A whole lotta Runner3 gameplay

Hey, everyone!

E3 is over and things are finally starting to get back to normal over here. It was a ton of fun to allow some people a chance to play the game, and we were also lucky enough to have the opportunity to show off some gameplay during Twitch's coverage of the show! I hope some of you managed to catch the segment live, but I wanted to provide a link for those of you that missed it!

Check it out!

There's a ton of new gameplay footage and details about the game in there, so I suggest giving it a gander! I like to think it provides more answers than questions, but if you're confused at any point or just have something you're curious about, feel free to ask away in the comments! I can't promise I'll be able to answer everything (we like our secrets), but I'll do my best.

We hope you're happy with how the game is coming along!

- Dant

Say hello to Machineland

Hey, everyone! 

When we asked you a few weeks back to guess what the next playable world in Runner3 was going to be, we had a pretty good feeling someone was going to nail it. And we were right! Congratulations to user “Sol” for predicting the name of Machineland!

Machineland is not exactly paradise, as evidenced by the cigar-smoking smokestack Titans shown above. It’s cold, it's smelly, and it's polluted. As such, what better place is there for CommanderVideo and friends to spread their special brand of cheer? 

We’ll have more to say about Machineland—and Runner3 in general—in the weeks ahead. We’ve been pretty coy in recent months, but now that we’re in the homestretch of development, we’re feeling like it might be time to start acting a little more… candid. 

Thanks, as always, for coming along with us on this journey! We hope you’ve been happy with what you’ve seen so far.

- Dant

A cold, calculating world

Hey, everyone!

Sorry for how long it’s been since our last post. I wish I had a better excuse for you, but we've honestly just been way too busy making Runner3! I hope you understand. 

Anyway, seeing as how we’ve formally announced Foodland and Spookyland already, we thought it might be time to start teasing the next world. Rather than just tell you the name of it, however, we figured we’d post a cryptic image and encourage you to guess! Take a look: 

Cute, right? Just be sure to look with your eyes and not with your mouth. 

Any guesses as to what this world will be? Bonus points to anyone who guesses the exact name of it. Let us know in the comments!

- Dant
 

Today's thrilling episode is brought to you in part by...

Hey, everyone! 

It’s been a pretty huge week over here at Choice Provisions HQ. Not only did the lemon-flavored La Croix just get restocked in our break room, but we also finished recording all of the VO for Runner3!

As you may already know, Charles Martinet very graciously agreed to return for his role of The Narrator. What you don’t know, however, is that he has quite a few more lines this time around! Like, way more!

The story of Runner3 is going to be a little more substantial than what you’ve seen in the previous Runner games. We won’t let it obstruct the gameplay, certainly, but if you’re the kind of player who’s interested in learning a little more about the wacky world of Runner3, that option will be there for you. I don’t want to tell you how to play your video game, of course, but I do highly recommend you seek out the story we’ve woven throughout the game. We’ll do a blog post soon about what that kind of pursuit would look like.

In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to share a quick snippet of some of the VO Charles recorded for us. Without further ado: 

Pretty fun, right? I mean, it doesn't make a lick of sense, but what do you expect?

Until next time!

- Dant

Would You Like Some SFX With That?

Hello fellow BIT.TRIPpers! (BIT.TRIPsters?) My name is Camellia Boutros, and I’m the audio programmer and one of the Sound Designers for Runner3! It’s great to finally meet you. I’ve been wondering when we’d finally come face to face :} 

My job is to guzzle coffee to drown out the insanity that sets in after hours and hours of listening to the same SFX and musical blips on repeat. If I’m doing my job correctly, you won’t be playing the game and saying to yourself, “Wow, the sound designer did a really great job with that wild and artistic sound effect!” -- actually, you probably wouldn’t say anything because you’d be so immersed in this wildly wacky and musical game (and its soundscape) to take too much notice of individual sounds.

Well, apart from the war-cry of Sir Strömming’s brethren. You’d notice that. 

This is my first devlog , so I have a lot of geeking out to catch up on. As a musician and certified music theory nerd, I’ve thrown a cluster of cool little audio tricks into the game. For one, the rocket vehicle SFX, which sounds like it’s constantly accelerating and rising in pitch, is actually just a short little looping audio clip of a Shepard’s tone. It’s all an (auditory) illusion, invented by Roger Shephard and famously used by James Tenney. These guys realized that if you stack a bunch of sine waves just right, they’ll trick your ear into thinking you’re hearing one sound getting higher and higher… forever.

Another nifty bit of audio magic is programming musical notes in-game to fit with the music and changing game environment, and to do so in a way that is random, so that another unique layer of Matt Harwood’s compositions is added when you, the player, run through the game and collect items. For example, Mike Roska and I worked on making it so that when you climb up a sequence of steps or descend down a gem-laden path, you’ll trigger musical notes that get higher or lower in pitch in response to how the player is moving, but will still be a random sequence. To do that I had to use some old school calculus -- my high school math teacher would be proud, and pretty surprised. 

And there’s plenty more where that came from! Maybe next time I’ll upload my super top-secret totally danceable remix of BIT.TRIP SFX… 

- Cam