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Day 1 @E3 – Hello press!

Today saw the arrival of first media outlets coming to our booth container at Devolver Digital parking lot, eager to test drive our Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope. It seems that one sentence kept being repeated: “I didn’t expect it to be so much fun!!” 🙂

Well, you better expect it! Serious Sam universe translated so naturally into a virtual world that even some of us were surprised at the beginning. And knowing that all those media boys and girls from Tech Crunch, Wired, Edge UK, CGM, CNN, Vandal Spain, VRfocus and other great outlets had so much fun playing demo, made us both happy and proud.

 

Here is a small slideshow of our guests in action. No vases were broken during this photoshoot.

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Day 0 @E3 – what’s Serious Sam VR all about?

Yesterday was an exciting day @E3 due to many big titles being announced, and it was surely exciting for us at Croteam! We revealed our VR title – Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope – during the Youtube Gaming Live Show (hosted by Geoff Keighley) as well as at PC Gaming Event (sponsored by AMD) that happened later on, where you could see our beautiful devs Ante and Nika explaining what SSVR is all about.

croteam reveal amd 2

We are also aware that many of you expected to learn more about Serious Sam 4, and after the reveal of SSVR, you wondered what happened to it… Rest assured, we are still working very hard on it and it’s still our prime goal, just like we said it on Twitter.

And while we are here, let’s do short AMA (with ourselves, if that counts as AMA?) on this latest installment of your favorite hero saga:

WHY SERIOUS SAM VR?
Virtual reality technology has been made available to devs for quite some time now (and recently to the general public as well), and we are very excited about it. We know these are still the early days, but the potential is there, and unlike some other hardware gimmicks that came out in recent years, we are pretty sure this one will stick and make a tremendous impact on the gaming world. And our serious game seemed like a perfect for VR, but more on that below!

HOW BIG IS THIS GAME GOING TO BE?
It will be a few levels, and it likely won’t have the whole progression functionality in it’s Early Access form. We’ll add more levels and features as we wrap them up, until we have a number we’re happy with. There is no precise number of levels once we say it’s ‘complete’, but it will almost certainly be more than double the starting number of levels.

CAN I MOVE IN THIS GAME?
The game will be room scale in the sense that you can walk all over your entire playspace, which will allow you to dodge projectiles or change your position in relation to enemies a bit. Moving around a lot won’t be that important for the core gameplay experience, otherwise the game wouldn’t work well with small playspaces, so it will more often than not be easier or faster to just shoot the incoming projectiles.

WHY ANOTHER WAVESHOOTER?
Because we tried them all, and not one stood up from the crowd. Trust us, this is probably the best thing regarding such games at this very moment, and we expect it to totally rock once it’s out on Steam Early Access this summer.

WHAT’S THE PRICE TAG?
We are still debating this, hard to say anything at this point. There is a REDDIT thread here discussing the value of VR games, so feel free to pitch in and add your 2C https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4nwfdm/z/d47q9s9

HTC VIVE? OCULUS? PLAYSTATION VR?
So far we have integrated support for HTC Vive and Oculus into an early build, and we have support from both companies. The game requires tracked controllers though, and it won’t be available to play without them, so keep that in mind. We are also seeing great support from great guys at Sony who are interested in bringing this title to PlayStation 4 as well, so things are looking bright!

 

Stay tuned for more news on Serious Sam VR as our boys and girls on the field are getting ready to answer some serious questions from the press, and enjoy these screenshots which honestly, still don’t do justice to experiencing it with a headset!

SeriousSamVR_Concept_Planet01 SeriousSamVR_TheLastHope04_1 SeriousSamVR_TheLastHope03_1 SeriousSamVR_TheLastHope02_1 SeriousSamVR_TheLastHope01_1

 

 

Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope revealed

Yes, it’s finally official after being announced @E3- our latest baby that will have it’s debut on Steam Early Access this summer is a full-fledged VR title called Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope. You didn’t see that one coming, did you? 😉

So, all you boys and girls who have been filling Sam’s shoes for years will now get a chance to do it FOR REAL (or as real as it gets)! Sam returns in his first ever VR adventure to dual wield an overwhelming amount of explosive ordinance and battle Mental’s relentless hordes. The Earth Defense Force is crumbling under the crushing offensive of Mental and his legions of savage warriors and beasts. Now the galaxy’s last hope must battle from planet to planet – piling up and upgrading his arsenal along the way – and lay waste to massive alien swarms under Mental’s control… All in first-person, all in virtual reality!

We already know you are gonna love this one when it comes out, but in the meantime, here is a short teaser to make you drool 😉

 

Photogrammetry in Serious Sam 4

Slipper of Sudden Death deals area dmg (poison), stuns enemies and – most importantly – ads insult to injury.

