New Hope Revived V0.7

This latest update for New Hope is a little different. Towards the end of last year, you saw Apollo Studios move in a new direction in an effort to streamline and perfect production time.

We saw updates for Hollow, Eternity, Fortune Favors and the New Hope Christmas Special during that time. What would usually take us months for just one of those projects turned into us being able to produce multiple high-quality projects in just a fraction of the time. Result! 

Originally, New Hope was not going to receive the same treatment. But during the production of the latest chapter, it became clear that continuing the way it was just wouldn’t be possible. The game file size was becoming too large, and to accommodate for newer updates looking better, I was lowering the quality of earlier game images to help support that. As a result, even with the slight remaster I did earlier last year, those images were becoming crunched to within an inch of their damn lives. TLDR: The early game looked bad to help the later chapters look good. 

This was ultimately turning away new players.

So, we decided to remake New Hope in our new format. We’ve taken everything we’ve learned from our previous releases in this style and applied it to New Hope. Taking the best bits to ensure the change was seamless. 

There are also some new features available in New Hope that we haven’t tried before! Some of these were actually shown in our Future Concept post we did for Hollow earlier last year. 

Shall we do a breakdown of what features are now available?

Integrated Character Choices: 

Instead of the black bars that would appear in the centre of the screen, choices are now integrated into the game world. How does this work? Here’s an example!

Choice scenarios will be flagged with the Apollo icon. In the first section of the game, these will be paired with little descriptors to help players understand how the scenes work.

Essentially, the first image will be displayed, and when the player moves their mouse over a certain area, it will pull through a section of the second image to notify that a choice option is available. 

Object Interactions: 

Object interactions have also been added. Some scenes in the game will now include moments for you to interact with objects. These will either give contextual scenes for more info about characters, settings and events - or they will push the narrative forward.

Justin’s Personality:

Justin can be easily overwhelmed and sometimes needs your help to make the right decisions. There are now key moments in the game where you can decide how Justin reacts to certain scenarios. In this example, you must help Justin decide how to respond to Spidey’s note.

Do you see Justin as being assertive or more apprehensive in his response? Alternatively, you can play this in a way that best suits your own personality and how you would react.

Character Sprites:

You’ll have seen these in various projects now. Sprites have been implemented to keep the game file size manageable. Using them in scenes that don’t require the cinematic perspective has helped us to develop these additional features mentioned above and also improve the quality of the cinematic shots that we do use.

Let’s wrap things up, shall we? 

I know many of you were excited and eager to see what happened next. Just hang on a little longer, as now that we’ve perfected and feel comfortable in this new style, production has never been as fast!

I’ll now be giving frequent updates on the workflow over on Discord. If you’re a Patron, you’ll get access to the exclusive general chat where I’ll be sharing concept art, progress images, and even the opportunity to provide real-time feedback! 

The guys there were incredibly helpful in developing ideas for the new main menu graphic. Your voice is incredibly important as a player and supporter and can even help shape the game going forward! 

A huge thank you for your continued support. I know the first half of 2024 was a little slow for content - but it was all in an effort to bring production time in line with demand. 

We’ve got a lot to look forward to in 2025! Now go play!!!!!!