Background

OSTRO is our fourth project, and was released as an entry into the milestone 50th edition of the international game development contest Ludum Dare.

As of writing, OSTRO has reached the highest contest results of all the entries in our portfolio. Additionally, OSTRO is the most ambitious of our four successive projects, from a technical standpoint.

Development

Similarly to our previous project, BRUTEFORCE, we wanted to follow a general theme where the user explores the setting by delving through file servers and email accounts, among other actions. However, this time we felt that we wanted to expand on this concept a bit. Instead of solely rummaging through databases (which previously were text-only), we wanted the user to also experience the world through images, audio and video. By choosing this route during development, we could offer players many new dimensions of the narrative, while also opening up greater opportunities for us to tell a broader story.

Sample images with a VHS filter applied. Intended to demonstrate the general atmosphere we were aiming for during the development process. These images were not included in the final game.

The setting of the game takes place in the 90s, and players quickly notice that most of the visuals take inspiration from the technology of the period. A clear example is the user interface, which enthusiasts might recognize as being heavily inspired by the Windows 9x operating systems. Hidden within the game are also references to the past projects of Totteri, most of which followed a similar theme of historical reference.

Images from the development progress. The historical elements of the visual design can be seen here.

The project was finished, as always, right before the 72-hour deadline. Around the deadline, we stumbled upon some performance issues. These issues were mitigated by reducing the number of in-game rendered windows that would be active at any time. Despite this, certain systems might still have minor performance issues while running the game. But for the majority of players, the game should work precisely as intended after our implementation of the small fix.

Results

OSTRO ended up scoring the highest out of all of Totteri’s contest submissions, finishing in 56th place out of 2900(!) submissions. Alongside this result, we managed to score 30th place in one of the contest’s specialized categories.

Room for improvement?

Due to the tight deadline, we ran into a technical limitation. In the final version, OSTRO runs only inside of a fixed 1280x960 resolution window. This results in the game window not actually fitting on the player’s screen if the resolution of the player’s monitor is lower than the game’s resolution. For an absolute majority of players, however, this is not an issue. This issue arose purely as a consequence of the limited timeframe that we had to work with, in accordance with the requirements of the contest.

Another improvement that could be made to the project, is that the narrative elements do not yet take full advantage of all of the available in-game systems and other narrative mediums. If more time was allowed (OSTRO was developed in only 72 hours!), the story and worldbuilding of OSTRO could be given yet another layer of nuance and polish, while fully utilizing the possibilities given to the storytelling by the new mediums.

These examples clearly demonstrate the challenges of developing a project for a contest such as Ludum Dare, where the strict rules and tight obligatory timeframes require not only high-level technical skills and efficient cooperation, but also demands of the developing teams that they commit to prioritization when the deadline begins to run dangerously close.

Although we receive lots of love and supporting comments on our projects, we still always try to make our next project just a little bit better than the last. As developers, it is easy to grow complacent in our craft, but we must remember to always strive to be better and try new methods. This is not only how we become better at our craft, but it is also a responsibility that we have towards our players. Because at the end of the day, we do this for them.

OSTRO is currently published on itch.io, and can be played for free here.