More TRAUMA Information

Short update on TRAUMA. I know things are getting a bit silent here. That’s mostly because I’m trying not to get swamped in work and get TRAUMA as much done as I can before the IGF. I’m still working on that Intro. I think I will wrap up some of the more complex CGI scenes that involve particle effects today. I must say I’m not impressed with the particle functions of the 3D package of my choice. Due to their limitations I have been forced to get into scripting and even that works very poorly. I will go with Blender for my next projects. If I have poor functionality, it can be at least for free and with a light-weight system footprint. But I’m finally through. here is a small teaser.

Otherwise here are some more Interviews and Articles on TRAUMA.

Kotaku has a Road to IGF Feature which I really liked. Surprisingly, some of the answers/questions didn’t make the cut for the article. Here is one I hated and liked at the same time:

Q: Name your favorite book, movie, album and game?
I have to pick one?! You are torturing me!
My favorite book would be definitively something by Stanislaw Lem.
My favorite movie is quite possibly something by Christopher Nolan.
My favorite album is a tough one – Wide Angle by Hybrid, Speak for Yourself by Imogen Heap, Discovery by Daft Punk, Emotional Technology by BT or Big Calm by Morcheeba. It’s like picking your favorite child.
As for games, I give up. I’ve played too many. Most of the time it’s the game I’m currently playing. Here is a random little-known classic gem that is not Zelda, Mario or Metroid: Mystic Quest on Game Boy aka Final Fantasy Adventure aka Seiken Densetsu.

If you speak German, here is an Interview with Spielbar.de – a Blog of the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (German Federal Agency for Civic Education).

But probably most exciting, here is an article that REALY blew me away. Ryan Kuo, one of the IGFs judges wrote a short post with some thoughts on TRAUMA. It’s the closest you will read to a review of the game so far and it has some very insightful observations.

You don’t imagine yourself into the worlds of Half-Life 2 or Myst, because those games simply show it all. Trauma, meanwhile, is a game about imagining, where nothing is shown simply. A strange act of doubling therefore occurs: The blatant subjectivity and natural instability of the girl’s memories align with the obvious artifice of the game world, and this more accurately reproduces human experience than Valve’s and Cyan’s literal re-creations.

I’m really glad TRAUMA was already able to reach people like him. That article made me look forward to the release even more. And on this note, I think the current render finished already few minutes ago…