SOME LATE 2021 JETT GOINGS-ON
A portrait of science fiction author and mystic Tsosi as a young man, from JETT: The Far Shore. Illustration by Dustin Harbin.
As we near the end of 2021, it feels like a good moment to gather up a few notable JETT-related items from recent weeks.
ITEM 1: GLOBE AND MAIL - OPINION
Today, Adam Hammond, the author of the new JETT book, had a 2,000 opinion piece published in Canadian national newspaper The Globe And Mail.
Adam's piece is about videogames, art and where JETT fits in to this admittedly well-worn discussion space.
An excerpt:
In an essay she wrote in 1924, (Virginia) Woolf said that periods of intense experimentation are never likely to produce masterpieces. When artists are developing new forms, “so much strength is spent finding a way of telling the truth” that “the truth itself is bound to reach us in rather an exhausted and chaotic condition.” In such periods, she says, “We must reconcile ourselves to a season of failures and fragments.”
Today is obviously such a moment for video games. Artists are actively struggling to find ways of telling the kinds of stories they want to tell and creating the kinds of experiences they want to create. The steps are not known; the paths haven’t been cleared. When Mr. Adams set out to make JETT in 2013, he didn’t entirely know he was getting himself into. And, inevitably, so much effort was spent clearing a path that some of the original vision – some of Woolf’s “truth” – inevitably got obscured.
Adam Hammond's full piece for the Globe and Mail is here, only it's now pay-walled, so below is a picture of the newsprint edition that you could probably zoom in on, if desired.
ITEM 2: JETT BOOK - OUT NOW
It bears a mention that Adam's JETT book "The Far Shore: Indie Games, Superbrothers And The Making of JETT", is out in the wyld now, in bookstores and online, and from Coach House Books.
Some positive words about Adam's book are bubbling up here and there, with JETT co-creator Patrick McAllister having now read it and weighing in thusly:
It's good!
Dan Berry, UK comics person and the host of Make It Then Tell Everybody (recent podcast chat with Craig D. Adams is here) describes the book like this:
The Far Shore: Indie Games, Superbrothers and the making of JETT is an extended glimpse into the culture, the process and the people behind the games we play. As a creator with a long independent DIY background I found myself nodding along to the story of JETT. The dread of looking at something for so long you can’t see it properly any more. The petrifying idea that people will see and consume what you do and judge both it and you. The challenge of inoculating yourself against expectation. This isn’t a book about how to make games, it’s a book about how to continue making games and I took a great deal of inspiration and comfort from that.
Steven Beattie wrote about the new JETT book in a review on The Shakespeare Rag website, concluding the review with this:
In The Far Shore, Hammond has created something that is as unclassifiable as his favourite works of modernism: part biography of an iconoclastic and brilliant game designer, part cultural critique, part hipster manifesto. One doesn’t always have to agree with him – he is no more correct than Bangs was that “the DIY ethic of punk” renders a lack of technical proficiency forgivable – to appreciate the thought that went into his text or to marvel at the diligence and perseverance required to see a project as ambitious as JETT through to completion. Any book that is equally comfortable parsing the abstruse theories of Mikhail Bakhtin and the music of Bikini Kill is worth the price of admission.
For more about the JETT book, see this previous blog post about the book here on Superbrothers HQ.
For an extended excerpt from Adam's book, see ITEM 5 at bottom of this blog post.
ITEM 3: CBC TAPESTRY x JETT
On October 22nd 2021, there was a JETT segment on CBC Radio One's show Tapestry, the show is 'a weekly exploration of spirituality, religion and the search for meaning'.
This radio segment is available to listen to here. The segment was put together by prodcuer Armand Aghbali and it is presented alongside an article by Jonathan Ore. The segment is also available as a podcast in the CBC Tapestry feed.
The segment and the article touche on where JETT is coming from, but it goes broader than that, looking at space exploration with a historical perspective, and touching on this era's deranged billionaire space race.
ITEM 4: JETT SQUAD x MTL
Members of JETT Squad 1.0 and pals gathered at Montreal's cosmodrome in October 2021.
To cap off a whirlwind couple of years of working remotely from timezones around the world, getting JETT done, some fraction of JETT Squad 1.0 was able to gather in Montreal in late October to do something they'd never done before: just hang out, IRL.
The autumn weather co-operated and the weekend went off without a hitch, with rambling Covid-safe chats up on Mount Royal (Tor) and down to the Plateau, plus a visit to Montreal's local cosmodrome aka the 1976 Olympic Stadium (picture at top) and the Biodome, an indoor zoo built inside what was once the Olympic velodrome - all very JETT vibe.
For this low-key two day event, JETT Squad folks came out from Victoria, Toronto, Vermont, New Hampshire and the woods of Quebec, mingling with JETT Squad folks living in Montreal. It was a great way to wind down a memorable time together, as we worked alongside each other to ship a science fiction epic for fancy videogame consoles in the midst of the strange times of 2020 and 2021.
An excellent weekend with some excellent people, it will be warmly remembered!
ITEM 5: EXCERPT FROM THE JETT BOOK
Poster for the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home aka 'the one with the whales'.
Below is an extended exerpt from Adam's JETT book.
In this excerpt you'll hear about JETT's early days, in 2013 when Adam and Craig crossed paths, when the project was known simply as "The Future". (This excerpt was previously published at GameDeveloper.com (formerly Gamasutra) on November 5th.)
The first description I got of the next project was an avalanche of negations. No pixels. No irony. No hipstery language. No dumb manifestos. No weird indieness for the sake of being indie. No ‘indie aesthetic’ at all. No posing. Instead, 3D. Sincerity. More of a videogame-videogame, made for a traditional console, not a phone. Videogames as a form of ‘exercise’ rather than a Marinet-tian vehicle for social explosion. An evolution of Fatal Inertia, in some ways. It was a flying game. My heart sank.
The new room was a kind of solarium, tucked behind the kitchen. It had a couch, a TV, and a big theatrical poster for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home framed on the wall. My sister had been a dangerously obsessive Star Trek fan as a teen – her watch was set to Pacific time so that she would always be able to visualize the daily routines of Brent Spiner, the actor who played Data on The Next Generation, who lived in Brentwood, California – and I’d been dragged along to the point that I had all the movies memorized. The Voyage Home was the goofy one where the original cast slingshot themselves off the sun and time-travel back to present-day Earth to retrieve a pre-extinction humpback whale and save the future. It was one of my favourites. Craig and I geeked out on Star Trek for a while and then moved on to Star Wars. That had become my own dangerous obsession in my first year of high school. For whatever reason, I’d avoided making friends that year, and had instead spent most of my evenings and weekends reading horrible spinoff novels (those Timothy Zahn novels where Luke Skywalker fights clones of himself, designated as such by extra U’s in their names: Luke, Luuke, Luuuuuuke), collecting terrible comics series, endlessly rewatching my VHS box set of the original theatrical releases of episodes four through six. I remember the deep envy I felt for the people who had never seen these films, because they would still be able to experience them for the first time, have that thrill of fresh discovery, something lost to me forever. It may have been my first experience of nostalgia, the earliest stirrings of adulthood.
I hadn’t thought of sci-fi much since high school. It was some- thing that I had consciously put behind me in order to become a somewhat normal teenager with friends and a life. I definitely didn’t have time for Zahn-level trash when I was studying Serious Literature during the decade of my B.A.-M.A.-PhD cycle. Like videogames, sci-fi was something I’d outgrown.
Craig felt differently. Over the years, his respect for the genre had only grown, fuelled by his admiration not for its otherworldly escapism but its ability to provide hope and direction in the present. That day, in the Sci-Fi Solarium, he spoke to me in staggering detail and at incredible length about 2001, Alien, Dark Star, Antonio Jodorowsky’s doomed adaptation of Dune, Werner Herzog’sAguirre, the Wrath of God and Lessons of Darkness. A lot of his interest in them was fan interest: improbable stories, amazing art, cool ships, weird planets. But the main current was a belief in sci-fi’s ability to get people to imagine a different life. Not just individually, but collectively: to model different social arrangements, different values, different ethics. Star Trek was his favourite example of this. Even the original series, for all its silliness, showed the 1960s what it might be like to live in a world where people of all races and backgrounds worked together for a common goal, governed by stringent moral codes and guided by a faith in science and reason. Craig had just finished reading My Dream of Stars, a memoir by Anousheh Ansari, who had paid $20 million to become the first female space tourist. She had spent a week on the International Space Station, her flight patch bearing both the Iranian and US flags at a time of particular tension between the two countries. Craig found the story inspiring, and he was not in the least surprised to learn that Ansari had been an obsessive Star Trek fan as a kid in Iran, that that was the origin of her ‘dream of stars.’
I bet we spent five hours in that sunny secret room talking about science-fiction. Not a word had been spoken about the game, but I felt a bit like I was being led through the basement of a closed construction site, like when a banker is given a hard hat and allowed to prowl around where they wouldn’t normally be permitted. I’d been shown the ideological skeleton of the game, the myths and tropes that its narrative had been built on. Looking back on this now, I wonder if it wasn’t also some kind of test. If I could keep up during the tour of the subterranean realms of the game, if I could show that I knew my stuff and had paid my dues in the sci-fi underworld, then I could see the other levels. Maybe if I hadn’t memorized the script of Star Trek IV – I remember Craig laughing hard when I repeated Spock’s immortal line, ‘Double dumbass on you’ – I wouldn’t have been admitted to the next room. But eventually, after lunch, I was – literally. Now, in a new corner of the living room, sitting beneath the wooden stag head gifted him by Jim Guthrie, he began to tell me about what was then called The Future.
Basically, it was a game where you fly a little spaceship around a planet. You explore, you encounter creatures, you interact with ecosystems, you listen, you look around, you find things that interest you, you try to survive, you make decisions that affect the creatures you’ve met, the ecosystem you inhabit, and your own place in that world.
So how do you actually tell the story? He and Patrick had some ideas about this.
