We’re continuing to work non-stop on Narita Boy and we’ll be sharing a development update soon.
Stay cool this summer! Thanks again,
Studio Koba
Narita Boy is making great strides but there’s still a lot of work to do
Update, June 2019
almost 5 years ago
– Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 02:04:50 AM
Dear Backers,
Since our last update in March, we have welcomed two new team members to Studio Koba! We are joined by a new animator, Juan, who started in April, and Dani, a second programmer, joined the team in May. Both have settled in extremely well and it’s fantastic to see the Studio Koba family growing!
Development update
Dani is currently working on the integration of the music and sound FX, which has progressed at a much quicker rate than we expected. As such, we are getting slightly ahead in our planned schedule allowing us to pick up new tasks and refine some work that has already taken place.
Our music composer, Salvador a.k.a. Salvinsky, has been working on some new music - it sounds pretty awesome! Recently he has completed a recording session with a chorus singer so we’re very excited.
Our composer Salvinsky in the mood for the 80’s
We have finished a "vertical slice" of the game, with all levels in place that are fully connected, but without some of the ‘living’ aspects. However, we can walk through the whole world of Narita Boy!
Now we have our first glimpse of how the Narita Boy world will look, Salvador is looking into perfect placement of this songs to accompany each scene.
This was a big milestone that’s been completed since the last update and we are now concentrating on adding some exciting elements and polishing as we work towards completion of the game.
Work continues finishing all the enemies and bosses to make them work together. It is not an easy task because many of them have a unique design and original movement, but it is a challenge we are relishing. For example, enemies you have seen in our trailer, now have more detail and move with extra fluidity. It is not only the enemies that have been upgraded but the backgrounds too. The game looks much richer than when we released the game trailer 2 years ago.
After this milestone, we will be going back all the way to the beginning! But fear not as we will be polishing each stage, placing the NPCs and enemies and finishing the extra level code – getting closer to finishing the beta day by day. Next update will be when we finish the beta.
We don´t want to spoil too much until the game is released but here’s a new, and little glimpse, from the game.
Survey reminder
As a reminder, we still haven’t received answers to our survey from some of you. We will be sending a reminder email through BackerKit. Please check your email and please visit the survey page.
If you need to change your address or answers of the survey, you can update on your survey page on the BackerKit.
Visit the following URL. Log in with your email address, that you used for Kickstarter.
Please remind the backers, who have the following pledges and haven´t send the photo yet.
Be a Geek!
Be a Fan Boy at the convention!
Be a Sukajan Boy!
Fan Boy with a Binder
We previously set the deadline as April 30th. This was due to be our final call but have now extended the deadline to July 1st 2019. Please send your photo to us by this date. If you miss this deadline, we are not able to create a pixel art version of you and your character will not be shown in the game.
If you don´t have any photo, you can just write a description of what you want your pixel-self to look like!
We will be sending a reminder email through our email address (not by BackerKit). If you didn´t receive the email from us, it means that we have already received your photo, so thank you!
That is all for today.
Have a nice summertime!
Best,
Studio Koba
Update, March 2019
about 5 years ago
– Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 01:44:17 AM
Hello Backers,
We have good news that we want to share with you today. And of course, we have an update of development. Let's start with the good news!
A new programmer is on board!!
Some of you might have noticed that we posted the recruitment information of the 2nd programmer on Facebook and Twitter. We met some talented programmers and finally decided to work with Dani. He will help our main programmer Manu.
Dani loves retro games like us. It is important for our development that he understands the feelings of the retro games and cultures without explaining. And we can enjoy chatting about it as well :P
One of his important task is to integrate all sound effects and music. He will work closely with Salvador, our music composer and sound effect maker. He also help triggering NPCs, setting parallax in the unity scenes and so on!
He will start working with us from May. We are very excited to have a new member!!
Left: Danny, Right: Manu
And we have an animator!!
We introduce one more team member. Nito will work as an animator from April for the next several months. He has already worked for some animations since Kickstarter campaign. This time, he works full-time with us.
He has been a good friend of Eduardo (the game designer) for long time. They have worked several projects in the past before Narita Boy. He understands very well about the quality of art, that Eduardo expects. It is nice to work with an old friend again.
Ready for boosting the development with new team members
Development update
Having two more team members (Dani and Nito) is definitely very positive news for our production. It brings speed into this important phase of development.
Also, we are very proud to announce that all the art of Narita Boy is done! It means all sprites and visual elements are designed and waiting for being settled in Unity.
There are plenty of NPCs and element ready to be triggered. Set camera movements, add FX and sound to the game and many many other things. But we have accomplished a fundamental and very important part of the development. From now on, it is a matter of polishing.
As for the scene music, Salvador has done some great works. One of the music has the element of Baroque music and the traditional instrument from the Basque provinces. Sounds so epic!! We haven´t integrated it into the system yet. But just playing the demo with that music, which comes separately from the music player, already has a very nice atmosphere in the game.
As we introduced our new programmer Dani, he will take care of the integration of sounds and images.
We are on the right track of schedule as we plan. We are just hoping that we don´t have any big surprise of serious bugs. And wishing every team members stays in good health to keep working and crunch sometimes.
Nothing cool and fancy as a space. But full of ideas and retro games (Manu is a big collector), which is cool for us!
Survey reminder
Please remind the backers, who have the following pledges. We need your photo to make you in the pixel soon.
We sent an email to the person, who we haven't received the photo yet. Please kindly check your email and send us your photos by April 30th.
Be a Geek!
