Laura Bow 3 (was Laura Bow and the Mechanical Codex)

[Rath Darkblade]

Whoops - I read "hopefully even by the 1st of October" and thought "What?! The game will be out by 1st of October?! That's the day before my birthday - hurrah! Happy birthday present to me!" Then I read the rest. Oops! That'll teach me not to read things out of context.

Beautiful screenshots. Thanks, Tawm (and the game developers, of course!)

[Tawmis]

Whoops - I read "hopefully even by the 1st of October" and thought "What?! The game will be out by 1st of October?! That's the day before my birthday - hurrah! Happy birthday present to me!" Then I read the rest. Oops! That'll teach me not to read things out of context.

Beautiful screenshots. Thanks, Tawm (and the game developers, of course!)

Yeah I am looking forward to this. I've enjoyed their updates, and it seems like they care about what they're doing.

[Tawmis]

Fully operational dev station!

Why hello again. October is upon us, and we have some great news to share. This month (today, in fact) is the first official day of Production for our little team here at NineZyme!

What does that mean, you ask? Well... it means that today is the first day that our entire team is officially working on the project full time! Previously we'd just work a little here, a little there - as we have time (and money) to do so, and usually just one or two people at a time. That means we're going to finally start making some serious progress on this game! We also have a couple of new starters helping us out for the first time - Sofía as a Character Animator, and Wiktoria as an Environment Art. If you bump into them on social media, give them a little "hello"... I'm sure they'd love to have a chat. We are also in talks with another Concept Artist to join the team, to draw more pretty pictures for us - hopefully we will be able to introduce them next month if it all goes well.

Anyway, to mark the occasion, you might notice that we've now moved into Volume 2 of the Tribune. This will be our Prologue Production volume! The primary focus will be getting the entire Prologue chapter completed (with all the bells and whistles), and get it into the hands of some key people (including a few of you) for some critical feedback. Meanwhile, we will also be starting to build out portions of the main story, Act 1.

The team is super excited to start focusing more attention on this game, and we're happy to have you along for the ride. Don't be shy to reach out and tell us what ya think - our email is down below.

To continue with the theme from the previous couple of newsletters, here are a few more concepts of some upcoming characters and scenes from the future chapters of the game! Over the next few months, we will get back to showing some 3D work in-progress images, some in-game screenshots, and more gameplay videos. Enjoy!

[Rath Darkblade]

Nice. Thanks, Tawm! Just wondering about those models:

1. Re the guy in the light brown suit - were ties ever that short? He looks like an overgrown schoolboy.

2. Th guy in the middle looks definitely Turkish. Since Laura Bow is set in the 1920s, we're talking Ottoman army. This is the closest I could find on wikipedia - Ottoman soldiers, but from 1854. Still, the uniform is very close.



Note the curved sword on the man on the right! Since this is 1854, it would be the Crimean War (in the Crimean Peninsula, which is here on the map. The Turks wanted to seize it from Russia, but the British and French rushed to Russia's defence, and it turned into a giant mess. Only three good things came out of the Crimean War:

a. Florence Nightingale and the start of professional nursing;
b. Mary Seacole, a Jamaican nurse, who created a halfway-decent place for soldiers to rest;
c. Alexis Soyer, a famous French-British chef, who created the Soyer stove to allow soldiers to cook meals - and even rushed there and cooked them proper meals himself!

Everything else was a gigantic mess, though. Imagine operations without anaesthetic, trying to drink unroasted coffee beans, food that went rotten because no-one could find the paperwork, etc. *shrug* It was about 10 years before the ACW, and that war was bad enough! Anyway, sorry to digress).

3. The third figure (in khaki) looks like a British army general -- he has a crown-and-star on his shoulder, so I think he's a Lieutenant-Colonel). But his hand looks like it's made of wood! Take a look for yourself.