You start by subtracting. You want your characters to be relatively blank so that your players can bring them to life, inhabit them with their own experiences and values. You want a mini- mum of cutscenes – those little quasi-movies that link together playing sequences to tie everything into a coherent narrative. You don’t want to ‘tell,’ or even ‘show,’ but leave genuine space for players to create meaning in their own way. In this sense, the Sworcery manifesto, ‘Less Talk, More Rock,’ still applied. The narrative, such as it is, unfolds through dialogue, but all the dialogue needs to be optional. You can’t force players to sit through conversations with other characters, or block their prog- ress until they’ve clicked through a massive thread. For it to have an impact, they need to actually want to listen and talk.
So you start with a commitment to giving the player full control over how much of the narrative they actually want to dig into: you’re never going to force it down their throats. But that doesn’t mean you get to ignore narrative. Even if the player only ends up taking two steps on the 514-kilometre-long road you’ve created, those two steps will make sense and resonate only if you’ve imagined every bend along the way, every intersection, every station house, every tree, every bird on every branch. It’s Hemingway’s iceberg, only in a good videogame you don’t get to decide how much of the iceberg the player actually sees, because at any moment they should be allowed to put on their scuba gear and go explore underwater. So you build the whole thing, you imagine everything, and you develop game mechanics that allow your player to dive in exactly as deeply as they want to.
This can all get overwhelming when your game is set in a different universe, focuses on a totally different culture, and takes place over a span of more than a thousand years. You need to imagine entire histories, governing philosophies, scientific systems. But if you can sort out these grand macro-level things, they will seep down into all the micro-level details of the game and give everything a ring of truth. Who are the pilots? What culture formed them? What kinds of ships and equipment would people formed in this culture produce? If a pilot is sitting alone next to a fire and you tap them on the shoulder, what will they say? What will their voice sound like? To have good answers to any of these questions – answers that resonate with the big themes of the game, that connect the micro level to the macro in a seam- less chain – you need to have what Craig called ‘lore.’
Shigeru Miyamoto, legendary game designer and producer at Nintendo, once said that an idea is something that solves multiple problems at once. ‘That’s what we’re driving toward,’ Craig told me. ‘I see lore as a tool to sculpt our world, make it cohesive and implicitly meaningful.’ I was about to be introduced to The Future’s lore.
But before he laid it out, Craig asked me if I wanted another coffee. We got up and went back to the kitchen, and as we stood around the espresso machine, he talked to me a bit more about the way that game mechanics connect to lore.
The BioShock series functioned for Craig as a kind of cautionary tale. It was famous for its killer lore. The first two installments,BioShock and BioShock 2, set in the fictional underwater city of Rapture, were explorations (and, quite transparently, travesties) of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, with a bit of George Orwell thrown in. BioShock Infinite, set in the floating city of Colum- bia, makes an ideological assault on the racism and elitism at the heart of American exceptionalism. I remember when I was on the job market in 2015, touring around universities giving talks about digital literature and the future of narrative, BioShock was the only game anyone would admit to playing. The professors, I’m sure, genuinely didn’t play videogames. But I’m positive all the grad students were secretly spending their spare hours on Animal Crossing and Gears of War – they just wouldn’t admit that to a poten- tial future professor.
BioShock was one of the game series I’d given a shot when I was starting to get excited about videogames, around the time Sworcery came out. I truly hated it. I downloaded the original BioShock and BioShock Infinite, all bazillion gigabytes of them, from the App Store, and had been turned off both almost immediately. In the first one, I felt like I was back in Doom, gun in hand, stubbly and muscular and troubled in an ex-military kind of way, descend- ing into some scary world where I would have to shoot a bunch of living things. I stopped playing before I had to kill anything and long before I had a chance to delve into the game’s argument against Ayn Rand. BioShock Infinite held my interest a little longer. I was having fun poking around an early twentieth-century float- ing carnival, checking out the snack stalls and the hat shops, listening to a barbershop quartet anachronistically crooning the Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’ from a miraculously suspended platform. Then, suddenly, brutally, a gun was forced into my hand, I was shooting people – I had no choice – and there was blood everywhere. That jarring transition between the wonder of the floating city and the horror of dead carnival-goers was the most awful thing I’d experienced in a videogame.
Craig explained this as a failure to connect lore to mechanics. Sure, BioShock was informed by a bunch of high concepts inspired by history and religion and philosophy, which is great, and which videogames need. But in its DNA, it’s still as dumb as Doom: it’s a shooter, you run around and kill lots of people. The high-concept lore remains skin-deep – insultingly so – unless you give your players something to do other than shoot stuff. You can’t just squish your big ideas into the existing framework of a stupid viol- ent videogame. You need to fundamentally reshape the gameplay to match the idea. One of the goals of The Future was to create an experience where narrative reality and gameplay were one and the same.
Mugs in hand, we returned to sit beneath the stag’s head. It was time to be initiated into the lore.
The story of The Future begins with a story. In a world some- thing like our own, with a geography somewhat akin to that of earth, there is a place a bit like the USSR. It is a period a bit like the mid-twentieth century, but different. Rather than being domi- nated by ethnic Russians and centred in Moscow, this USSR is led by a people reminiscent of Mongolians, who have consolidated their global power over centuries, descendants of a figure like Genghis Khan. This people is the dominant world power – there is no United States to rival them – and they owe their position of global dominance to technological ingenuity. Theirs is a fully industrialized society whose domestic and military machinery is much more advanced than that of any other civilization. But there are two problems. First, this civilization faces imminent ecological disaster. They have industrialized too rapidly and too completely, and they are rendering their world unlivable. Second, evidence has begun to suggest that this civilization’s mythic belief in periodic planetary cataclysms – year-long meteor showers that destroy all but the most ingenious and farsighted – is not legend but fact. The next such event is due in the coming centuries.
This double threat has brought renewed prominence to a clas- sic literary work that is beginning to look more and more like non-fiction, like prophecy. Toward the end of a period analogous to our nineteenth century, as the first wave of industrialization was coming to a close, there emerged a writer analogous to Tolstoy: a beloved and towering figure remembered as the greatest artist of his time. His masterpiece is a work that blends traditional legend with science fiction. The first part of this work takes place in the deep past, narrating the civilization’s central cultural myth, the story of the female shaman regarded as the nation’s founder. She foresees the first of the planetary cataclysms and, shunned for her unorthodox beliefs, nonetheless succeeds in surviving the apocalypse, sheltering herself and her adherents by tunnelling into a massive, symmetrical mountain, where they live for a full year. The lessons drawn from the shaman’s tale are fearlessness, iconoclasm, ingenuity, and the importance of careful observation: she and her people survive because they noticed the celestial portents, overthrew traditional beliefs in responding to imminent threat, and intelligently harvested the plants and resources necess- ary to survive underground.
The second part of the Tolstoy figure’s book takes place in the distant future, on a different planet. The shaman’s descendants, colonists dispatched from the USSR-like civilization, are living in a settlement whose landscape is dominated by a huge, symmetrical mountain, an echo of the mountain where their civilization took root. They have been called to this distant planet by a signal – a transmission across far reaches of space and time, carried deep into their civilization’s collective unconscious. For centuries these people had dreamed every night of a mountain on a far-distant planet, a shelter to which their civilization could escape before the next meteor shower, predicted to be so powerful that it would destroy their planet completely. Impelled by their dreams, they build equipment that detects an actual radio signal originating from an eons-distant planet. They build ships to reach it, and eventually live there in peace.
Most read the work of this Tolstoy figure as fiction, but others treat it as fact. They too are haunted by dreams of a distant moun- tain, huge and symmetrical, signalling life and survival. As the society’s technology advances, as radio telescopes develop, they are the ones who first hear it: the signal, an uncanny pattern, uninterpretable but unquestionably meaningful, impossible to dismiss as noise. As in the fictional work, in the real life of this civilization, the mythic signal turns out to be real. As telescopes develop, they reveal the source of the signal: a planet, with an atmosphere and ocean, regulated by life. With the threat of cata- clysm and ecological disaster upon them, this civilization unites to send colonists to the planet. It takes decades, or hundreds of years, but they succeed in building the ships and training the pilots to undertake this mission. The crew is placed in suspended animation and, after a thousand-year journey, awake to find them- selves orbiting the planet.
The story as a whole was called The Future. The first slice of it, which Craig was already working on, told the story of the initial contact with the new planet. It was called The Far Shore.
That, at least, is the brutally simplified version of it, as best as I can remember it. It took Craig hours to talk me through all this – it was pitch black by the time he finished. He couldn’t mention the name Genghis Khan, for instance, without getting up and taking his Khan biography off the shelf, telling me about the salient points in his life, all the reasons Craig respected his crafti- ness and survival skills, all the ways that world history would have been different if he’d managed to seed a genuinely dominant global civilization. It was a magnificent performance. Inevitably, my account above will sound cheesy and clichéd and uncomfort- ably like the Wikipedia plot summary of blandly by-the-book sci-fi. You will have to trust me that in the moment it was mesmer- izing, even for a thoroughly cynical, done-with-sci-fi person like myself. Craig had been reading and dreaming and imagining this world, clearly, for many years. He was totally possessed by it. For a few thrilling hours, he laid it all out before me, in such over- whelming detail and massive scope that I was unable to take notes, or take it all in, but just let it hit me like a rogue wave.
Part of the appeal, too, was that Craig seemed to have some kind of role in mind for me in all this. I wasn’t there just to listen. I wasn’t there just to make notes that would someday turn into a book that would serve as a marketing device or give the game a scholarly sheen. Craig repeatedly paused to solicit my advice and input. It was quite clear, for instance, that he thought I knew a lot about Tolstoy, and that this knowledge of mine would allow him to nail down his thinking about this all-important writer-figure, eventually known as Tsosi. Well, I had read War and Peace a few times, and Anna Karenina a few more. I had read Nabokov praise Tolstoy and Bakhtin trash him. But I was really just a fan. My PhD was in twentieth-century British literature: Tolstoy was from the wrong country and century. I remember saying, at one point, ‘You do know Tolstoy never wrote any science-fiction, right?’ That was about the limit of my usefulness.
That didn’t seem to diminish Craig’s faith in my abilities, some- how. I could see, in his intense and earnest eyes, that he believed in me – believed that I could bring something to this project, some kind of intellectual ballast, some kind of shamanic wisdom. The thrill of this stayed with me for the rest of the weekend. It stayed with me that night, when he showed me the stingy, scraggly, clunky demo of a tiny, pixellated ship flying across a roughly coloured landscape, with characters sliding into ships like chess pieces. It stayed with me through a long bus ride back from Magog to Montreal. Walking toward the Gare Centrale to catch my train back to Toronto, I stopped at a Tim Horton’s, which I knew had free wi-fi, and wrote Craig an email on my iPhone 3GS:
Thanks again to you and Jori for being such amazing hosts. I’m really excited about the book and The Future and the future!
