half a year ago.
We think it’s about time we updated the content a bit, to reflect the projects progress.
To do this we ask you to be patient for a little longer.
Mark your calendars: Right in time for Christmas, on 24th of December we’ll unveil the new updated content. Next to new details on the novel and game, we’ll be showing you exclusive screenshots of Eerievale for the first time!

To finish this blog entry, I’d like to present some user feedback on our presentation.

Visitors Feedback
sh3-rg (of Reboot):
“The other demonstration was rather an interesting one. Lars Starcat gave us some insight into his whole Eerievale project. It has obviously gone under a few revisions and the current project, encompassing his written work, takes a different approach to things. In contrast to what we’d seen before, we were presented with a new game with a character controllable via a cursor. The graphics were a kind of WIP version being used during development. The character could be moved around on screen using the cursor with the selected action. This was all running on the PC – to me this seems a very sensible approach to the game design. The PC offers all the flexibility & resources one could want when going through the creative processes. Getting things up & running here, refining and tweaking, allowing the game to evolve in this environment can only be seen as a sound approach. From here, porting to the Dreamcast should be a rather trivial affair. Then the real hard work of porting to the Jaguar can begin . It’s clearly a well thought out approach, Lars should be applauded for all his work so far & use of all his experience in setting out a plan of attack that gives him and his team every opportunity of success. If they were to blindly plough all their resources straight into the Jaguar at this point they would be hitting technical stumbling blocks left, right & centre all the time – this isn’t a great way to allow your creativity to flourish. Working something back to Jaguar from a completed or feature-locked PC/DC game will be much less stressful and will result in a better finished product. It should also hopefully allow for some much-needed funds to come through from the much easier/cheaper to produce PC & DC & allow for some investment in the costlier to produce Jaguar version. We also learned that the game would be episodic – not to say that it will be reach us over multiple releases, more to say that there will be definite chapters in the stories. There’s so much promise here, Lars really understands the world he’s created and having the game & books as companions should allow for some interesting experiences. It’s a labour of love and we all wish him and his team all the best! I have to take the time to go back over the presentation soon, I’m sure I don’t have the whole theory 100% correct in my mind, but for now this will have to do. ”

Peter Ghiea:
“Lars had his presentation and showed us his first demo of the renewed Eerievale project.
This one departed pretty much from everything we have seen before, although Lars said that it would still be a bit darker in tone than what was shown on Jagfest. The first person perspective and the rendered graphics from the demos before that are gone. The demo was limited on one room, but what we got to see is something that resembles the Lucasfilm adventures as you have 3rd person perspective on your character and can guide him around, while choosing different icons for Interaction with the environment. It was a pretty early demo, so from a gameplay aspect too early to really say something about it but it has an interesting concept with crossing storylines between game and Lars’ novel, so let’s see where this is heading. [...] There’s one more title to look forward to.”

Regards, Starcat

On 27th November we presented our new Eerievale project for the first time to the public on Euro JagFest, the annual Atari & retro game event.
We actually had to put a lot of last minute work into our prototype, to get something ready for the show.

The demo was put together in roughly a day, including the graphics, the writing and the scripting of the interactive possibilities. Personally I was very pleased to see what we could create in such a short time.
Gavia gave our new pen display a try for the first time, she also had no previous experience with graphic tools, but after I gave her a short introduction, she managed to create the whole background artwork of two locations in about a day. Which I thought was quite impressive.
I did a quick coloring job the next morning, before driving to the event. The graphics didn’t have shading yet and we’re not yet happy with the coloring either. Funny enough we got a lot of comments on that.
I thought it was more important for a first impression of the prototype, to actually feature some interaction and relation to the story and gameplay, to give a better idea of what the game is about.

In the demo we presented on the event, the player could interact with almost every object on screen in a way. Several items could be taken and there also was a small puzzle.
The engine itself is quite developed already and far superior to everything the old one-man Eerievale project ever was. Only few things are still missing to actually create a game with it. Dialogues for example aren’t implemented yet.

Later that day, we held a little presentation to explain what the project is all about, in case people were not familiar with it yet.
We also took the chance to announce news, talk about the status of the project, our goals, show a bit of concept art and finally show the demo.
Next to Eeriebale we also presented a demo of the Atariowl Project, the one-of-a-kind 3D action adventure for the Atari Jaguar, that I’m a part of as a 3d artist.
Both projects were well received and I actually met a few fans of the Eerievale project who were supporters from the very beginning. It’s great to see you folks are still around and appreciate what we are working on!

The presentation
About the Project
Eerievale is a traditional 2d point & click graphic adventure for multiple platforms including Dreamcast, Jaguar, PC and Mac.
The project was restarted in mid 2010 with an enthusiastic team and is based upon an entirely new game concept compared to the former one-man project.
Gothic fantasy novel and game interact in a unique way.
Our goal is to create Eerievale as a professional quality Indie game, like we always envisioned it to be.

Exploring the Setting
The game is created around the gothic fantasy setting, combining elements of gothic horror and fantasy. It’s a fictional setting resembling late Victorian times and the game is set around 1905 in the town of Eerievale.
Main character of the game will be Laurence Hope-Kyne.
A young man and aspiring writer, who is troubled by nightmares and writer’s block. While researching for a book, he uncovered a great mystery that involves suppressed memories of his own past.

Insight into the development
Game and Novel are independent of each other, but they are both part of a bigger storyline. The novel is NOT just a gimmick to the game, or the other way around.
There are side appearances of the game’s protagonist in the novel.
The game is set in Eerievale, just like the novel, but in a different timeframe, to allow changes over time between novel and game.
This way the game allows an alternative point of view on the events of the novel and a deeper insight in previously untold story branches.
The player can revisit locations, interact with characters, experience new story branches and ultimately be a part of the story.

Project status
Volume One of the novel is set before the game and approaching second draft stage.
Volume Two of the novel is set after the game and is currently in rough draft stage and about one third of it is written.
We’re developing the game on a prototyping approach. That way we don’t spend months on a design document that may never make it into a game, but we design the game and develop the prototype further with the design. So we always have a playable version in our hands that we can work on.

Support
In order to create the Eerievale game we need your help.
How you can help:
- Tell your friends about it!
- We’re looking for artists to help us create the right visual style for the project.
- If you would like to see Eerievale finished please consider supporting us with a donation and express your interest to your favorite publisher.

More news will follow soon.

Regards, Starcat