Tenebrae Now Headed To GTR 2016 Conference
Every year the interactive accelerator program of Global Top Round selects up to ten independently developed games to provide funding, development, exposure and publisher networking support via its nexus of industry professionals. Devoted to nurturing sustainable game studios, the entirety of the program is a five stage process that begins with the invitation of applications from America, Europe and Asia based indie games that are 60% of the way to completion with a functional demo.
Among those that partook in this year’s GTR application process back in May was Troglobytes Games, whose upcoming PC/Xbox One tale of Tenebrae: Twilight of The Gods successfully passed the program’s screening process to join nineteen other selectees for its next round at Cologne, Germany tomorrow. Spanning the 15th and 16th of August at the city’s Radisson Blue Hotel this year, said round is the Global Top Round Conference responsible for picking out ten of the twenty finalists that are to be fully supported by the program’s six-month Acceleration period wherein game development and launch support is provided. The top five graduates of this tenure will further receive investment and marketing support through the months of March-June, 2017.
Cologne will see Troglobytes Games pitch Tenebrae to a diverse group of professional attendees and developers, before being subjected to a hands-on and voting session responsible for determining the top ten. ‘This year has been about working towards a vertical slice of the game’, explains Troglobytes’ Lead Programmer Luciano Iurino.
“Post that the plan involves looking for some way to complete Tenebrae given how it has been totally self-funded at this stage. A program like GTR sounded like just the thing we needed – not only for the chance to receive a slight amount of funding, but for all the other perks it offers.”
The Conference’s 20 invitees will be granted $40,000 USD with one grand prize winner garnering an additional $10,000 USD. The last that was heard of Tenebrae: Twilight of The Gods served to demonstrate the game’s 3D mechanics and AI in action circa April, the completion of the female lead’s design in May, before finally unveiling its motion-comic styled introductory cinematic last week.
“We have had to shift focus towards certain aspects of the game – particularly the loot system combat mechanics,” continues Iurino while also stating that a Vertical Slice of Tenebrae is not far from completion. “We also had to do an almost total rewrite of the movement and control mechanics since after a bit of play-testing, we realised we weren’t entirely pleased with what we had.”