To bury my earnestness a little, I added another line:
I’m pretty sure I forgot my travel shampoo thing in your shower, btw. No big loss!
Craig D. Adams sketching JETT's Tsosi, after the likeness of Tolstoy., in ~2013.
Tsosi from JETT: The Far Shore, illustration by Dustin Harbin from ~2020.
JETT co-creator and Superbrothers A/V founder Craig D. Adams in Montreal in October 2021, moments before getting beamed up.
KEEPERS OF THE JETT GEMS
So, it turns out there's a type of gemstone called 'jet'.
According to the Scout OS datacore (wikipedia):
Jet is a type of lignite, the lowest rank of coal, and is a gemstone.
It is derived from wood that has changed under extreme pressure.
Jet is either black or dark brown, but may contain pyrite inclusions which are of brassy colour and metallic luster.
The adjective "jet-black", meaning as dark a black as possible, derives from this material.
The above pic shows JETT gem 001 - Mother's Trigon, a 'JETT gem' made from a triangular chunk of jet, the gemstone.
This gemstone was sourced from Earth's Eurasian steppes, then sharpened and shaped by jewelry design outfit Jane Apothem.
To see more JETT gems, and hear about them, take a look below.
Top level info:
- These one-of-a-kind JETT gems were created by Jane Apothem, inspired by JETT.
- Jane Apothem is a jewelry design outfit, with a shop on Shopify and pics on Instagram.
- These first five JETT gems are destined for JETT Squad adjacent folks.
- For anyone eager to secure their own JETT gem, for themselves or as a gift, read below, then go get a sense for Jane Apothem, then get in touch with JA.
JETT gem 001 - "Mother's Trigon"
Creating "JETT gem - 001 Mother's Trigon" IRL seemed inevitable at a certain point.
As jewelry designer Jane (JA) from Jane Apothem relates:
I got into jewelry as a means of visual storytelling.
I was and am fascinated with the uniquely human history of creating wearable objects.
When JETT: The Far Shore came into my sphere of inspiration, it expanded my horizons.
As the JETT story was being told, I was compelled by the message and aesthetic. It resonated with me, and I wanted to create something in that space.
So we we talked about this, and there was this necklace in-game in JETT that I thought would be an interesting challenge to attempt to replicate.
Then, when we researched the gemstone 'jet', and actually managed to source a piece that fit the project, I couldn't resist.
I had the stone sent to where I live, and spent about a week staring at it, deciding on where and how to tackle shaping the stone precisely while preserving its most compelling features.
Finally I was able to see where to map out the shape, and over the course of a few days, shaped it by hand using a diamond file, stopping for frequent measurements to maintain the integrity of the stone and the balance and geometry of the trigon.
It was my first time working with jet stone, so I was mindfully cautious throughout, but got a feel for it quickly and was very pleased with the result.
Craig D. Adams at Superbrothers A/V said this:
I know nothing about jewelry or gems, but it has been super cool talking to JA about JETT, and then seeing what she dreams up.
The player encounters the Mother character in the first few moments of JETT: The Far Shore, and she wears this necklace. So, this necklaces's name had to be something like JETT gem 001 - "Mother's Trigon".
This gem is being kept here at Superbrothers A/V, in a place of honor.
JA at Jane Apothem:
Once I saw the finished trigon, I knew I couldn’t stop there. I wanted to create a series, so we went back and forth a bit, and here's what we came up with.
JETT gem 002 - Tor Shard
JETT gem 002 - "Tor Shard"
JA at Jane Apothem:
My logo is a hexagon, and I work with that shape often. I had one of these electroplated quartz crystals that I love working with, and showed it to Craig.
When he gave the go-ahead, I paired it with some smokey quartz, black frosted agate, and black/bronze/green freshwater pearls, spaced with tiny flecks of hematite.
I chose a bronze alloy chain to bring out the tone of the pearls.
The complementary textures of rough and smooth, visually translated to lustre and matte was as important to me as the geometry and palette for this piece.
C at Superbrothers A/V:
Inside the mantle of the volcano-like Tor in JETT: The Far shore there's a lot of prismatic hexagonal crystals, as one might expect in a science fiction thing, it's all very much in the style of this satisfyingly chunky thing.
This gem is being kept here at Superbrothers A/V as of now, until a new keeper comes to light.
JETT gems 003 - phosfiend (set)
JETT gem 003 - "Phosfiend (set)"
JA at Jane Apothem:
Early on I had sourced some red jasper pieces to suit a thematic element that was recurrent in JETT.
I wanted a geometric trifecta, so I suspended the trigon shape from a bold stainless steel ring and terminated it with a small hematite cube.
It was a simple design but has an impact, which is sometimes difficult to do.
It helped to have Craig’s editorial eye here.
The matching earrings are simpler still, which allows for the natural texture of the jasper to stand out.
C at Superbrothers A/V:
Phosfiends are these seemingly sentient electromagnetic atmospheric aberrations that lurk in JETT: The Far Shore's later episodes, they're a source of pink light and they have a bit of a trigon motif going on.
These pieces, with the little trigons and ring, are nice and simple.
This gem will be kept by a keeper in JETT's orbit, on Canada's west coast.
JETT gem 04 - Synth Mystic (set)
JETT gem 04 - "Synth Mystic (set)"
Jane Apothem:
I had sent Craig a sample piece I had made using rectangular prisms of dark blue sandstone, which up close has tiny shimmery flecks set in a deep, nearly black hue.
He liked the material, so we chose to create a bracelet and earring set, repeating the theme of threes, playing with complementing geometry of golden electroplated hematite chevrons and dyed agate rondelles.
The bracelet terminates with rough lava stone beads, which play against the smooth monolith of the sandstone.
C at Superbrothers A/V:
Synth mystic is the first character the player encounters in JETT, in a hutt on the steppes.
The synth mystic speaks in JETT's in-universe language, a language that ended up being carved out and created by sound designer and composer Priscilla Snow.
At JETT x MTL, when the JETT Squad was briefly together for some IRL hang-outs in Montreal, this gem was given to Priscilla Snow to keep.
. . . . . . .
If you'd like to secure a JETT gem or something similar for yourself or for a loved one, you might like to go explore Jane Apothem's catalog on Shopify and get in touch.
JA is also somewhat on Twitter @janeapothem and @jettgems.
A JETT BOOK (!?)
Imagery from JETT with paintings by Sam Bradley, assembled by Craig D. Adams for Superbrothers A/V.
Book cover design by Crystal Sikma for Coach House Books.
"It's been great having Adam around in a loose orbit since the start of the project. He'd dip in to see how things were developing and see what headspace we were in.
"I'm excited to see how he captures and condenses our long toil to make something beautiful and fresh. I'm sure it'll be insightful even for us who were in the thick of it."
"In 2011, I was a guy who was writing a dissertation about modernist literature, loved arty movies and post-punk… and hadn’t thought about videogames since high school. Then I played Sworcery and my brain exploded. Suddenly I saw how all my obsessions fit together — how David Lynch and Lydia Lunch and Virginia Woolf were all connected to videogames. What linked them was DIY production.
Since 2013, I’ve been piecing my grand unifying theory of the independent arts together while following the development of JETT. Craig, Patrick, Andy, and the rest of the Squad have been my guides in the world of games. The game they made over those eight long years, JETT, shows all that’s possible in this brave new art form — as well as how unbelievably hard it is to make a game when your vision is uncompromising. It’s a story that hasn’t been told outside the world of indie games. My book, The Far Shore, aims to tell it.
"I'll admit to being a bit too busy of late to actually sit down read this book, but I'm told I'm in it. On our end I feel like we gave Adam some good material to work with, and Adam is good at words, so I bet this is a good book."
"Glad to have something that can go on the shelf for when my kiddoes are a bit older and they start to wonder what Patrick and I got up to for all those years, while they were little, as we steadily carved this videogame project out together."
"I'm told Adam's book takes you to the moment of the videogame's launch, a memorable internet seance with JETT Squad 1.0 folks the night of October 4 2021, as we all looked on together, as if from orbit, as our scouts deployed to find their fate together on the far shore, whatever it may eventually prove to be."
Paper book publishing gear at Coach House Books in Toronto, photo by Adam Hammond.
Author Adam Hammond, photo by Geoffrey Vendeville.
"It was a rush – in every way – to publish this book almost simultaneously with this brilliant game, which is infused with the same indie spirit that animates Coach House."
"Adam does such a great job taking us through the process of making the game and, at the same time, positioning videogames in the movements of different art forms."
"What an honour to be able to make this book!"
- >> Coach House website: https://chbooks.com/Books/T/The-Far-Shore
- >> Coach House Books email: mail@chbooks.com
- >> Publicist - In Canada, James Lindsay, Coach House Books, james@chbooks.com
- >> Publicist - In the US, Caitlin O'Neil, Cursor Literary, caitlin@thinkcursor.com
Patrick McAllister and Craig D. Adams together in Japan in spring 2014, misc photos from Craig's iPhone.In April 2015, Craig invited me to ‘shadow’ the team for a few weeks. This meant listening in on their daily Skype meetings, where they handed off from one side of the globe to the other – one of them summing up a day of work and the other getting ready to dig in. Given how foggy I was on what they’d been doing and what a day of work on a videogame actually looked like, I was eager to check it out.
At this point in development, Craig and Patrick were working in two-week ‘batches,’ each focused on some particular task. In the two-week period of my shadowing, they were working on ‘Ground Control,’ the base/headquarters location in their game world, the place where pilots go to sleep, recharge, and receive their mission instructions. Four mornings in that span, I woke up at 6:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (7:30 p.m. Japan Standard Time), ate some breakfast, made the upper half of my body look presentable, and logged on to Skype. I’d say hello and chat with them for a bit. As quickly as possible I’d turn off my video and lurk in the background, watching and listening to their discussion while remaining unseen and unheard.
