Hey everyone! Time for a bit of report on our whereabouts! Here come some busy weeks!

We’re continuously working on Qasir al-Wasat translations and updates, the portuguese version is around 70% of it’s first draft! On separate threads, our localization collaborators around the world are doing their magic bringing the game to many many different languages! This release, when it arrives, we’ll be truly special!

Qasir has been reviewed and spotted by some neat sites by now, and we’re extremely happy with the reception! We’ve been seen in RockPaperShotgun and beyond, in Poland, Italy, Portugal and even here, in our native Brazil, at Gamesfoda and ArenaIG! This is just the begining, and we expect to see the game gain more traction as the Goeatian word is passed on!!

Speaking of traction, festival season is nigh!!! We’ll be at some of them and hope to meet y’all there!

This is a quick schedule of our trips:

INDIECADE - Culver City, California
4-8 October
also: our Guys and Gal will arrive  in Culver one day earlier, and stay in California for a few days, this should make it easier to meet everyone!

BGS - BRASIL GAME SHOW - São Paulo
11-14 October

SB-GAMES - Brasilia
2-4 November

BIG Festival - São Paulo
28-29 November

If you want to meet us please reach us on twitter @aduge! Or talk directly with @maperns and @vermonde!

Hello everyone! I’m here today to post some info about the sound design of Qasir al-Wasat.

The concept behind Qasir soundscape came mainly from a perception trait of it’s protagonist. It is not from this realm, and thus have a tenuous distancing posture that brings a layered perception based on its opinions/view of this realm. This generated a scale: things of its realm are less abstract than our objects that are less abstract than our animals that are less abstract than humans. Unfortunately, animals had to wait due to scope limiting and they are planned to appear only in a eventual Qasir sequel. Everything that appears on the game is put somewhere in such scale of meaning before producing it.

Objects have a blend of normal and reverse sounds, animals would be reversed with a strong filter, and humans are so abstract that the they lose completely it’s reference. Every sound emitted by them are heard as a musical note (thanks to Prokofiev and the first animation sound designers). But it is not music itself, as it lacks several attributes. However, one attribute not missing is that every note is under a specific scale, strongly referenced to the Arabic Maqam, an ethnical “”melodic mode”" from traditional arabic music based on improvisation. Also, each distinct kind of human has its own instrument, all of them chosen to better represent the feel of the ambience of the game.

One of the biggest issues we had during the audio development of the game is that everything was… empty, dull empty. We did want to create an eerie atmosphere and work with the solitude of the protagonist in a not so comfortable zone, but… it got too dull. Fortunately, two masterpieces got into my hand (or.. ear =). One was the indie game Limbo and the other was Tarkovski’s movie Stalker. Both of them has a very similar approach to soundtrack, as they don’t really work with music in the common sense. But they create GREAT atmosphere with sound only, and we adapted several aspects according to what we have learned with them.

Wanna check it out how things are now? Download our public demo or pre-order it on Qasir’s website! ;]

Hello. I just got interviewed by Mike Higbee on Vinesauce. It was a nice interview about Qasir al-Wasat and about Aduge in general, you can check it out here.

Hi guys! Just a heads up. Qasir al-Wasat is now available on Desura.

Desura is a sweet upcoming and very indie-friendly distribution channel. Their client has a lot of funcionality (and they are ever expanding) and it is a strong contender against big boys like Steam and alike. If you prefer using clients and standard distribution channels to keep you patched and updated without hassle, go secure your pre-order there (just click on the image below!)

Hello Everyone!

We have really big news today: Qasir Al-Wasat is finally on pre-order!

Soon you can grab your copy at qasir.adugestudio.com, with a 25% discount off the final price, and receive a demo! (By the way many thanks to Cesar Schrega for being awesome and helping us designing the site!)

It’s been a long time since our last official update, and as you can already imagine, we’ve come a long, long way. Everything just looks, and sound, and feels so different, you could say we are working on a distinct game. As you’ve probably noticed from the video, the art direction was remodeled to resemble the stunning Persian Miniatures from the 15th century. I’m sure Maperns will develop this topic in details in a future post. <pressure>

In the sound realm, a new ambiance was added to the internal rooms. This, added to the fact we’ve been putting a lot of emphasis on investigation and puzzles, has refined the atmosphere of the game to a whole new level. The Artificial Intelligence of the guards was improved, the Palace has some new inhabitants (a new kind of guard and a new kind of civilian), and we’ve also implemented a huge list of “those little details that make all the difference”, including some (secret) new areas. And last but not least, the game now has a gorgeous menu and map! (hurray!)

In the near future, expect us to release a new video, and believe me, it will be just amazing!

See you soon!

Hello there! One week after the official announcement of Qasir Al-Wasat I’m here to present some of the wonderful feedback we had with it!

It all started with our dear Cassandra Khaw’s post over Indiegames.com! The day after new reviews of the trailer started popping on “the internets”(sic), with JovemNerd.com.br‘s Stephan Martins writing our first Brazilian review on the 21st! Here is the list of original posts, so far:

Indie Games
Game Side Story
Game Set Watch
Game Dot
Seand Knight IGN Blog
Igrorama
Indie Shelter
No Name Radio
Joven Nerd
Gameplay

Meanwhile, the trailer itself (if you  haven’t seen it yet pray go check it on vimeo!) is getting astonishing (at least for our humble expetations) view counts! By the time I’m writing this it’s far over 9000!

If you spot any other review please leave a comment with it, send us an email [aduge (at) adugestudio (dot) com] our tweet @aduge!

So we are back to work, rushing with the development ahead of the Beta2 release in the next few weeks, and checking our fellow entries on 2012 IGF! (we’ll post a list of the Brazilian ones very soon!)
I’ll post some sort of Art Director’s Production Diary ++ very soon! Stay in the loop!