[Tawmis]

1. Re the guy in the light brown suit - were ties ever that short? He looks like an overgrown schoolboy.
2. Th guy in the middle looks definitely Turkish. Since Laura Bow is set in the 1920s, we're talking Ottoman army. This is the closest I could find on wikipedia - Ottoman soldiers, but from 1854. Still, the uniform is very close.
3. The third figure (in khaki) looks like a British army general -- he has a crown-and-star on his shoulder, so I think he's a Lieutenant-Colonel). But his hand looks like it's made of wood! Take a look for yourself.

1. I think they're implying due to being over weight (his belly extending) the tie isn't "straight down."
2. I think you're right about the middle guy.
3. Yes, he has a wooden hand (which would probably indicate a war wound - like "pirates and peg legs")

[Rath Darkblade]

Oh, wait - did I say "Ottoman" (for the guy in the middle)? Oops! By the 1920s, the Turkish Ottoman Empire was a thing of the past. The Ottoman Empire had been tottering on the verge of collapse since at least the 1840s-1850s (it was well-known as "the sick man of Europe"), and was finally dissolved by Kemal Ataturk's revolution (1919-23). So ... that blue uniform would probably be out-of-date in Turkey by about 1926-7. *shrug* OTOH, some people would probably hang on to their old uniforms out of pride etc.

As for the Lt-Col's wooden hand ... yikes. He probably got off lightly, given how many soldiers died horribly in World War 1. (Blown to bits by shrapnel or machine-gun fire, poisoned by various poison gasses, drowned in mud etc.) I wonder what he thinks of it all. I wouldn't be surprised if he views it as a great big adventure. Pip-pip, tally-ho old chap, and all that.

[Tawmis]

The Bee's Knees

Happy November everyone... welcome to another edition of the NineZyme Tribune!

We have just completed our first month where we had the entire team working together, to make this project a reality. Things went really well! The team is energized and excited to finally get to focus on the game full time, and make some serious progress on everything. We don't feel entirely in our stride just yet, given that these first few moments always lead to some additional learning and preparation work... however, we are confident that it's all going in the right direction, and that our work this month will result in making a better game!

Our accomplishments during October varied quite a lot, but this month we'd like to narrow in on just one of them... Character Animation!

Express Yourself!
One of the big things we'd like to improve upon in the point-n-click space is the quality of animation, and expressiveness of characters. Many current games out there just don't do very well at portraying emotion in the visuals of their games - relying almost entirely on audio/voice to convey that. We didn't feel like this would be suitable to the game we are trying to make. Our goal is to let you see expressive details in the characters, which might provide a clue to the player about intent or motive... even if that character isn't saying anything. This takes quite a lot of thought and effort to achieve!

Anyway, we looked back at the work we had done so far (during our part-time days) and decided it just wasn't going to suffice. With the small size of our team, and our desire to have a lot of high quality animations in the game - we made the call to redo our animation pipeline from scratch. The old setups had many errors, and just weren't very friendly to work with. So, in an effort to make us more efficient in the long run, we have spent a lot of time recently updating some of our characters and rebuilding their animation controls. So far it's looking great, much easier to use, more stable, more accessible, and we really think it's going to be worth the upfront effort!

With that, we'd like to show you some images (pre-rendered) of the kind of emotions we are talking about. These are of everyone's favorite gruff but lovable newspaper editor, and also one of our unique characters to this story (his name is Nasir).

Hope you enjoy them! Send us a note and let us know what ya think... we'd love to hear from you.

[Tawmis]

I really should get an employee discount when this game comes out.

Holiday Season

Happy Holidays, everyone! We made it to the end of another year. Today marks the second completed month of full time production on the game, and things are moving along at a really nice clip now! It's really quite amazing to see the amount of progress, even with such a small team and budget.

It would be a bit too intense to try and list out all of the various things we accomplished, so we'll just pick a couple of our favorites and mention those. It's going to get more and more difficult to prevent spoilers as we continue with development, however - so just be aware that some of the things we talk about within upcoming newsletters may slightly give away the overall experience we are creating. We will do our best to avoid it, though!