Be a Fan Boy at the convention!
Be a Sukajan Boy!
Fan Boy with a Binder
If you need to change the answer
If you need to change your address or answers of the survey, you can update on your survey page on the BackerKit.
Visit the following URL. Log in with your email address, that you used for Kickstarter.
Wishing you a beautiful, magical new year 2019!
over 5 years ago
– Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 11:50:59 PM
Dear backers,
Hope you are having a great holiday.
We have been receiving many positive and supportive comments since the last update. Thanks a lot! Definitely, your words charge our energy to work more and better!
The speed and quality of production were increased since Eduardo and Manu are working together in the same place. We are keeping our schedule strictly. But we are trying to get the best quality at the same time.
We will finish most of the main visuals by the end of January. The programming part are following as we scheduled. So far we are good in time. We will have more details and some visuals in the next update maybe around February.
Today we just want to say thank you for all your support through this year. Please keep continuing to buzz about Narita Boy!
If you need to update your address or choice of answer, you can change on your survey page. Add-ons are also available from your page.
If you lost your survey link, please visit this URL to recover your link.
"Presale for non-backers" is available on BackerKit.
Update October, 2018
over 5 years ago
– Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 01:42:17 AM
Dear Backers,
First of all, let us apologize for not giving you news for long. We would like to explain to you what happened these last months.
We are very motivated by the evolution of the game, the way it is looking and the objectives that we are reaching.
Since the last update, many things have happened.
Studio Koba´s reborn
Since the Kickstarter campaign, we have been working remotely from different cities in Spain, up to four people programming, animating and designing.
We were able to prototype many events, develop lots of game mechanics and work on the game. Yet we were ineffective in gathering all these elements and give cohesion to the game.
We realized that working remotely was less efficient than we thought in these first stages of the production.
As a consequence, we suffered on the production side, with some bottlenecks that prevented us to advance as planned. We had animations, programmed scenes but we were not able to connect all these elements together. Anxiety and stress increasing. We entered into a spiral of pessimism and uncertainty.
All this added to delays in reaching our goals and even fears of not completing the project lead us to set a new plan.
We decided to create a studio where we could work together and where distance would not affect communication. We needed to speak a lot in person.
Thus, at the end of May Eduardo, the director of Narita Boy decided to move from the center of Spain to the town near Barcelona, where our lead programmer Manu lives.
He moved to a new apartment located at only 5 minutes of walk from the programmer's home. Luckily Manu has a huge space filled with many retro games, classic consoles, old computers, and an arcade machine. We set up the computer side by side at there. The physical version of Studio Koba was born in the middle of June.
We continued to work with some external providers remotely but the key production members "the director and the lead programmer" were finally together.
We are working like a beast day and night, surrounded by retro consoles and classic games. Because of the location, now we can work with our music composer Salvinsky easily in person as well.
Good & bad news
Now we have to tell you good news and bad news. We’ll start with the good ones.
From June to mid-October we have hugely increased the production speed of Narita Boy. 25% of the game is bug-free and above our expectations, both in the programming and aesthetics. We firmly and honestly believe in the potential and the depth of the game. We are highly motivated to create a game that we expect to become a cult game in the years to come.
During these four months working together, we have reached objectives that were impossible to reach when working remotely. Production times have been reduced by half. We are learning every day to work better. We are working at the speed of light. Our motivation and conviction were back. However, we have made some mistakes that explain in the bad news.
The bad news are....
...that we will be delaying one year the release date. We have re-done our forecast and we are deeply sorry that this is happening.
We thought we could be able to develop the game remotely but we were wrong. But even after correcting all the problems deriving from working remotely, we still enter this new paradigm of being delayed.
We understand your frustration and disappointment. We are very sorry that we couldn't keep our promise of the release day.
We must be ambitious and a perfectionist for Narita Boy. We don't want to release the game because of rushing the deadline. We will release the game when we are sure about it and happy with what you will get to play. We believe our promise with backers is not only about the time, but also and more importantly, the quality of the game.
Now, taking into account our current workflow and how the development has been progressing these past months, we are almost 99.99% sure (because nothing is 100% sure) that the project will be completed by December 2019.
Once we will produce what we have in mind, we can assure you that the waiting will be worth it. We are hardcore gamers, we play a lot with lots of games. And we believe that Narita Boy is something very original and unique at many levels.
Thank you for your patience
We are sorry that we have to ask you to be patient with us. We also ask you to have faith in us. We are working very hard to reach our objectives and we are very confident in the project.
Some might be worried about our finance because of the delay. We will be fine. Narita Boy is made by our blood and meat. We invest our private savings in our project. Luckily our families are very supportive as well.
Then most probably we will work with a publisher. And thankfully we have some extra budget from add-ons from the BackerKit (where you send the survey's answer). Thanks for your support.
We are here to share the creation of something very special, that will be remembered for years to come. We are talking about Narita Boy, our son, your son. Thanks a lot to all our backers who are very supportive and patient.
Now, enjoy a new gameplay video. We share this trailer with our backers only, not with social networks. You can only watch it here.
We are sorry that we are not good at posting updates regularly. It is easy to tell our progress with new visual materials but we want to keep the mystery of Narita Boy.
We think that unveiling parts of the game will spoil the final experience and surprise of enjoying the game. Showing periodical updates on new developments will affect the final surprise to watch the game with the freshness that it deserves.
Our next update will be several months later. But we promise you that we are making progress every day.
Thank you for your understanding, being patient and supporting Narita Boy!!
