Howdy!
Today marks the 100th year of independence for Finland. To celebrate this, we have decided to release an early prototype version of Kalaban for all the gaming historians out there.
This version was released in September 2016 as the first Early Access version, and it was available at Gamejolt. Proto-Kalaban pre-dates the current Steam version by over a year. Many of the final scenes are in place, and all the basic enemies are featured. The gameplay is really rough, and you can see how much the game has evolved compared to the current version.
The vitality and food mechanics are in place, but as you can see from this version, the UI was still being perfected, and many of the features were missing. You can drop items to your hotbar for example, but you cannot drag & drop items to the Bob's full body portrait. Player character also has no animations for different weapons, only the axe and the pistol.
Many of the NPCs are missing, and the game doesn't keep track of your quests, and the levels don't remember which quest items you have already acquired. There are also way too many graphical glitches and bugs to even mention. Most of which have been fixed since.
Proto-Kalaban can be seen as an audiovisual portfolio of the game, and almost all of the music is in place already. If nothing else, people may find it curious to see a game in such a rough state, before it was perfected. It's quite remarkable that this game was developed with Clickteam Fusion 2.5, which is not meant for open world action-adventure / RPG titles of this magnitude.
Naturally, there is no support for this version, as we've ceased the development of Kalaban already. You can find the up-to-date version of the game from Steam. Enjoy!
In this special Throwback Thursday feature, we open up about our filmmaking past with the short film that was released five years ago.
Our game Kalaban is now at -50% until next week. If you still haven't tried the game, then now is the perfect chance to do so.
Just a quick update on what's been happening with Kalaban and our game development lately.
This is the first Early Access version of the game, originally released at Gamejolt in September 2016.
This is an ancient version of the Horde mode. It has several missing features, and it does not represent the quality of the commercial game. This version...
A desktop screensaver for Windows. Watch as Bob explores the randomly generated forest and hunts down mutant monsters.
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Wow, that retrospective was an interesting read. Too bad it didn't work out for you. Just have to say that the talk of not being be able to make because of how the Finnish game industry is so salty that you almost clogged my veins.
Get real, guys, and look into the mirror (and your games). You definitely have the passion, but do you have the chops? The stuff you put out and how you write about it makes me think you are completely lacking insight and the ability to objectively view your products.
Great games will always sell. It's not about the money you put into the game. You also need to seriously think of the marketing when you are making the game. There are NUMEROUS examples in the Finnish game industry of games made with similar sized teams as yours who have nailed it with small budget and basic marketing. Fingersoft, Panic Art Studios, Cornfox & Brothers, Frogmind, Almost Human, etc. These are all 2-4 people studios, or started as such when they put out their first game.
And talking of your hobby project in the same sentence with studios like Rovio, Supercell and Next Games is absolutely ridiculous. Even when the first two of these started out they knew exactly how to make a good looking, working and fun game. These are people with years of experience and know-how, even before they became famous and they had hundreds of workers. Next Games on the other hand is a studio made of industry superstars and they already had a funding when they started.
Take a moment, think of what you have produced, concentrate and next time truly commit yourself to making something actually good. Maybe something simple, which actually plays well.
Kalaban has sold really well compared to the budget it had, and we're really proud of the things we accomplished with that game. The game was marketed extensively before and after launch, with our limitations of course. And the indie gaming scene on the PC does not seem gloomy at all! :)
Fun game! Just did a review of the Horde Mode demo on my channel: Youtube.com
Looks interesting! :) Keep up the good work!
Thank you! We've kicked the development of Kalaban into full gear this year. For the moment it's coming along nicely.
Loooking great!!!
Thank you! We're working on a complete re-haul for the light & shadow system right now. It's going to be much more cinematic and horror style, with colored lights and dynamic shadow and light objects. We'll be posting fresh screenshots of it soon!
"kalaban" means "enemy" from the filipino word.
It's a good addition to the atmosphere which we have cooking in the game. We're working out ways to combine interesting exploration, adventure game mechanics and action.
Thanks! We're hard at work to finish the first act of the game by the end of May. The progress has been slow, as our team members also have other jobs and we currently can't develop the game full-time.