Talking with Militsioner #1 - February 2021

Militsioner

Every move you make is being followed by a Colossal Policeman. Piss him off, flatter, disappoint and lie or even romance a Giant to escape in this kafkaesque immersive-sim.

Hi, this is TallBoys, the developers of Militsioner game. In this post we’ll talk about the development process of the game and our future plans. We also have a two-minute trailer, showing how the gameplay of Militsioner will feel. 2 minutes of Militsioner: [previewyoutube=iK47XbFsdqo;full][/previewyoutube] Right now we’re working on a playable demo. For us, the most ambitious and complex of mechanics is the voice input that was shown in the trailer. We came up with this idea, trying to find interesting and fresh kinds of interaction with the policeman. Physical interaction alone is not enough to fully show the profession of "policeman". He can’t keep catching you all the time, so most of your interactions with him must be between the action. It must be some sort of communication with him. Knowing that it would be an important part of gameplay, we tried to find a fresh perspective on interactive communication [previewyoutube=c4uQktQ-9A8;full][/previewyoutube] Voice input feels very natural to use, and it can be interesting to play with in the game world: What if you shout at night? If you shout to the car driver? or ask him for help? Maybe try to trick someone? There may be a number of interesting applications here that we have never seen before in any other game. [previewyoutube=hT7RRMz-5W4;full][/previewyoutube] In order for the policeman and the environment to understand the player correctly, we are working on a system that will correctly process the player’s responses based on the context. It is important that it does not make stupid mistakes or create obstacles, as the answers will influence the mood and attitude of the Militsioner towards the player. Similar systems were used in Facade and Phasmophobia. [previewyoutube=8z8wYir50JM;leftthumb][/previewyoutube]To convince the player of the convenience of this system is the next important problem after the demo. Logically, this is the most understandable input system, but the problem may be in perception: the player is uncomfortable talking to non human objects. In addition, we’re looking at different voice recognition systems. For example, we’re now integrating the system from Microsoft, which is used in Cortana. Of course, a lot of testing and possibly alternative input will be required, but the priority will be on the system that’ll show itself best in a game. We also had some interesting news, we collected them here: [list] [*] We were [url=https://twitter.com/edgeonline/status/1322946681910996994 ]featured in Edge magazine[/url]. We were interviewed by Jen Simpkins (former editor of Edge) about the game’s ideas [*] Polygon magazine [url=https://www.polygon.com/2020/9/11/21432238/ ]prepared material [/url] (Patricia Hernandez, senior editor at Polygon) about the game , where we also commented on the development [*] Russian Federal Channel [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVUGbedOBnk ]has noticed the game [/url]and they don’t seem to like our game very much. Anyway, it looks funny [*] This is an interesting [url=https://daily.afisha.ru/brain/17076-kak-razrabotchiki-rossiyskoy-igry-militsioner-prevratili-dyadyu-stepu-v-triller/ ]interview for Afisha magazine[/url]. We talked about the game’s design and little bit about our background. Also we [url=https://dtf.ru/gamedev/211285 ]talked to DTF [/url]about the game’s development (both interviews are in Russian) [*] Last but not least, [url=https://medium.com/super-jump/militsioner-the-new-video-game-dystopia-upsetting-russian-state-media-bd4fe81a1323 ]а very cool article[/url] prepared by Vlad Alex (Merzmensch), in which he made a detailed analysis of the game and very precisely defined the topics we address [/list] To keep track of our regular updates (as regular as possible), sign up to Steam and add our game to Wishlist. [Кнопка Follow Wishlist] And we also regularly post our updates on social media: https://www.tallboysgames.com https://www.twitter.com/mytallboys https://www.facebook.com/mytallboys https://www.instagram.com/mytallboys https://www.tiktok.com/@tallboys https://www.discord.gg/7gP2hCW If you have any questions about the game, we’ll try to answer them at the next devolog.