I'm so very proud to finally announce that BlueSuburbia just got released as Early Access on Steam.

This is about a year of hard work, learning 3D game development, learning Unreal... and it feels good to finally have this first part out in the world.

Get it for free on...

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2431510/BlueSuburbia/
Itch.io: https://alienmelon.itch.io/bluesuburbia

This installment of BlueSuburbia brings the first open world. A surrealist dream-like realm where you explore poetry and find items to help you further on your quest to be free. It's heavily laden with metaphor about mental health, survival, and struggling with the alienating weight of pain that you have to quietly carry on your own.

The open world is called "Reprieve" because it's a temporary stay before your execution. The metaphor is that you are allowed to stay here for as long as you want before you go further on your self-destructive quest to be free of a pain that you carried with you for a very long time. The premise is that if you go to "that place" that destroys those who seek shelter in it, you must destroy yourself in order to be free. There is no help. You are alone.

It's about letting go, and embracing societal and personal death. Freedom comes with a heavy price.

I suppose it's fairly clear that it's about my experiences coming forward about my sexual assault, and the agonizing struggle of not letting that ruin me... how society treats those that struggle with such realities... but I hope that the metaphor can be viewed more generally to encompass anyone's struggle. Especially with mental health and suicide.

The premise is that you are alone, and you have to fight this massive godlike horrible thing on your own, and you have to save yourself on your own... although you do receive some help from others that know how this is like because they tried to do it too and were destroyed.

Nevertheless, you have to try.

This first open world is a gateway world. I will be adding more poetry to it (that leads to other open worlds). The idea is that everyone that went to do what you are about to do passed through this space and left pieces of themselves here. You can find their bones, memories, remains... and contemplate their stories. This is the only "safe space" in the game... as the game progresses you are not allowed to come back, and the spaces later (further into your quest) will be classic horror.

Other poems that will be included (in development) are also going to be about war, poverty... So there will be a range of topics that have to do with surviving life.

There's so much that went into this.

I documented how to get Bitsy running locally in Unreal Engine here... but this open world part also features Decker, and Pocket Platformer, using the same technique... You get poetry, or narrative bits, delivered to you in a variety of interactive ways. Often as other tiny games that you can explore the writing in.

I never made an open world game before. The technical hurdle seemed immense. I'm so proud that I was able to pull it off, all on my own... and it's actually here! At a point that I can finally share it.

The playtime for it is already fairly large. You have this sizeable space that you can explore, and some early characters that you can already talk to.

I'm also very proud of the sound work for it so do play it with some good headphones or speakers!

A big thank you to everyone that supported me in this! I hope that this first rendition of it makes you proud.
Thank you so much for all the love that gave me the courage to keep going.