To do this every day – to speak for an hour or two daily for years on end – you need to like one another. Craig and Patrick clearly did. They would begin with chit-chat, usually about family life. Craig spoke more and more grandly, looking straight into the camera with his pale intense monk’s eyes, leaning forward, making broad sweeping gestures with his arms. Patrick spoke less, shifting positions frequently, bringing his leg up onto his chair and back down, slouching so deeply into his seat that his face would sometimes be in danger of sinking right out of the frame.
They talked about the movies they’d seen or games they’d been playing. The main topic in those two weeks was Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, which had just come out on DVD. (Neither Patrick nor Craig, having small children, had been to see it in theatres.) The movie had a lot of overlaps with the new game: it was a sci-fi space epic about colonizing a distant planet to ensure a future for a humanity threatened with ecological disaster. Craig considered Interstellar a gorgeous catastrophe whose shortcomings could be instructive for them. He liked the basic premise. If the notion of a crop blight in a future where people only ate corn was perhaps ‘naïve bioscience,’ at least it set a tone: it announced that this was ‘a film intended for thinking people, for adults living in the twenty-first century, for people who might have a family and who are thinking about what the future may hold.’
What it lacked, he said, was ‘grounding.’ On the one hand, it professed respect for science, empiricism, observation, clear- headedness. The hero, played by Matthew McConaughey, is the spokesman for these things, railing against a ‘post-truth’ future that denies history and dismisses the Apollo landings as propa- ganda. On the other hand, as soon as the story sets off for space, it becomes a Saturday morning cartoon. McConaughey – dead set against imprecise retellings of cosmic adventures – becomes the protagonist of an imprecise cosmic adventure. Central threads about planetary survival are left murky or barely resolved. The robots are implausible. It ends in utter nonsense. ‘I’ll go into space with just about any film,’ Craig said. ‘All I ask for is an internally consistent cosmos.’
After the chit-chat, Craig and Patrick would get down to work, which inevitably unfolded as a furious tug-of-war between the grand and the mundane, brilliant ideas and unbelievably boring details. To convey the idea of respecting and attending to the ecosystem of an alien planet, they needed the ecosystem to respond dynamically to player actions. Birds needed to scatter, or not, depending on how quickly you approached them. A great idea, surely, but Craig reported that in his recent playtests, the birds weren’t getting spooked, no matter how much noise he made. Patrick had implemented the bird-scattering code and was positive it was working. He responded, with mock horror, ‘I disbelieve!’
It would be amazing, Craig said, if the game could remember how respectful you’d been to the ecosystem, then subtly punish you if you’d trampled too many bees or spooked too many birds, maybe by making subsequent levels slightly more difficult. That would be awesome, Patrick responded, but this Jerk Mode would be a lot of work to implement. He noted that they should instead perhaps focus on more pressing issues, like the fact that time wasn’t passing in a linear fashion in recent builds – that players would suddenly plunge into night, or enjoy an endless sunrise. ‘Yes,’ Craig responded, ‘but what is our concept for nighttime?’ Like a true Nabokovian artist, he was building a world in which he could control everything, from the strength of gravity to the dila- tion of time. He could also invest all of these things with meaning. ‘Right now, nighttime is a bummer. So what is our concept?’
The shadowing session I remember most clearly took place on the morning of April 13th, 2015. Discussion that day focused on how to create the right atmosphere in Ground Control. Craig spoke about it as a place of refuge: a quotidian, comfortable, protected space, away from the dangers and novelties of the alien world, the one place on this planet that the characters had made for themselves, on their own terms, in their own way. As multi- media storytellers, they would need to create that sense of home through words, sounds, music, 3D objects, and movement.
All of this sounded very exciting until they got down to the business of actually doing it. They started with the game’s dialogue system: a ten-minute discussion about which controller buttons to assign to what dialogue action. They turned to sounds, pulling up an incomprehensibly massive spreadsheet showing every ‘audio asset’ they needed (the sound of a heartbeat, a dropped piece of paper, heavy slow footsteps, light fast footsteps, medium medium footsteps), as well as where it needed to happen, whether it had been created yet by their musical collaborator Andy, and whether it had been implemented. (In my notes for that day, around this part of the conversation, having written nothing for nearly an hour, I wrote, ‘I haven’t fallen asleep. It’s just that this is a very boring discussion.’)
Next they talked about the shape of the building. Craig was drawing it in a 3D modelling program called Maya but having a hard time getting it to transfer into Unity, the program in which they were building the game. Patrick did some Googling and discovered that the key to the problem was something called an FBX Importer. For over twenty minutes, they walked one another through online tutorials for using the FBX Importer. Nothing was working. After a while, I had to go, and I didn’t have the heart to interrupt their discussion about the FBX Importer (Patrick, frus- trated, was asking a mute and unhelpful tutorial, ‘What? What? What? What?’), so I just hung up, resigning myself to a life of always having to wonder – never to know for certain – if and how and when they finally managed to resolve their FBX problems.
JETT'S OUT!
It’s a bona fide thrill to announce that after 1000 years of sustained creative effort, JETT: The Far Shore is out now.
- Get JETT today! Look us up on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and PC on Epic Games Store. Stop by JETT.fyi for project and product details.
- Embark, deploy, investigate, adapt and persevere. Then, if so moved, soak in the official soundtrack, read up on the project, and/or consider helping a tiny team get the word out.
To mark the occasion of JETT’s launch on Tuesday, October 5th 2021, we put a spotlight on scntfc’s song “Jett To Cosmodrome” in this new JETT clip, put together by trailer editor Derek Lieu.
For those of us on JETT Squad 1.0, this clip bottles up so many warm feelings.
Folks, JETT is a DIY moonshot of a videogame.
It’s a pretty absurdly grandiose and heartfelt science fiction vision, carved out over several very pleasant low key years from ~2013 to 2019. The vision was established primarily by two full-time creators, with a composer in orbit, with part time pals plugging in here and there, until the rip-roarin' JETT Squad 1.0 era of 2019 - 2021.
For more about JETT's initial reception, and its thoughtfully segmented design - read on, below.
To hear about topics such as the full blown remote-work production style of the JETT Squad 1.0 era, JETT: The Far Shore's long gestating Official Soundtrack, the emerging JETT discourse, as well as JETT personnel appearing on various shows, plus to get word of any plans for physical goods, you have a few options: stay tuned to the JETT email bulletin (subscribe over at JETT.fyi) and/or check back here at SuperbrothersHQ.com/thelatest, and/or hop on @jettxyz or @craigdadams or anyone else you see with a JETT Squad portrait.
If you've already embarked with us and you're digging JETT, and if you're eager to cheer us on, we ought to be say out loud: now's an opportune time to help JETT out!
If so moved, do spread the word, tell a friend, talk about the project, smash any like buttons you might see, and please, don't be too shy about posting Metacritic user reviews.
This type of project is risky as heck, and while we're feeling great about everything, ecstatic even, it'd help JETT's cause, an increase the odds of 'more JETT', to have y'all pulling for us.
On Monday October 4th, 2021, the JETT: The Far Shore review embargo lifted.
Just as with Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, JETT: The Far Shore is a fresh videogame experience: it doesn’t conform to what has come before, and it defies expectations.
Here’s how Mike Diver put it in his 9/10 review on Gaming Bible, calling JETT “exceptional”. URL
If you like your games to simply be different to what you're used to, to deviate from expectations in real time, and to leave you in awe of their ideas and aspirations, just staring at the screen after it's all wrapped, play this.
For fans of: Shadow of the Colossus, Flower, Solaris (book, movie, remake, take your pick), living inside Radiohead albums, the crushing weight of an existential crisis.
Cass Marshall reports that “JETT: The Far Shore puts the majesty back in space travel” and calls it “an awe-inspiring odyssey” in a positive unscored review on Polygon. URL
Nadia Oxford’s 9/10 review for Inverse described JETT as “2021’s dreamiest existential crisis” and '“one of 2021’s most atmospheric games” in this 9/10 review. URL
Nicholas Kennedy, writing for GameHub, reports that “JETT: The Far Shore is a sombre and reflective meditation on survival, and the morality of how far we’ll go to preserve our future” in this five-star review. URL
For a first at bat in the big leagues of PlayStation and PC videogame production for Superbrothers + Pine Scented, this type of warm initial reception is a triumph, particularly in light of JETT’s long road, its risky and unconventional design and story, and its relatively tiny core team, most of whom had never been on a project remotely like JETT.
Hearteningly, JETT has begun to resonate, and we’re eager for it to find its audiences in the weeks, months and years to come. If so moved, do lend us a hand - it'll be an uphill battle getting JETT out there, particularly in such a busy videogame season.
Meanwhile, on the PlayStation.Blog, JETT co-creator and Superbrothers bozo Craig D. Adams lays out how JETT: The Far Shore’s unusual structure and segmentation came to be, and offers a glimpse at JETT’s memorable prologue and interstellar title sequence. URL
The connections between Jett: The Far Shore and my prior effort as director and co-creator, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, can be felt on several levels. There are vibes in common, let’s say.
Even sworcery’s explicit segmentation – into four “sessions” – has its echo in JETT: The Far Shore.
Towards the end of 0. Embark, JETT’s ~30 minute prologue, JETT’s title card accompanies you to the far shore of this cosmic ocean.
Ghost of Tsushima’s creative co-lead Jason Connell at Sucker Punch, someone who knows a thing or two about title cards and who I’ve been fortunate to call a friend of late, had this to say about JETT’s title card:
“Sure, title sequences are cool but the best ones have the spirit of the game embedded into them. JETT’s title sequence contains a strong spirit. One that propels you forward with excitement and earnest curiosity about what is yet to be discovered.”
Then, prologue over, The Mother Structure securely in orbit, JETT pauses to surface an episode description, explicitly letting you know that, in order to tackle the next episode, a robust feature film length episode named “I. Deploy”, you’ll have to set aside around two hours worth of attention.
You can find all the JETT: The Far Shore posts on PlayStation.Blog here.
If you end up enjoying those posts, please smash the heart-shaped ‘like’ button (visible on PlayStation.Blog on dekstop browsers) on your way out!
"Tsosi's first tsaga taught us where to look - up and out, beyond our skies." Tsaga illustration by Dustin Harbin for Superbrothers A/V.