Photogrammetry prototype is coming along nicely: Serious Sam should have a new, mighty and frightening weapon at hand. Or foot.

Check out the video below.

Sam meets Talos Principle

Serious Sam’s Bogus Detour has introduced Jammers into the game which was one of the main tools used in The Talos Principle. Sam has borrowed this cool feature to open doors, disrupt turrets and to activate certain buttons. Check the video below!

 

We’re at the Nordic Game conference

 If you've seen this lecture, you haven't seen them all; Alen speeches continue to be an inspiration for developers . It is, however, going to look a bit like this, but with more mooses. And swag.


If you’ve seen this lecture, you haven’t seen them all; Alen’s speeches continue to be an inspiration for developers . It is, however, going to look kind of like this. But with more elks. And swag.

Ok, we’re not there yet, but we’re traveling to Malmo, Sweeden. Our CTO, Alen Ladavac, will be at the Nordic Game conference 2016 soon, giving a lecture on making big games with small teams – The Talos Principle post-mortem.

Croteam has always tried to optimize the development process and attain high production values with a small but effective team. This post-mortem of the critically acclaimed The Talos Principle describes the principles, tools and processes used to achieve that.

If you’re at Nordic, come and listen, or get in touch with us. This Friday. Noon. Sharp. See you there!

 

 

 

Returning home… a Hero!

"For us? You really shouldn't have... -I love you, guys! - The pleasure is mine. -No, it's all mine. -No. Mine."

“For us? You really shouldn’t have… -I love you, guys! – The pleasure is mine. -No, it’s all mine. -No. Mine.”

Amazing! Exquisite! Huge!” were some of the superlatives the organizer of the Reboot Develop 2016 used to describe his conference. And guess what? It was all of that – and more. Three sunny days in beautiful Split, more than 80 speakers, 800 attendees, and six awards:

  • Visual Excellence – Shadows of War (TRI.G)
  • Outstanding Gameplay – Qube 2 (Toxic Games)
  • Special Selection – Morning Men (Pixel Federation)
  • Game of the Year – Qube 2 (Toxic Games)
  • Hero Award – Charles Cecil
  • Street Hero Award – Croteam

We’d like to congratulate everybody that won, console everybody who was nominated but didn’t win, but most of all – we are going to brag about our award, the Street Hero!

The award was introduced just this year and came as quite a surprise (that’s why we are sporting our street smarts at the awards ceremony and not wearing tuxedos). Initially we thought it was for eating the most at the hotel bar or winning the Develop football cup (yup! It was Croteam), but we got separate awards for those achievements. An extra charge at the hotel bill for the first one, and a nice golden cup for the second one.

Apparently, Street Hero has something to do with being a cool regional developer and an all-around nice studio. And that’s us, in a nutshell. Tnx, Reboot! See you next year.

Do you want to meet with Croteam? (It doesn’t have to be with Croteam)

le_meridien_lav_split_02How would you like to meet with Croteam? Like, all of us? At the same time?

Now’s your chance: we’re going to Reboot Develop 2016 next week – and you should too. You should be able to instantly recognize us – we’re tall, dark, but we’re no strangers. Just wave at us, preferably while sitting at the bar, and we’ll gladly join you to discuss everything and anything. As long as you’re buying.

Another tip for spotting a member of Croteam: most of us will be wearing company issued red T-Shirts (pro tip: it says Croteam on front. And back). But enough with the serious stuff, here’s where the fun starts. Some of are speakers too!

Check this out:
Dean Sekulić will be talking about how his team of GPU wizards was able to bring Vulkan support to The Talos Principle. To make things more interesting, The Talos Principle was the first game to support Vulkan, ever (and even more interesting: we say “team”, but basically it’s just Dean).

Damjan Mravunac has been at the helm of Croteam’s music department for the past 15 years, so it’s supposed to be a lecture, but you never know with this guy – it MIGHT be a musical! Damjan is also Croteam’s CMO, and he should be able to recount the company’s history in the form of a song – like a true bard does!

Davor Tomičić is another member of the studio that is very, very excited about Reboot Develop! This year, Croteam’s co-founder and The Talos Principle designer has gone out of his way to share the naked truth of game development. In addition to his public talk, you’ll also be able to schedule a very exclusive 1-on-1 session and hear him talk – just for you! You can look for him in the spa.

Goran Adrinek, Croteam’s programer, will be sharing his tips and tricks on AI navigation. The talk is suitable for both aspiring and experienced programers, but that’s not all! Even if you are a total beginner, Goran’s lecture will instantly turn you into a programing master in less than an hour.*
(*May or may not be entirely true.)

It’s not just us – there will be A LOT of interesting industry people at Reboot Develop 2016. Come mingle!