Author: Stephanie Chan / Source: VentureBeat
Indie studio Faffinabout’s debut game From Light is a futuristic puzzle-platformer with mechanics inspired by photography. Starting today, it’s seeking $50,000 on the crowdfunding site Fig, and plans to launch on PC in late 2018.
From Light is set on the tourist planet Paradise 252-B, which Faffinabout producer Sherveen Uduwana describes as “Route 66 in space.” Protagonist Lumen arrives in search of their missing penpal, Phosphor, and must solve the mysteries of the planet to rescue their friend.
“At some point [the planet] was really bustling, full of people, and then at some point in the past something happened and tourism dried up,” said Uduwana in a phone call with GamesBeat. “By the time you get there, it’s a lot more empty, a lot more desolate. You’re trying to figure out what’s going on on this planet. Route 66 has that idea of being full of really interesting kooky people from small towns, Americana type stuff. That’s a lot of influence on the characters and the game.”
The core mechanic is Lumen’s ability to draw their own platforms using “long exposure,” which enables them to paint with light. They can also use “freeze frame” to pause what’s happening on one part of the screen as well as to phase through certain obstacles.
“Our two studio heads, [Alejandro Grossman] and [Steven Li]—this was originally a class project. They had an assignment, and they were debating over different games,” said Uduwana. “They saw a photo that they thought was a long exposure photo, and they said, OK, we should make a game about long exposure photography. I think it turned to just not be a long exposure photo at all, so it just happened on a misunderstanding of what they were looking at and turned into this really cool mechanic.”
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