Just What Is Beyond The Woods Anyway?

     Many years ago, I was brainstorming over a Castlevania fanfic and came up with a narrative about a group of friends that overcame a syndicate of Vampire overlords and thwarted their nefarious plan to enslave humanity. I came up with the main cast of characters and a nice little story of camaraderie and strength in the face of evil. At the time I had been dabbling with game development and thought that it'd be great to make the story into a full game. It was about this time that many fanfic creators were coming under fire by game studios for copyright infringement. Between that and the inability to ever be able to monetize my work, I decided to make the story stand on its own and sever the ties to the Castlevania universe. Which is fine- many of my ideas didn't really fit with the CV canon anyway and I really, really, REALLY didn't want Konami to take ownership of the thing that I would be pouring years of effort into. It's not like they own gothic horror, and the Castlevania universe itself was heavily inspired by the films and books of the genre. So I didn't feel bad about making a thing inspired by a thing that was inspired by many other things. It's just the normal progression of art and creativity- a cyclical reimagining of stories that inspire into new stories that (hopefully) inspire. In the course of researching the work, I was reading the wikipedia entry about Transylvania. The word "Transylvania" literally means "across or beyond the forest." As the game's storyline (and many of the Castlevania storylines as well) features a trek across a haunted countryside to confront the source of the menace in its tower, I thought that that definition alone would be a great title for the game- Beyond the Woods was born.

One of my silly "back of the napkin" drawings circa 2012ish.

 

    Fast forward a few years and the project had been backburnered due to normal life stuff: job changes, kids, moving. All of those things which make up a full life, but downshift our creative endeavors into the slow lane. I have a virtue/curse which is that I never truly give up on an idea, and Beyond the Woods was no exception. From time to time I'd think about it, fleshing out some new parts of the story and gameplay mechanics, and then it would go back into the deep freeze for months (or years) until I had the time or inspiration to continue its development afresh. One of the things that occurred along the way was my involvement with Vagabond Arcade- a little retro dive arcade focused on obtaining and restoring coin-op games from the 80s, 90s and 00s and presenting them for play by the public. I was thinking about how cool it would be to start making new games intended for that market, dead (or perhaps, due to the nostalgia trend, undead) though it may be. This notion would become pivotal in my plans for Beyond the Woods.

    Sure, there are indie games currently being made for the arcade market. Many, if not all, are sold to barcades and other boutiquey type establishments. Most of those games, I noticed, are simple games made with modern tools and stylized with pixel art and other retro aesthetics to capitalize on the nostalgia factor. They are made to look and play like the games of old. I've always been of the opinion that when others zig, you zag. As such, I decided that I'd make the game that the game developers of the golden age of arcades would make if they had the tools that we have today. Large, high resolution sprites, layers and layers of depth, voice acting, game saving, branching paths, adaptive storyline, multiplayer, and so much more. Take all of the things that modern console games have to offer and package them for an arcade experience. Produce a game that stands on merit as an actual good game by today's indie standards, something that players will actually have a personal stake in playing, rather than an experience that is little more than a nostalgia fueled novelty. Another reason for doing this is economic- the Steam marketplace is glutted with games. I'd be hard pressed to make back my investment of time and resources selling on that marketplace without a genius marketing strategy. Selling full arcade cabinets for $5000+ each to a smaller market of operators will make recouping those losses MUCH easier. Sure there is more work to manufacture and ship a large physical product, but I like that! I like the idea of games being a physical artifact. A work of art that is the look and feel of the hardware as well as the intangibles of code and art assets. And if I can deliver a well integrated, well produced item I have no doubt that I can make a very decent return with a relatively small amount of units sold versus the millions you have to sell on Steam to make it worthwhile.

    The economics aside, I always intended for Beyond the Woods to be a collision of the old with the new. Or rather, a new take on old style games. I wanted the graphic design to be dripping (sometimes literally, lol) with character, and I took inspiration from the Metal Slug games for direction on level graphics. Inspiration from Castlevania for the mood and music. Inspiration from Splatterhouse for gore, horror and just sheer fucked-up-ness. Inspiration from Street Fighter for combat/combo mechanics. And a dash of Sierra game style humor. Additionally, I intend to include many nods to literature and film as well, packing this game with so many references to other material that it will be a challenge to identify them all. I'm putting all of this source material in a blender and am painting the result in Full HD graphics with a cell shaded animation look. At least, that's the idea...

    Beyond the Woods has been ten years in the making since I first started conceiving of it, and it could easily be another ten to be realized. But hell, I'm patient and I never give up. 

Follow this a-here blog to see what's new with this project feel free to ask questions or comment if the mood takes you. Don't let the monsters bite!