Also, as a reminder... we are taking our end of the year break soon, and will be skipping the January newsletter. So the next time we chat will be for the February one. See you again then!

Oh, by the way, here is a little something special we sent to the team as "production mode" and holiday gifts. If you are an end-of-the-year-tree-putter-upper and you'd like one of our custom made ornaments, send your name and shipping address to the email at the end of this newsletter and we'll try to send you one. Supplies and budget is limited, so it's completely at our discretion.

New Character!

One of the major accomplishments this month is a brand new character. Her name is Zira, and she is a formidable presence! She ties into the main story of the game, and plays a key role in the outcome of it all. This is one of the characters that the whole team has been waiting to see, and we think she turned out wonderfully! Here are a couple of pre-rendered images of her.

Makeover Central

On top of that, a lot of our other characters have a bit of a refreshed look to them. We found some ways to improve the overall look of the textures, and it made a really nice improvement in quality. Everyone's favorite heroine got herself an even more extreme makeover with a total repaint of her makeup and 2nd outfit in the game. Here is a pre-rendered look at her updated office outfit, and new event outfit.

That's Not All Folks!

It's not just characters that have been making good progress... we also have a lot of new environment art in the works! Here is a great new concept piece of an upcoming area in the game, and some additional in-game screenshots of some 3D props which have been created to help fill out some of our environments, and bring some more story and puzzle elements together.

[Rath Darkblade]

Oops! I keep missing these. Thanks for sharing them, Tawm! Looks good

[Tawmis]

Oops! I keep missing these. Thanks for sharing them, Tawm! Looks good

You must learn to live on the SHP forums!

[Tawmis]

My my my... surprise, everyone! I bet you weren't expecting to hear from us until February. Well, for some end-of-the-year festivities, our crack team of artists threw together a little holiday greeting to share with everyone. So we decided to make an exception and send out an intermediate newsletter. You can find the card image below. Enjoy!

Also, a quick note that all of the NineZyme ornaments that people requested from the last newsletter have been sent out! Hopefully they arrive in time for you to hang them up somewhere.

Whether you are celebrating, just curling up on the couch, or working hard during the end of the year here... we wish all of you a great holiday season! See you in 2022!

[Rath Darkblade]

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, Tawm and the LBatMC team!

[Semi-Happy Partygoer]

I wonder what Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision might do to this game. NineZyme hasn’t released any information so far, from what I can tell. I hope it doesn’t mean the end of the project.

[notbobsmith]

Well, hopefully they have Activision's permission for this or they'll likely get hit with a cease-and-desist letter, or worse yet, a full lawsuit. Either way, it'd be a shame to see all that work go to waste.

I have your answer.

Hi Tawmis! Thanks for your interest in the project, and for reaching out to us...
We have approached Activision with what we'd like to do, however it is a complicated situation and things aren't entirely sorted out yet. They are extremely hesitant, and basically won't even consider it without some kind of playable prototype/demo. So, our plan is to just move forward and complete the entire first chapter of the game - then use that as a platform to reconnect with them, gain some community support, and do a funding round for the remaining chapters.
It's unfortunate, because it basically all just comes down to money. These types of games don't tend to be very lucrative, and Activision is only really interested in projects with high profit potential.
Sooo, there are a lot of things stacked against us. But we're going to give it our best and see what happens! Meanwhile, if anyone in your forum/community would like to help... talking about the project and getting the word out would be great - or spam Activision with support for what we're doing (just don't tell them we asked you to do that, ha).
Thanks,
--- NineZyme Entertainment

I wonder what Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision might do to this game. NineZyme hasn’t released any information so far, from what I can tell. I hope it doesn’t mean the end of the project.

Unless the above has changed, they do not have a license. Big companies like Microsoft don't like it when you use their IP without permission. So yes, the Microsoft acquisition could change things.

[Tawmis]

Well, more than likely they'd just change the name.

Lassie Low and the Mechanical Codex.

Good to go.