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Father's Island combines elements of open world exploring, adventure and ingame visual / audio / FMV storytelling into a unique game experience with more action and interaction than usual "walking simulators", but in a calm pace that builds up a stage of psychological horrors with it's storytelling elements.

Version 2.0 introduces DirectX 11, PBR, new videos and new storylines.

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Hello everyone!

Let`s start off with some basic news.

While my 10th novel will launch on Tuesday (sorry folks, still German only), some work has been done on "Into the Ice". While a half-track production is scheduled to start End of April, going into full production in September, we took some time to do silly and meaningful things alike. As we are still waiting to get our hands on GGMax, all tests are run in GameGuru for now. Therefore, a

Disclaimer:
All visuals here do not represent the target or final visual quality of the game and should be considered as proof of concept tests only.

I couldn`t resist and purchased the "BISMARCK II" Spaceship from the TGC store to put it into one of our test levels. It`s funny enough. Too low-fi for close-ups, probably will not make it into the final game as it is. But hey, just for lolz, take a look:

Bismarck II from the TGC store


More serious, we have been testing the application of our generic ice cubemap shader onto any imaginable asset. And, strangely enough it works surprisingly well. This cave was originally a stone structure:


And we started to dig into our old documents from the Cold War and WWII to carve out some of the technology, personaes and, of course, ideology and viewpoints you will encounter in "Into the Ice - Nazis of Neuschwabenland".
Research has always been an important part of our dev approach. We never had the fanciest visuals, or polished games and, oh, boy, rarely even stable games - but the amount of historic and scientific details checking out was second to none.

  • For "Robert D. Anderson & The Legacy of Cthulhu", we worked with the Editors of the German edition of the official Cthulhu RPG to get the Lovecraft lore right, and with historians to get the Nazi part in Order. Actually, the lead advising historian, currently one of the managers of Austrians national arms museum, played one of the two crazy scientists in the cutscenes.


  • For "Painkiller Resurrection" we worked with an actual catholic priest and Vatican-appointed scholar to get the purgatory and the "Proto-Angels" right. You know, the voices that guide our anti-hero through the underworld. The priests library was incredible, and I had some blast with brushing up my rusty Latin!


  • For "Into the Dark" I digged out my documents from my own time as (undercover) journalist and politician, and some of the seemingly random documents you can find in the game are actual ones, a few of them still being classified. I tried to mask that under a lot of (bad) puns, but that didn`t save me from a very real visit of very real "poor mans Men in Black". Ah, yes, and we got the full movie "Night of the Living Dead" to be watched ingame. Zombie-education!


So, why is research important?

In a nutshell, it makes your game credible. Even if the rest sucks or the game doesn`t become what you have envisioned (which happened to us, too, several times), you still have a redeeming factor there. And if your game is great, it becomes even better.

  • If you plan to develop a survival game, get your facts straight. Don`t rely on some Google research or a weird prepper blog, go and find a credible source. If you speak German (or don`t hesitate to use Google translate), check out this survival website. By the way, their piece on surviving a Zombie Apocalypse is both funny and useful.
  • If you are going into space, be it the next Indie take on Freelancer / Star Citizen or something entirely different, use the outcome produced by taxpayers money. Head over to the NASA website and dive into a whole world of information. If space travel and FTL technology is part of your game, don`t miss their skunkworks lab page.
  • If you center your game around historic events, get a historian specialized in your topic. Many will provide their advise for free or for a very reasonable fee. Most of the time they LOVE that a creative mind is actually asking them for advise. Be polite, be professional and LISTEN.

So long,

your friendly crazy Australian Austrian developers.

Ivan out ;)

We are back!

We are back!

News 3 comments

The hiatus of Homegrown Games is over - we are back in Gamedev! Expect the restart of the development on "Into the Ice - Nazis of Neuschwabenland" and...

A deeper look into "Father`s Island 2.0" and the work behind the update

A deeper look into "Father`s Island 2.0" and the work behind the update

News

One of the biggest updates we rolled out ever has raised some questions - including the one why it had taken so long to be released. Here some insights...

Homegrown Games Triple Strike

Homegrown Games Triple Strike

News 2 comments

WE ARE BACK - With "Final Editions" for "Into the Dark" and "Father's Island" released on Steam & a new playable for "Into the Ice" !

Breaking: Week-long Sale on Steam!

Breaking: Week-long Sale on Steam!

News

It's half-time on our week-long sale on Steam. Among our other games, you can get Father's Island for as low as 3,34€ !

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 13)
Guest
Guest

Why not Top 100 ?!

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IvanErtlov Creator
IvanErtlov

Not enough votes, perhaps?

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Alpensepp
Alpensepp

Awesome game, but could use some Zombie Hookers!

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invizzz
invizzz

Yeah!

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genek87
genek87

cool

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bersaria
bersaria

looks cool

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zpambot
zpambot

cool

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xxxdarkxxx
xxxdarkxxx

cool

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dibdob
dibdob

I'm glad i added a feed for Indiedb ,now i get info for new interesting games like this :)

edit:
don't know how i missed this game ,it's been out a while.

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SweetRamona
SweetRamona

This looks really Amazing Ivan.

I'll be sure to Buy this when I have Free Time. :)

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IvanErtlov Creator
IvanErtlov

Yeah!

I hope you have free time soon ;)

Reply Good karma+1 vote
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