JETT BUZZ
Folks, JETT has had a pretty stellar week.
Here's an inventory of some recent JETT goings-on.
. . .
On Tuesday, August 24th, we announced that JETT: The Far Shore had 'gone gold' and was complete. We also began posting on Twitter a JETT Squad roll call, if you're looking for some folks to follow.
On Wednesday, August 25th, Geoff Keighley announced JETT: The Far Shore's release date of Tuesday, October 5th 2021. At that moment, pre-orders went live on PlayStation and Epic Game Store.
Then, the third JETT clip was broadcast, offering a look at JETT's tone and story to those 1+ million folks who were able to tune in to Gamescom's Opening Night Live.
Into this mix, JETT co-creator Patrick McAllister from Pine Scented penned a PlayStation.Blog post about the project's inspirations and its all-star squad. For excerpts from this post, see at bottom.
Then on Thursday, August 26th, preview coverage of JETT: The Far Shore began to bubble up!
JETT's an unusual project, risky and innovative and ambitious, a big swing, so we've been eager to learn how it'll go over, and for whom.
It's a sweet relief after a long road to see it start to resonate out there!
Listen to Waypoint Radio for Friday August 27th 2021, linked here, for a deep dive into JETT: The Far Shore.
It was a treat to see some buzz bouncing around out there on Twitter, too.
It's always a treat to see fellow devs say nice things, particularly those who have played JETT.
Now, as promised at top, here are a few excerpts from Patrick McAllister of Pine Scented's PlayStation.Blog post.
JETT began long long ago, even before Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, when Craig D. Adams at Superbrothers A/V and I met. We discovered a resonance, and soon found ourselves discussing concepts involving low-flying jetts leaving long trails zipping across naturalistic landscapes, while evocative music and immersive audio create strong vibes.
In those early days Craig was pretty fired up about Fumito Ueda’s videogames like Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus, as well Motorstorm: Pacific Rift by Evolution Studios, and thatgamecompany's flOwer. You may detect vibes, and even some design sensibilities, in common with those.
For Craig and I, it has been an honor and a privilege to work alongside folks like Looking Glass alumni Randy Smith and Terri Brosius, SIE alumni Nick Suttner, illustrator Dustin Harbin, sworcery maestro Jim Guthrie, plus rising stars such as Priscilla Snow and Sam Bradley, as well as fine folks at vendors like A Shell In The Pit and Skymap Games, all of whom were able to climb aboard in strange times and lend us a helping hand.
For more of this, go to the PlayStation.Blog.
JETT: The Far Shore + _
[ + _ image ]
In the late fall of 2021, JETT: The Far Shore's 2021 ambitious narrative-heavy campaign wound down.
[ tsoultide / khovd / stumble reverently / remembrance ]
It was after the tsoultide, immediately following the hardship and troubles the scouts had to persevere through on gelid Khovd. After some time licking their wounds at Ground Control, the scout marked a ritual of remembrance for the lost Jones before going below decks, to go into torpor.
[ scouts in torpor pic ]
You see, these brave scouts had satisfed all but one of Jao's directives, and there was no further progress to be made given their condition, and with intemperate weather prohibiting further sorties. Protocol dictated the scouts unit should stand down, and await some bright future day.
[ jao and the observers pic ]
Since that time, Jao and the observers aboard The Mother Structure have looked down on the far shore's skittering clouds and endless seas, looking with a keen eye from their low orbit for traces of kolos in the aftermath of Tor's dreadful ignition, and looking for signs of life on Scout's Prospect at Tsosi Massif. The scouts must be in torpor, according to protocol.
[ looking down on planet some flashes type pic? ]
So why then are glints of light are so often seen in the half-light, along the rocky shores of Tsosi Massif? In moments where the intermperate weather thins, these flashes can be observed quite concretely. Their signature evokes that of a jett, with its hops and pops, and that of a brine wisp, with its vivid strobe.
[ a pic of ground control but the grass has grown ]
Jao and her observers have been rendered mute to the ears of the slumbering scouts on the planet's surface down below, who will be snug inside their torpor chambers in the hermitic heart of Ground Control's towers, its bulwharks and buttresses still intact, for years to come.
[ a pic ]
For Jao and her observers, the time since Ground Control went dark has passed fast. From among the thousands of brothers and sisters slumbering in torpor aboard The Mother Structure, a few have arisen to help devise future deployments, helping this haunted people take steps towards putting a root down somewhere. If only Tor's dreadwaves could be understood, and the nature of the wyld and its enigmatic hymnwave invivation could be properly discerned.
[ a pic ]
Meanwhile on Tsosi Massif the seasons have shifted, and shifted again, and inside Ground Control there are new stirrings. With much of Ground Control's machines in hibernation there is a perpetual quiet, broken only by the occasional pad-pad-pad of slippered feet, and a not infrequent the tap-tap-tapping of a teaspoon against the side of a teapot. At other times all is quiet, except the sound of a page turning in a paper book. Late at night, as cosmic orchestra of gloaming and dreadwaves washes over everything, there is the sound of the hymnwave, oscillating with patterns observed by
DELVING DEEPER INTO JETT
Delve deeper into JETT: The Far Shore and get a sense for how it plays in this new clip that debuted on the July 8th 2021 PlayStation State of Play broadcast.
Commentary in this clip is from Craig D. Adams, founder of Superbrothers A/V and creative lead on JETT: The Far Shore. In this clip you'll get ears on more of JETT's stellar musical score, composed by maestro Scnfc.
The JETT squad, a constellation of contributors and vendors scattered across the planet, came together on this clip and this project. Of note for now: this clip was shaped, captured and edited by videogame trailer scholar Derek Lieu. This clip's audio, as well as JETT's audio generally, has been bolstered by the fine folks at A Shell In The Pit.
For a little more context about the clip, head on over to the PlayStation Blog where JETT designer/producer Randy Smith talks about the project's design and how that fancy PS5 DualSense controller feels.
“In JETT, we’ve used the controller’s haptic feedback and adaptive triggers to immerse you in the vast world of the far shore and in the pilot’s seat of your jett: the nuance of walking on foot over different types of terrain, the feel of your jett as it pounces through aerobatic maneuvers, the pull of the trigger as you lay on the surge, and of course crucial gameplay feedback like the buzz of your scramjets starting to destabilize when you push them to their limits.”
First glimpse at the gameplay of JETT: The Far Shore on PlayStation.Blog.
Superbrothers A/V, Pine Scented and Scntfc are very grateful to everyone on the JETT squad, as well as the fine folks at PlayStation and Epic Games, for helping us to make this videogame dream a reality.
It's a thrill for JETT to be resurfacing in the clip above and in the pages of Edge Magzine (below), a little over a year after the project's reveal in the PlayStation 5 Showcase of June 2020.
If you're eager to delve deeper into JETT, or if you'd like to contemplate #sworcery, seek out Edge Magazine #360, on newsstands as of this writing.
This issue of Edge goes in-depth on JETT, with world exclusive first hands-on impressions, plenty of material from co-creators and contributors, a wealth of production artwork, as well as a very fancy cover featuring a portrait of JETT's protagonist Mei by Sam Bradley (link), who was on deck for visual concepts and art direction on JETT from 2019 to 2021. Look below for wallpapers of this artwork.
This issue also looks back at Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, ten years later, with interview material from the project's co-creators, including Nathan Vella, Kris Piotrowski, Jim Guthrie and Craig D. Adams.
It was a bona fide thrill for us all to talk to Edge's Chris Schilling for the articles, and to work with Edge's art director Andrew Hind for the layouts.
The issue's a beauty! Seek it out while it's available.
If you miss it in the shops, here are other options:
Edge 360 is in UK shops now, and can also be ordered for delivery via Magazines Direct. To buy the issue digitally, head to Apple’s App Store or PocketMags.
Alongside all of the above, it's a profound pleasure to announce JETT's production has wound down and the stars are now aligning for our 2021 deployment to PlayStation and PC.
It's almost time for us to embark together, and we're genuiniely thrilled at the prospect of delivering this distinctive DIY science fiction epic to y'all soon.
For now, please consider wishlisting JETT on the PlayStation Store or the Epic Games Store, and hop on the JETT email bulletin at JETT.fyi, and/or follow @jettxyz on Twitter - we'll be in touch with new details soon enough.
JETT: The Far Shore 'Mei' portrait by Sam Bradley - wallpaper 16:9 formatted for desktop.
JETT: The Far Shore 'Mei' portrait by Sam Bradley - wallpaper formatted for mobile.
Edge Magazine 360 features an in-depth feature on JETT.
Edge Magazine 360 also looks at Sword & Sworcery, ten years later.
Superbrothers A/V's Craig D. Adams and Pine Scented Software's Patrick McAllister, JETT co-creators.
In the new clip you'll hear more of maestro scnfc's stellar musical score.
This new gameplay clip was shaped, captured and edited by videogame trailer scholar Derek Lieu aka @Derek_Lieu.
Designer/producer Randy Smith's expertise made JETT possible.
Sam Bradley contributed visual concepts and art direction, helping to steer and sharpen JETT's look.
This clip's audio, and JETT's audio in general, has been bolstered by the fine folks at A Shell In The Pit.
The stars are aligning for JETT's deployment in 2021 - details before too long.
JETT To Deploy In 2021
Revealing JETT: THE FAR SHORE in June 2020 was an absolute thrill, and it has been a delight to uncloak after so long in stealth.
The JETT squad has been moved and motivated by the love, curiosity and support directed our way. We're glad to report we've come a long way in a brief while, and that JETT is shaping up to be something pretty special.
However, as of now it seems we’re in need of more time in order for JETT to soar, and for the squad to complete this interstellar trip in good condition.
JETT: THE FAR SHORE is now fixin' to deploy in 2021 on PlayStation consoles and PC on the Epic Games Store. Hectic times, so we've revised our trajectory. It'll be stellar, when it alights.
While we'll be on the quiet side for a while longer, look to @jettxyz where we’re regularly surfacing JETT gifs.
Meanwhile at JETT.fyi you can subscribe to the JETT email bulletin, where we'll eventually shed some light on JETT and its all-star squad, and where we'll exclusively debut occasional a/v tidbits (such as today's tidbit "Soak In Brine").
