Getting SuperWEIRDer - Developer Diaries
Lemming-like robots, guiding flags, gooey bosses, and hints of the future playtest inside
Hey everyone, we're back!
Let's talk about the elephant in the room: our new game, SuperWEIRD is now available on Steam, and we suggest you add it to your wishlist right away. Over 1000 of you have wishlisted already, and we're infinitely grateful!
If you haven't done so yet, feel free to join our merry gang at any moment (like, now)!
In the meantime, watch our super epic teaser trailer:
So, it's officially happening. Here's a little story of how it became possible and what's happening right now.
The previous edition of these diaries left us struggling with creating a robust and engaging base gameplay. Eventually, we stuck upon something we enjoyed playing!
Age test: do you remember Lemmings game series? If you do, you probably know about how SuperWEIRD works at its core. If you don't, then you probably shouldn't worry, because you're still so young - and we'll explain the concept below, anyway.
So, you have a garage-like structure, which spits out an endless line of rusty robots. They will keep marching forward until they fall apart from how old and rusty they are. Should you make use of their sad and short lifespan? Of course! But how?
The answer is: flags!
Flags? Flags! Those are used to modify the route and the behavior of robots to create complex automated production chains. Place a direction flag to make the stream of robots march that way!
Their health is replenished as they reach the next flag, so you'll be making their lives longer, too:
Of course, you won't be alone doing all this. SuperWEIRD is a co-op game at its core, so your friends can - and hopefully will - interfere in the process, making it so much more effective… or so much worse, depending on your particular set of friends.
In any case - it won't be boring!
So, you'll get to craft and build, and automate a horde of rusty robots to help you out - all of that solo of with a bunch of buddies.
But what's the point of all this?
Why there is an aggressive mushroom-covered robot in the woods?
What does it have to do with a pig in sunglasses?
To be quite frank: we don’t know. The game is called SuperWEIRD for a reason: all of these things are to be figured out.
Maybe by you? We're open to any kinds of crazy explanations at this point. Leave a comment or talk to us directly on Discord:
There's a boring explanation, too: we're now super busy polishing the first 20 minutes of the game. We love experimenting here at Luden.io, and we know that this game is somewhat… different? It can't be described with the good old marketing formula ‘This game is like X, but with Y’. And we'd hate to see the players get lost in the concept before they start having fun.
Moreover so, before starting the works on the bigger Steam version, we're looking to release a lighter version of SuperWEIRD on the web (another experiment for us!). So lots of blind playtests with random people are happening at the moment.
But this doesn't mean there's no new content in the works. While Ivan the game designer is figuring out the core gameplay, Anna the artist is now working on the second boss for the game… Check out this gooey goodness!
And if you happen to be a game developer yourself, check out the new video on our YouTube channel! We're trying different genres of videos these days - in the latest edition of our video diaries, for example, Mike the animator talks about how the magic of Spine animation works:
Last but not least, the question: when do you get to play SuperWEIRD? Well, we don't have a date for the open playtest nailed to the wall yet, but you can already sign up on SuperWEIRD's Steam page (just find the big green button under the screenshots):
And of course, if you're reading this, you'll be notified in one of the next editions of this diaries. We wouldn't want you to miss it, so… stay tuned!
See you in a month! And just in case: makee sure to subcribe to this newsletter, if you want to get the latest news from behind the scenes: