An indie game based on Winsor McCay's groundbreaking comic strip.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
"Let's Go To Slumberland!" title theme reveal by Wayne Strange
over 2 years ago
– Sun, Jun 12, 2022 at 01:29:23 AM
Hey folks - Chris here. We're showing the latest demo game at the Origins Game Fair this weekend and will have lots of updates and info to share with you this week (including some news on papercraft figures and something about sharing the demo with our beta tester backers...)
Wayne Strange, our most excellent composer, has a very special surprise for you though, so we'll give him the stage!
“You know, I’m almost seven now!”
The needle drops on this humdinger, as at long last we unveil the game’s title theme, Let’s Go To Slumberland. The song was composed, performed, and mixed in a stylistic marriage between the music of a 1920’s phonograph record and an early television show opening, an exchange between the vocalist and Nemo himself as they reminisce over past adventures in Slumberland. As a side note, can we talk about how fun woodwind parts were back then? So brash!
Vocals were performed by composer Wayne Strange, along with Stephanie Snyder on the part of Nemo.
Lyrics below:
Say, do you recall the moonlit skies in Slumberland, (You bet I do!)
Where rockets soar and the nights are never long enough? (Come on, give me five more minutes here!)
Don’t worry when a big ol’ turkey plucks you up and carries you off!
Just close your eyes, (Surprise!) and you’re on your way, my child! (You know, I’m almost seven now…)
To a land unseen where aberrant dreams run wild.
With crystal queens a-breakin’ (What?!)
(Why’s my heart a-shakin’?)
Well, I’m certain that you haven’t been—
(It’s likely that you haven’t been—)
Okay, you may have been beguiled. (Oh no!)
So grab a friend by the hand! (By the hand! Doot, doooo.)
And have a stroll through Slumberland. (Slumberland.)
The grandest, peculiar-est kingdom that’s ever been styled! (Ever been styled—ever been styled—ever been styled!)
Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends!
Music preview 3 from guest writer Wayne Strange!
over 2 years ago
– Sun, May 15, 2022 at 06:38:35 AM
You’re on thin ice, clown!
We’ve got a very special update for you this time, as our favorite little troublemaker, Flip, makes his musical debut in the style of Ragtime, befittingly performed on a busted piano. Nemo will have to catch him on the run if he hopes to prevent the High Price Ice Company from disassembling Jack Frost’s castle!
Not cool, Flip.
The March 10, 1907 episode of Little Nemo in Slumberland, upon which Flip's appearance in the Ice Palace will be based. Flip says in the comic that his favorite music is ragtime, so that's inspired his theme in the game!
More to come soon ;)
~ Wayne
04/21/22 update - game over animations, physics, and the core game loop
over 2 years ago
– Sun, Apr 24, 2022 at 12:29:09 AM
Hello Dreamers!
I just wanted to post a quick update to share some of our latest stuff.
We're continuing to refine the characters' physics after some great feedback from other developers and will hopefully have something to share with you on that soon. At this point we're trying to find and work through edge cases in the game's physics so that it plays as smooth as possible.
"Wake up Nemo!"
We're also working on the game's core loop, including connecting the levels to Nemo's house with a cool "wake up" sequence. Since the game takes place on a newspaper printed world, we're leaning into that by having the dream tear away and leave Nemo floating in the space between while he waits for the player to choose whether to stay in the dream or go back to the house. Here are some previews of the assets we're using to make that happen:
The rip effect in Blender, we're using a rigged plane and will render the game's image onto the plane when the game over happens. We'll shade the plane in-engine with a dissolve effect to get the paper to more fully tear away.
Inked lines for Nemo's tumble animation, all based on poses from Winsor McCay's comics!
We'll keep you updated as these effects are all brought together.
Team Nemo on Twitter
Lastly, we've started a new dedicated Twitter account for Team Nemo! It can be found at the link below so please follow and share it with your friends so they can get the latest on the game!
In terms of fulfillment, we're moving forward on items and will be ramping up that process in the coming months. Look for your Discord roles to be implemented soon too!
Many thanks,
Chris and Team Nemo
4/22/22 Discord link post
over 2 years ago
– Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 10:03:36 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Little Nemo pre-GDC update
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Mar 15, 2022 at 11:59:47 AM
Hello dreamers!
We apologize for being silent the past few weeks. We've recently had some run-ins with COVID on our end but are all recovered and back to it. We've also been keeping our heads down getting game development stuff done in anticipation of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco as well as some other upcoming opportunities. The good news is that the time spent focusing on development has really yielded some great progress!
Gameplay updates
As we've said before, after the campaign last year, we started rebuilding the characters from scratch into a more final and stable form. If you've never put together characters in a video game before, making the art, animation, collisions, and all other technical parts of 1 character is tough, let alone 4! We're glad to say though that Nemo, Peony, Flip, and the Princess of Slumberland with their different platforming and combat abilities are finally in the game in their more finalized and stable forms, along with a radial menu for swapping between them at the press of a button.
While there are some small-scale refinements to make, we have also started to flesh out the design of our levels. We've built out Nemo's house and most of the Night Sky, with production on the Mushroom Forest beginning in earnest soon. We've overhauled and tightened up the story and will begin work soon on our scripting system. We've also laid the groundwork of our enemy systems, so expect new monsters in these previews soon!
On the artwork end, I'll be working on characters in the coming weeks as well as continuing to flesh out our levels. We've also started to finalize our audio asset list with our composer, so look forward to updates on the soundtrack soon!
Incorporating artwork based on Winsor McCay's original comics in the Night Sky.
The Mushroom Forest
As Nemo explores the house, there will be some fun Easter Eggs to find!
In this "grayboxed" level area (meaning that we haven't added finalized art yet), you can see how character swapping is a quick and fluid process thanks to our radial character menu.
Fulfillment update
Regarding reward fulfillment, we're starting work on that process now. We're going to begin with some of the gameplay-relevant digital content like backers with custom interactive characters (at the Silas tier) first. We're also going to be adding everyone's Discord roles soon. We'll start reaching out to backers with VIP (animated and non-animated) rewards as we put in all the levels later this year so that we can find a good place for everyone in Slumberland.
If you're testing the game for us ($75+), look forward to news on that soon. We're still finalizing plans, but our hope is to get demos in the hands of backers soon for testing!
Physical rewards will take a little longer, as we're still working on the game itself and we want the content of those rewards to reflect the whole project - art and music for the whole game - and not just preview materials. We'll keep everyone updated though as we continue the process!
Social media
If you want some of the absolute latest on the game as it happens, don't forget to follow some of our social media channels, where we update with screenshots as we are working. The game's Facebook page can be found at this link. You can also follow Ben, Adrian, or I at our Twitter accounts (lined in this sentence on our names.) Here, we share some of the rougher "work in progress" stuff as part of indie game dev hashtags like #ScreenshotSaturday. Finally, don't forget to check the Slumberland Discord (I can send a new link later this week), where we also share the latest art and gameplay updates with the community!