If you'd like to delve deeper into JETT's creation myth, and its ties to Sword & Sworcery, we've recently chatted with the folks over at VICE, excerpted below:
“There was this moment of exuberance in the early days of 3D video games in the 1990s where movement through a 3D space was itself novel and compelling and I think JETT is aspiring to that.”
“So with JETT the spark is to keep the feel and fun of something like Motorstorm, with the intricate, interesting, substantial design of Monster Hunter, to say yes to the player’s instinct to go fast and take jumps and offroad, and then to try to interleave some narrative-vibe focused scenes to soak in, so the player has interesting story concepts to contemplate while skimming around.”
“JETT has gone from this tiny little secret thing, to this full blown international conspiracy, and now to this very for-real project that theoretically millions of people have sorta heard of. What a ride.”
JETT : THE FAR SHORE
JETT : THE FAR SHORE ® is the new videogame from Superbrothers, Pine Scented & Scntfc, bolstered by an all-star JETT squad. The project was unveiled June 11 2020 in a Playstation 5 showcase. The official website for the project is at JETT.fyi where you can subscribe to the JETT email bulletin. JETT is on Twitter at @jettxyz. Get in the loop to know more and get a glimpse of new a/v & info. JETT is fixin' to deploy on PlayStation & PC in holiday 2020, please consider embarking with us.
The following announce message from Craig D. Adams, Creative Director at Superbrothers A/V first appeared on the PlayStation.Blog on June 11. (link to PlayStation.Blog post)
Well, it’s been a while!
Now, the time has come.
We’re thrilled to be able to show you something fresh!
Today we’re unveiling JETT : THE FAR SHORE, a new cinematic action adventure that invites you to embark on an interstellar trip. Carve out a future for a people 'haunted by oblivion' while skimming over a sea of sound.
There’s a fair bit to JETT, we hope you’ll dig it!
JETT has had a long road. For a few years we were a skeleton crew, looking ahead and dreaming dreams while carving out JETT’s design and concept. JETT began with me and my old pal Patrick McAllister at Pine Scented as we started to dig into creating a type of videogame we wanted to see in the world. We got rolling when Scntfc climbed aboard very early on to carve out JETT’s score and audio concepts.
To get JETT done, we started pulling other folks in, eventually forming an all-star squad of old and new pals scattered around the world. Together this squad has bolstered JETT’s development, taking it to a new horizon.
So what is JETT : THE FAR SHORE about?
You might prefer to keep wondering and embark blind when JETT is out, later this year.
However, if you would like a light insight into some of JETT’s concepts, read on.
JETT begins with Mei embarking on an interstellar trip, lapsing into torpor aboard the Mother Structure. A thousand years then pass before the first scout unit arises, Mei among them. Together they will deploy to a mythic ocean planet on the far shore of a sea of stars, to seek out a prospective sanctuary for a people on the verge of extinction.
That’s where you will step into the snug space boots of 'jett' scout Mei, who is tasked with mounting up and going aloft in her high speed low flying aircraft.
Mei and her jett co-pilot Isao are ‘chosen by Jao’ - the space program's overseer - to be the first to deploy. Together with the scout unit to which they belong, they are tasked with alighting on the far shore to investigate the apparent source of an interstellar transmission known as 'the hymnwave' that sits at the heart of a cosmic mystery.
You will have to get familiar with the jett’s movement and toolset and strive to understand your surroundings. JETT takes place on an archipelago with pristine coastlines and otherworldly woods, offering up a pretty decent-sized open-world for you to skim around, while getting in and out of trouble and outpacing pursuers. Keep an eye out for occasional massive creatures - the kolos - they’re quite a sight. There’s a linear narrative in here, about scouts coming together to overcome adversity as the story gains momentum and reaches its dramatic conclusion. Just be sure to stick around after the credits -- there’s a whole lot more to JETT if you’re eager to delve deeper.
We’ve had a strong focus on audio and haptics since we carved out JETT’s concept, so of course we’re thrilled about the new DUALSENSE controller. As for what the PS5 uniquely offers in terms of 3D audio processing: it’s revelatory, and it’s a great fit for JETT. This may sound silly, but with the PS5 it's as if you really have ears in a videogame for the first time. There is suddenly an unprecedented fidelity available for perceiving audio spaces.
ADDITIONAL INFO:
- PlayStation.Blog - Carve out a future: Jett: The Far Shore deploys to PS5 holiday 2020.
- JETT : THE FAR SHORE official website & JETT email bulletin subscription
- @jettxyz official Twitter feed
slow cookin'
In 2018 the staff at Superbrothers HQ maintained their sole focus on an as-yet-unannounced new videogame project while the world we've all known slips away.
This new project is lightly described at Superbrothers HQ / videogames (link) as:
- the second videogame from superbrothers, slow cookin' for a good while
- a follow-up of sorts to sworcery only with no sword, no sworcery and no hard-edged pixels
- expect something fresh, approachable - some style, some soul - only with breadth & depth
- as of Q4 2018 - the creation process has been a pleasure thus far & it's comin' together
No further information is available at this time.
To be notified when some news eventually breaks, there are some options on our contact page.
Meanwhile, elsewhere...
The same olde fashioned cult classic, only now on a Nintendo.
Capy ported Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP to the Nintendo Switch. Link.
Rig it up to the television home theatre & use a joycon as a remote for a fresh experience, or enjoy it on headphones, handheld with touch and/or more traditional videogame controls.
An outstanding, somber, wondrous new synth-heavy score by sworcery maestro Jim Guthrie.
Jim Guthrie released songs from the BELOW OST to accompany the launch of Capy's BELOW - be sure to give it a listen. Link.
Immaculately-crafted, brutally hard-edged, hauntingly remote monument to videogames.
Capy published the long-anticipated videogame BELOW on PC & X-BONE.
The staff at Superbrothers salute the folks at Capy, the creators of BELOW, on this project's launch. Link.
so long ago
I know you seek to avoid your fated martyrdom but know this: time is a force and it will surely take its course.
Jim Guthrie: Who Needs What
Q2 2015
In the spring of 2015, Andrew Hood's book Jim Guthrie: Who Needs What was published by Invisible Publishing. The book features artwork by staff at Superbrothers HQ.
If you enjoy Jim's music and you'd like to know a little more about the man and the mystery including his folk hero origin story, the creation of his remarkable records, as well as his more recent adventures in videogames, then you ought to step on over to Invisible Publishing's website for the relevant information and links.
- Jim Guthrie: Who Needs What - book by Andrew Hood
The book's author Andrew Hood created an epic Jim Guthrie mixtape to go along with the book, it's worth a listen.
- Documenting Perks 2 - Jim Guthrie mixtape by Andrew Hood
A high quality print from Superbrothers titled "Jim Guthrie & His Litter" is available from Chicago's VGA Gallery. This artwork was originally created for a Jim Guthrie gig in April 2010, during the production of Sword & Sworcery. A similar scene appears in Sword & Sworcery late in Session III.
- Jim Guthrie & His Litter - high quality print by Superbrothers via VGA Gallery
For a limited time this print can be purchased with a 15% discount, use the offer code 'GUTHRIE'.
. . .
Here are a few hastily typed words from Superbrothers staff:
I had intended to get a post up around the book's launch, so here we are.
I've had Andrew's manuscript on-hand for a little while, but with a demanding as-yet-unnannounced new videogame project on-the-go and a ten month old baby in the house my available reading time has been at an all-time low... so let me shame-facedly admit that I started in on the book this morning.
Boy, it's genuinely great so far.
Jim's a fascinating guy, that much I knew, but it turns out Andrew's a mighty fine writer.
I've always been curious about the mythic 'home rock' days in Guelph in the 90s, young Jim's origin story, the early days of Royal City and Three Gut Records. It's pretty interesting to hear about the warmth, generosity and DIY spirit that has flowed around and through Jim all these years.
Here's a little tidbit from early on in Andrew's book that I love:
"...whatever punk was and continues to be is essentially an ongoing granting of permission - a constant reminder that what's being done inside a pre-existing system can just as easily be done outside of it."
I'll read the book through over the next few days and revisit this post, but for now I'd just like to say that Jim has loomed large over the whole Superbrothers thing. Jim and Jim's music have been a reliable source of inspiration to me for years, his strange made-on-Playstation instrumental music stirred my Superbrothers pixels to life, first in the pixel films starting in 2005 and later in videogames from 2009.
It was a dream come true to create Sword & Sworcery together with Jim and Capy, Jim's music was a primary inspiration for me throughout, and it has been a profound thrill for me personally that the project helped deliver Jim's particular musical spirit to a broad audience of videogame-playing people.
I've had the Superbrothers pixels in cold storage for a little while now, but it was an honor to warm them up long enough to decorate Jim and Andrew's book.
Artwork by Superbrothers created for a Jim Guthrie concert poster in April 2010, now available as a print.
YOU: A NOVEL
Artwork created by Superbrothers staff for the book YOU: A Novel by Austin Grossman, published by Mulholland Books.
Q2 2013
In the spring of 2013, Austin Grossman's second book YOU: A Novel was published by Mulholland Books, this book featured artwork by staff at Superbrothers HQ.
The book was met with a generally quite positive critical response. The Guardian described it as "...arguably, the first literary product of gamer culture, and a significant addition to the canon of geek lit."
Staff at Superbrothers had this to say about YOU:
Terms like 'gamer' and 'geek lit' make me itch, but speaking as someone who has grown up with videogames, and as someone actively involved in the process of creating them, I'm very grateful for YOU. It's a great, readable book with an engaging storyline and a perceptive, poetic insight into what makes videogame worlds and their creators tick. I recommend it.
Here is Austin Grossman, the author of YOU, describing how his experiences as a veteran videogame creator helped shape the book.
Note: Excerpts below are from Evan Narcisse's article These Games Made You published on Kotaku, that article is linked below this post (or here: link to kotaku), excerpts re-published here with permission.
"In my novel You, Russell Marsh quits law school in 1998 and gets a dream job at Black Arts Games, a small, critically acclaimed game studio in Cambridge, MA, making video games with his old friends (and one-time crush) from high school. He's rediscovering the thrill of pulling all-nighters at the dawn of a whole new medium, when he finds a weird bug in the software that might destroy their entire business. He begins tracing the bug from its start in 1983 through fifteen years of video game history, through all the interconnected games of Black Arts's different franchises.
