Sea of solitude e3 reveal professional#

In the demo, darkness eventually creeps back in when danger is near. Geppert took her relationship woes, her mental health struggles, and her desire to make more meaningful, artful experiences and channeled them into what eventually became Sea of Solitude. That same year, Jo-Mei Games received enough funding to wrap up their free-to-play efforts and create something independent.

Sea of solitude e3 reveal professional#

With microtransactions you need to build everything around the core mechanic.”īy 2014, struggling with these personal and professional crises, Geppert was ready for a change. “We had a publisher and the contract forever so we could make nothing and still get money. Business was good, but there wasn’t much creative freedom. When Geppert founded Jo-Mei Games with co-CEO Boris Munser in 2009, the studio did a lot of contract work, creating game concepts for publishers.

“I've always wanted to make art games, story-heavy games, but you cannot really do that with free-to-play games,” she said. But there’s another source of inspiration as well: Geppert’s desire to break out of the “golden cage” of making free-to-play games in order to design something completely different. The symbolism is heavy you don’t need to know Geppert’s background to understand that it’s about a woman wrestling with some very dark feelings of despair and hopelessness. The sea is a gorgeous green, the sky is clear blue, and the water level drops to reveal more of the surrounding architecture. Soon the sun comes out again, and the world isn’t so dark.

It’s a scary, empty world, and clearly dangerous not the sort of place one would want to traverse alone.Īs Kay laments her situation, another girl appears, one whose emanating brightness is in stark contrast to Kay’s ghastly form. Looking like a creature of the dark herself, she’s found herself lost in a submerged town loosely based on Geppert’s home city of Berlin. We don’t know much about Kay, but her intense loneliness is palpable in the demo. Sea of Solitude’s stunning art design uses the juxtaposition of bright colors and near-total darkness to tell the story of a young woman named Kay, also voiced by Jud. She took us through one of the first live demos of Sea of Solitude, talking about its “most personal story” as lead animator Miriam Jud played the game. It adds to the suspense and really immerses you into this game’s story.“I'm always like an open book,” Geppert told GameDaily earlier this month at the EA Play event in downtown Los Angeles. You feel like you’ve just entered some sort of post-apocalyptic world, where anything can happen on a dime. The sea-themed city of Berlin seems like a fantastic environment to explore. You can only imagine what sort of emotional journeys you’ll embark on in this game. It’s nice to see the developers not shy away from such a sensitive topic. Mental problems affect so many people today, including gamers.

Some that are approached include loneliness, anxiety, and depression. This game is receiving a lot of attention for its mental health topics. It looks like you don’t stand a chance, but surely the developers wouldn’t leave you out to dry. This is particularly true of the big black bird monster that’s heavily featured. Speaking of monsters, they’re equally beautiful and terrifying. It all feels so eerie, like you could be swallowed by a sea monster at any moment. You can tell how much dedication went into designing the watery stages and the fantastic beasts that lurk below. In terms of the aesthetics, the game looks pretty unique. As far as this game’s backdrop, you’ll have the chance to explore the beautiful Berlin.Ī gameplay trailer recently surfaced highlighting some of the visuals and mechanics. You’ll venture across a mysterious world where things seem off a bit. Players get to take a journey with Kay, a lonely woman who’s battling some inner-demons and intense emotions. The game is set to come out on July 5 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Still, the developers at Jo-Mei Games seem confident that they’re taking the right approach. We haven’t seen many games delve deep into this topic, whether developers feel it’s a bit too touchy or because they feel out of their element. It’s an extremely original game that’s tackling a tough subject matter: mental health. One of the more intriguing of the bunch has to be Sea of Solitude. There were actually a lot of indie games that received plenty of spotlight. Coming out of 2019 E3, gamers have a lot of interesting titles to look forward to for the foreseeable future.