You is a mystery story and it's a story about friendship, but it's been pointed out that it's also a capsule history of the game industry itself. And part of the fun of writing it was creating an alternate world of 80s and 90s video gaming, making up games that evoked the charm and fun of each phase of game history, fake versions of LucasArts style adventure games, roguelikes, RPG's, C64 games and Sega Genesis games, each with its period charm, characters and quirks.
It has also been pointed out that I myself worked at a small, critically acclaimed game studio in Cambridge MA in the mid-Nineties, called Looking Glass Studios, and some of the games I'm describing have a family resemblances to games we actually made like System Shock andUltima Underworld. I'm going to try and get out in front of the real/fictional debate and lay out a few of You's influences - the games behind the games - to forestall both accusations of plagiarism and potential legal action."
On the origins of Black Arts Games:
"You takes place over a fifteen-year span, following the same four people and the same four game characters between 1983 and 1998, while their lives change and the game industry changes around them. Ultima was my touchstone for what happens to a game franchise that continually mutates and adjusts to new graphics technologies and design ideas. It's the first experience I had of revisiting a fictional place, Britannia, and seeing it through the lens of different technologies, watching as the places and characters I had imagined from tile-based graphics on an Apple II, sprout color and definition and depth over the years. It's a unique feeling. There's a sense of wonder as you gain a newfound window into the fantasy otherworld, mixed with disappointment as the place you imagined is banished by the "real" one."
About Nick Prendergast & the Clandestine series:
"The Last Express is a legendary game by Jordan Mechner (Karateka, Prince of Persia), lost for many years but recently released for iOS. It's an adventure game, a branching story of mystery and intrigue set on the Orient Express in 1914, at the brink of the First World War. It's an original, a moment when someone used the CD-ROM technology to re-imagine what video games could be (as Myst had done). The Last Express is elegant, grown-up, multilingual, beautifully hand-drawn over rotoscoped actors in an art nouveau style. It was a critical hit and financial failure, but offered a glimpse of a road not taken for games.
In the novel, Clandestine is The Last Express reimagined, closer to a LucasArts adventure game: A young man, Nick Prendergast, is recruited to spy on Parisian high society in 1938 and swept up in a world of romance and intrigue in the last moments before historical disaster overtakes Europe. I wanted to imagine, in the same way, an interactive adventure set in a glittering lost world. In the novel, of course, the world sees the game's genius and makes it a hit. Until…
The tide of history changes all of us, even in video games. In the early 1990's first-person shooters have their impact, and the character of Nick Prendergast is re-imagined for the first-person shooter genre. Clandestine 1 took place in the drawing rooms of Paris, but inClandestine 2 through 7, the elegant young spy is retconned into a Cold War killing machine, a thick-necked, chain-gun-slinging Duke Nuke'Em knockoff who roams underground corridors gunning down Eastern Bloc guards and snapping necks in hyper-kinetic action set-pieces. Not that there's anything wrong with that! I tried to bring in some of the over-the-top feeling of the best late-nineties shooters. A little Duke Nuke'Em, a little GoldenEye."
A science fiction videogame from Black Arts Games:
"I worked on the first System Shock in 1994, precursor to System Shock 2, and of course some of its creative DNA was grafted into Bioshock. writing the initial design doc before leaving for grad school the first time. I pitched four or five different versions of the story before we agreed on the final choice - the derelict space station, the hacker, the rogue AI - but one of them stayed with me. By no coincidence, the fictional Black Arts Games makes an immersive first-person shooter with 1994-era technology, and thus YOU was my chance to develop the System Shock that could have been!
It stars a teenage girl, raised in the asteroid belt, who steals a spaceship and runs away from home. She stumbles on an enormous, ancient spaceship - a starship, actually, humanity's first interstellar colony ship, a self-contained ecosystem designed to cross to Alpha Centauri over thousands of years. But it never made it. Its AI went haywire, the ship stalled in the solar system, while civilization outside the ship collapsed, and inside, the ship's crew forgot their mission, and divided into warring tribes. Humanity's future is still there, hanging in the balance.
Of course, I pitched this in 1995, when interstellar travel was out and cyberpunk was in, and the idea of a teenaged girl as a player character looked a great deal riskier. I'm not complaining - the System Shock we got was brilliant. But I missed that story, and I'm satisfied to have finally given it its due."
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- Text excerpts above are posted with permission from the article These Games Made You from Evan Narcisse at Kotaku and author Austin Grossman. link to kotaku
- For another article about YOU: A Novel here is The Novel That Will Change How People Think About Video Games from Kotaku's Evan Narcisse and author Austin Grossman. link to kotaku
- The above artwork can be viewed here on Superbrothers HQ. link to artwork
- The book was featured as an Editor's Pick for the month of April 2013 at Amazon and on the iTunes iBookstore. The book can be purchased from independent booksellers as well.
- YOU's author Austin Grossman is on Twitter at @austin_grossman, he also maintains a website.
- YOU reviewed in The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/may/17/write-life-lived-on-computers
FZ Sides F & Z
Detail from an illustration by staff at Superbrothers HQ created for a pair of FEZ remix records called FZ, excerpted and linked below.
Q2 2013
In the spring of 2012, the videogame FEZ by Polytron Corporation launched alongside the accompanying record FEZ: Official Soundtrack by composer Disasterpeace. One year later in the spring of 2013 the videogame FEZ launched again, this time for the computer, alongside two remix records FZ: Side F and FZ: Side Z.
The first remix record includes a remix from Jim Guthrie, the second remix record begins with a remix from Scntfc, both have been embedded below in this post so you might hear them. Jim Guthrie and Scntfc have a history with Superbrothers and the Sword & Sworcery music/videogame project. The artwork above and below have been created by Superbrothers staff as a tribute to FEZ and to accompany these two remix songs.
There are several connections between the Toronto-founded Superbrothers and the Montreal-headquartered Polytron Corporations, and it might be observed that there are some stylistic sympathies that exist between Sword & Sworcery and FEZ, as well as a few instances of overlapping iconography (eg. owls, mushrooms), some of which appears in the artwork above.
To listen to the remix records in their entirety or to purchase them you may find a link to Disasterpeace's record shop below this post, or from right here. link to disasterpeace
Illustrations created by Superbrothers staff for Jim Guthrie & Scntfc's remixes of Disasterpeace's FEZ score.
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- All three FEZ records can be listened to and purchased from composer Disasterpeace. link to disasterpeace
- FEZ, the videogame, is available on Microsoft's videogame console and on the Windows-compatible computer. link to polytron
- FZ artwork has been added to Superbrothers HQ, high resolution files too. link to artwork link to files
inconsolable
Most of the artwork in this post was captured by staff at Superbrothers from a playthrough of Sword & Sworcery's climactic Session IV. The funeral pyre painting excerpted below was is by Superbrothers staff and it was included in the physical package for Scntfc's Moon Grotto 7".
Q2 2013
Since its initial release on iPhone and iPad in the spring of 2011, and subsequent 2012 releases on other platforms, hundreds of thousands of people have played Sword & Sworcery, perhaps as many as one million - truly a staggering number. The audience's response has been largely positive: a great many people have enjoyed what they've seen, heard and played. No doubt the majority of the audience's responses were formed in the first few minutes of play, or in the first half hour or so, as the audience adjusted to the distinctive style and sound. Of course, as with all videogames, only a minority of this vast audience will have had the time, interest and opportunity to return to Sword & Sworcery and see it through to the end.
In the last two years we have been fortunate enough to receive many touching letters and messages from audience members. Some have written in to speak about their love and affection for the project and its world, others have written about how the project has been a source of inspiration and motivation for them, which is encouraging for us to hear. We've heard about how the experience of playing Sword & Sworcery brought some people together with their child, parent or loved one. A few have written in to talk about how the project moved them, how it shook them, or how it helped them through a tough time, an illness, a loss.
For those few people who have finished Sword & Sworcery none of this will come as a surprise, but for anyone with only a passing familiarly with the project, some of the responses listed above may seem incongruent. After all, Sword & Sworcery is outwardly known for its deliberately mispelled logo and name, its retro-inspired aesthetic, and its joke-heavy text and self aware presentation. There is a kind of ironic detachment to the public-facing tone of the project that has understandably been interpreted as a kind of insincerity or a pose, and this apparent insincerity has come to define the project in the eyes of many.
As comics author and videogame critic Mr. Kieron Gillen writes in his artlcle about Sword & Sworcery on Rock Paper Shotgun:
"It’s a game which tries to keep a sense of wonder intact, and all the while undermining it with the cast’s world-weary, urbane cool."
"It’s all irony as a way of life, implicitly understanding that the people you’re talking to will recognise the multiple layers you’re communicating on."
Thankfully, Mr. Gillen didn't stop there. He was engaged enough to play Sword & Sworcery through to the end, and his write-up continues:
"Its insincerity is a mask. It’s the most sincere, unironic game I’ve played in ages."
"It covers it with layers of irony, but it’s based on a sincere belief that this shit means something. It could come across as being embarrassed of what it is, except it's more like shyness. As in, what it’s talking about is too important to be approached directly and crassly. You have to joke about it, because if you took it seriously, it’ll shatter."
"This is achieved in everything else other than the tiny snippets of dialogue. It’s genuinely beautiful, with moments of stark evocative beauty, sharp with strangeness."
Mr. Gillen's write-up, linked below, struck a chord with us. It brought into relief the perceptual divide that exists between the few who have seen Sword & Sworcery 'unmasked' and those who haven't. Admittedly, it takes a fair amount of dedication to persevere through the more challenging obstacles, opaque mysteries and lapses in audience engagement that appear in Session II and Session III to witness the story's conclusion in Session IV, where the project's true heart is wordlessly revealed.
One of the more moving letters we have so far received was written by Ms. Erica Mathews. This letter arrived during the launch of Sword & Sworcery in Japan in June 2012, and it is distinguished by the intensity of the loss felt by Ms. Mathews, who at one point describes herself as 'inconsolable'. This response struck a chord with us, and we have excerpted some of this letter, published below alongside relevant imagery from Session IV of Sword & Sworcery. Ms. Mathews's original letter has been published in-full at her web journal Path of Pins, linked below.
[ SPOILER ALERT ] Please be advised that what follows will reveal the ending of Sword & Sworcery.
Audience member and Sword & Sworcery participant Erica Mathews writes:
"...Sword & Sworcery’s constant reminders of the player’s presence, combined with its distinct aesthetic and easy-yet-engaging gameplay, made for the most completely absorbing video game I have ever experienced. Its violations of the conventional boundaries of game and reality and periodic discussion of the player’s psyche made me feel like I was engaged in an experiment, as much upon the world of pixels before me as upon myself. The game’s setting and characters felt that real to me."
"Memories of the day’s progress in the story relaxed me to sleep several nights; as an insomniac with a tendency to see the sinister in the most innocent of media, I can tell you that this is an accomplishment in itself, that the experience was purely positive while I played."
"But I meander still. To get closer to my point, if such a point exists, let me speak of The Scythian."
"I wanted to help her, to accompany her on her woeful errand. In the end, I think I truly wanted to be Cosmic Friends Forever."
"Perhaps I should praise the writers for actually breaking the law of protagonic immortality."
"Perhaps it would have been trite if the Scythian had survived her woeful errand."
"Perhaps it also speaks to her courage and selflessness that she should pursue her quest, knowing the final consequences."
"Whether or not this is the case, the Scythian’s fate as a martyr hit me like a blind curve at 80mph. I don’t think I started to wonder if she would indeed die until Dogfella’s Megatome entries explicitly mentioned martyrdom somewhere in the third session."
"Perhaps if I had, I would not have taken the Scythian’s death so unhappily."
"As it stands, I have been overwhelmed with grief since the end of the game–unexpectedly so, since, after all, it was Just A Game. "
"I hesitate to even listen to the soundtrack in spite of its great beauty and positive associations, afraid that it will only remind me of how upset I was when I watched the final scene..."
"...how I kept hoping the Scythian would be alive somehow when Logfella scooped her out of the river..."
"...and how I had to finally resign myself to her death at the funeral pyre."
"If I could travel to the Caucus Mountains and find the spot, my tears would pour out on the meadow where her ashes were scattered."
"In my mind, at least, I do travel there, seeking solace from her promise of eternal cosmic friendship."
"I remain inconsolable."
The above are excerpts, the letter in full can be found at path of pins, it is also linked below.
Staff at Superbrothers had this to say about The Scythian's tragic martyrdom:
She is separate from me, and her soul belongs to everyone involved in the project, but it could be said that I created The Scythian, in that I painted her and her animations, I painted the locations through which she travelled, my initial concept of her laid the foundation for the collaborative work to come, and my initial concept of the project - "a crude videogame haiku about life, love and death" - suggested a tragic finale.
All of the concepts in Sword & Sworcery were the result of the three-way creative collaboration between Superbrothers, Capy and Jim Guthrie. That said, as the sole artist, animator, writer, cinematographer etc etc it was up to me to visually design and paint the finale at the summit of Mingi Taw, and it was up to me to paint and animate the little sequence that follows, including the funeral pyre scene. I had a weird mix of emotions going in, but mostly I was excited and a bit relieved. After all, we were at long last building the end of the story, which meant the project was inching closer to completion.
What's more, I knew in my heart that this was the right ending for the project. It had to be this way, because... well... because people die. Sometimes, most times, this can be hard to rationalize. It just is. Often it's a long time coming, other times it's abrupt, and there are cases where it's somehow both at once. Often it's hard, often it's kind of beautiful, and often it's both and it just tears your heart out... and then you're lost in a shambles of thoughts and memories... and eventually, once enough time has elapsed, you breathe... and you maybe move on, kind of, because you have to, because you're still alive.
Even though I felt we were on exactly the right path, the painting process was no picnic. In fact, it was a profoundly, intensely heartbreaking experience. These final tragic scenes last only seconds for the audience, but I lived in these moments for hours, and I had lived with The Scythian for every waking minute, through some challenging times, for over a year.
Logfella stands at the water's edge in the gloom, an object floats ashore. He leans on one knee, grips The Scythian's corpse and lifts it, dripping. I'm adding and removing pixels, adding frames, changing the timing of each frame. Click click click click, copy paste copy paste, click click click click, select and move, copy paste, click click click click.
I painted the funeral pyre, building up the shape and the structure, adding details to suggest the texture of wood and stone, placing it in the meadow to see how it would look. Click click click click, copy paste, select and move, stamp stamp.
The time eventually came for me to copy, rotate and paste The Scythian's corpse, placing it atop the pyre. This whole time I've had Jim Guthrie's immortal song Little Furnace on a loop, this is the song that will play through this epilogue, I know which musical phrase will define which moment, bringing them to life with a depth of beauty and sadness. It's late at night, I'm alone, my little pixel friend is dead, and there's no going back. Why am I so broken up? I knew this was going to happen all along, in fact this sequence probably should've been painted and completed weeks ago, maybe even months ago... but now that it's happening I realize I'm not ready, it's too soon... and I'll be honest with you, I'm fucking weeping this whole time.
I begin to animate the fire. Click click click. This is it, this is goodbye, I loved you, I love you, thank you.
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- Read Erica Mathews' full letter on her web journal Path of Pins. link to path of pins
- Read Kieron Gillen's write-up on Rock Paper Shotgun. link to rock paper shotgun
- We've added some Sword & Sworcery items here on Superbrothers HQ. go to videogames
the woods of quebec
sound shapes
The clip above was created by Mark Rabo with Jon Mak and Queasy Games.
SUMMER 2012
Sound Shapes began as a conversation between Jon Mak, creator of Everyday Shooter, and Shaw Ham Liem aka I Am Robot & Proud. Both of them are fluent in music, art and computer science. Fittingly, Sound Shapes is an intuitively programmable videogame-themed instrument and playback device with a focus on a/v style.
Sound Shapes is the work of a collective, the creation process was unusual and the project features a/v contributions by Beck, deadmau5, 6955, Mathew Kumar, Cory Schmitz & many more. The project also presented an opportunity for some of the creators of Sword & Sworcery to explore some new territory.
At 1:47 in the clip above Jon Mak says:
"Some pixels from Superbrothers, who collaborated with Jim Guthrie, for the Superbrothers X Jim Guthrie record."
Meanwhile on the Capy side of things, there's a record in Sound Shapes spearheaded & art directed by Vic Nguyen, one of the creators of Super TIME Force. There's also a record by PixelJam, the creators of 2005's Gamma Bros. Everyone involved had to grapple with the newness of Sound Shapes and strive to create something memorable.
The staff at Superbrothers had this to say:
"On behalf of the staff at Superbrothers HQ: thank you, Sound Shapes team, it was an honor to be involved and we're looking forward to playing this thing through."
Sound Shapes is a videogame for Vita and Playstation 3, available via the Playstation Network. Play it if you want to relax and/or if you're feeling creative.
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- Read Mathew Kumar's post for Sound Shapes launch day.
- Read an older post by the staff at Superbrothers about Sound Shapes.
- Here is a recent article on the topic of Capy's Super TIME Force.
scntfc's moon grotto 7"
The clip above was created to accompany the launch of Scntfc's Moon Grotto 7".
The Moon Grotto is a hidden location in #sworcery with a lunatic soundscape by Scntfc, who also handled the number station transmission & related materials.
Scntfc's Moon Grotto 7" includes a remix of the original 'lunatic soundscape' as well as a remix of Jim Guthrie's immortal song Ballad of the Space Babies. Get the limited edition gatefold vinyl while supplies last or listen to it via Scntfc's internet record shop.
: the clip
The clip above was created by staff here at Superbrothers HQ with the original Moon Grotto sound recording by Scntfc. The visual elements in the clip are adapted from the analog package design for the limited edition vinyl release of Scntfc's Moon Grotto 7". Most of this clip was created in Unity and filmed on an iPhone. Some macroscopic footage from Scntfc's ongoing Undone project is in the mix too.
"For anyone who was moved by the very ending of #sworcery: please enjoy a new painting 'a pale fire' on the inside of the package, it is intended to stir some feeling connected with the end of The Scythian's story.
"Creating the clip presented an opportunity for us to get familiar with Unity, and clumsily try to back into the groove with 3-D in general. Please to enjoy.
: the record
Some of the otherwordly concepts as well as Scntfc's involvement in the Sword & Sworcery project began as conversations with Brandon Boyer at Venus Patrol.
"A few moons pass and (Mr. Boyer) mentions this secret project that involved some secret audio things and he asked if I would maybe want to help make those secret things a reality. I was then introduced to the staff at Superbrothers, kind words were exchanged, ideas were bounced around between the three of us, and soon we began carving a temple to the moon in the rocky slopes of the foothills of Mingi Taw.".
"(The lead-up to the launch of Venus Patrol) was the perfect opportunity to craft a real object that would round out that tiny corner of the #sworcery universe... and thus... the Moon Grotto 7" was born."
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Portrait of scntfc aka @scntfc aka Andy Rohrmann, illustration by Steve Courtney.
Front cover of Scntfc's Moon Grotto 7", illustration by staff at Superbrothers HQ.
Moon Grotto 7" package, design by Superbrothers staff, photographs from Scntfc.
- The limited edition vinyl of Scntfc's Moon Grotto 7" has been mailed out to the backers of the Venus Patrol Kickstarter, contact Venus Patrol (shipments@venuspatrol.com) for any concerns related to shipping.
- There may be a few vinyl copies left over from the initial shipment, order yours now from Scntfc's internet record shop before they're all gone. Note: Most vinyl are black, some are white, a randomly distributed precious few are pink.
- The songs from Scntfc's Moon Grotto 7" and a few related moon grotto sound recordings are available for download via Scntfc's internet record shop.
- Here are two full-length Scntfc records you might like to seek out & listen to. The first, mentioned above, is The Saints of Infinity. The second, released in the last month, is Undone. Both are quite nice.
this is the latest
SUMMER 2012
So... what's the latest from Superbrothers HQ?
This is our sparkling new public-facing journal, where the latest a/v items will eventually appear.
Feel free to bookmark 'the latest' at Superbrothers HQ at this url: /thelatest
For some other ways to stay in the loop with us you'll probably want to stop by our write-up on the HQ.
