11 Years Making a Hand Painted Puzzle Game

[@kikijewell2967]

Wow, what an amazing and inspiring story (so far!) I'm an aspiring game dev - thank you for such a vulnerable and intimate oral history of your process! I learned so much wisdom!

[@Amelia_PC]

It seems interesting and gorgeous! I'm subscribing to the channel and waiting for the release date. Your perseverance is admirable, Daria!

[@seluscan]

Can’t wait to play The Land Forgotten, looks amazing 😍

[@Cinetiste]

Congratulations ! About the perseverance, originality and to realise with your team a peaceful game of a calm ambiance, what is a quality for our family. We will look forward to your interesting game !

[@alextseni]

I love language puzzle games and this looks both awesome and challenging! Can't wait to play it! Thank you for sharing all the iterations and just how much effort and care goes into the game

[@bouncycow3010]

Wow, this looks awesome! Takes some serious commitment to keep working on a project for as long as you have, can’t wait to see where it goes!

[@richardv.2475]

This gives me such a great vibes. Suddenly I recall many-many adventure games like Oxenfree, Katy Rain, Night in the woods and for some strange reasons also many-many anime from Niels Holgerson to Spirited Away. I don't want to say these are fair comparsions, just the fact by itself my brain intuitively starts roaming among quality stuffs is a good feeling on its own. I truly hope you find the resources and the spiritual power to complete this project.

[@dariamakesgames]

@@richardv.2475 Thank you!! I’m so happy The Land Forgotten brings those associations! I love those games and films, especially for the mood they evoke!

[@outlawreader]

Looks amazing! I’ll be keeping an eye out for this :)

[@TCrag]

Beautiful work. Enviromental atmosphere and charm is key for this sort of game. Referance Grim Fandango, Broken Sword and Journy Down for how the locatios feel. Small details sell the location as "lived in" and exsiting without the players input.

[@dariamakesgames]

Thank you for these great comparisons, and for mentioning the details in the environments! We put a lot of thought into them, and I'm happy to see that noticed!

[@joost5609]

Sounds interesting. Good luck!

[@experiment3342]

Wow! Its clear how much love and passion were poured into this game... Kudos to you for not giving up on your dream! I hope the players will love it too!! I wish you luck :)))))

[@kekevids134]

after playing chants of sennaar and associated fanpuzzles, i was looking for another language puzzle, and this looks amazing!

[@necroseus]

Absolutely beautiful, wow

[@nora926]

I love the concept of the game, such a cool idea and beautiful execution! It's also very helpful to see your process as I'm also currently trying to make a puzzle game of a similar style and kinda stuck in the planning phase, not really knowing where to start because prototyping a story-based puzzle game isn't as easy as small arcade games (that I've made before).

[@dariamakesgames]

Thank you for the kind words! Good luck with your game!

[@VallelYuln]

Artstyle and puzzle references look amazing. I'm gonna keep my eyes open!

[@superkaboose1066]

No idea why I clicked this... love it, subbed, not even my type of game but keen to see the progress as someone doing something similar with a fan mod campaign myself. Your brain must hurt making all those puzzles!

[@dariamakesgames]

@@superkaboose1066 haha, thank you so much!

[@zonaaaa]

great work daria!!

[@qwakie19]

Looks gorgeous, the long-term dedication to the project and its quality is super inspiring

[@dugldoo]

I'm sure you've learned a great deal in many dimensions. It's like writing a screen play, then taking over the jobs of director, cinematographer, dramaturge, set designer, and actor ... and then going back to rewrite the screen play. Best wishes in bringing your work to completion and publication/release.

[@dariamakesgames]

@@dugldoo Thank you! That’s a good analogy. I also thought of it as writing a book, but you are responsible not just for writing, but illustrations, printing and for the book not falling apart when somebody reads it.

[@kilgoretrout3]

Your handwriting is beautiful

[@kuriosastoryteller]

Thank you very much for showing us the process! Just making a behind the scenes video is also pretty time-consuming too. Can’t wait to play the game! 💚💚

[@Nasty012]

This is an amazing work, the determination, patience and creativity you all have is admirable!

[@isabelabradleysturgeon3025]

I love your work, Daria! Super inspirational, I can't wait to see your next progress!!

[@skiesquiggles7319]

Ooooh dude I'm gonna be obsessed with this when it releases. Congratulations on sticking with the project so long!

[@isawp5199]

You know, I've once copied an Ogham alphabet down to learn, but I never got down to it, and no games or books where I got the need to practice it. (There's a Nancy Drew game who features it in 1 puzzle, but it's a small one) I would really appreciate this game just for that. It's really cool you use real-life languages and scripts.

[@dariakondrakhina8980]

So exciting to see the progress you made! Looks beautiful 🖤

[@PinikRahman]

This is so coool! Thats some dedication and patience

[@kodex7265]

Looks amazing gal! Keep up the good work!

[@Hummus420]

Very beautiful You can be proud your work will be long appreciated Thank you

[@ryanlovelock]

What a journey! Really impressive work 👏

[@roarrayo]

Best of luck!

[@Meloncov]

Great to see you're still working on this!

[@puzzlinggamedev]

Congrats and good luck with the devlog!

[@McMxxCiV]

I had a subject like this at university when I studied linguistics, where we were given a number of sentences in a language we'd never seen before, with a part-by-part translation and then a fluent translation, and we had to deduce certain grammatical characteristics of that language. I loved that subject, and have always wanted to do more of that. Thanks to your video, I now know that there's a linguistics olympiad, and that there's a gorgeous puzzle game in the works. Love it.

[@dariamakesgames]

Thank you so much! I used to love solving those kind of linguistic problems in high school, happy that there are other people who enjoy them and hope to introduce more to them with The Land Forgotten!:)

[@ragemachinist]

Leaving a comment for the algorithm. Clearly you put a lot of love into your channel. YT not giving it a chance is criminal.

[@AleatoricSatan]

Looks so great, can’t wait for this :)

[@kiplingbassil]

this is so inspiring! 😁

[@llyr_]

Thanks.. your video inspired me to make my own game

[@SeanStClair-cr9jl]

Oh wow. Absolutely likes an illustration out of Rivendell. So cool Oh wow... and the language system is amazing. This could be one of the most immersive in-world experiences just because of that. Okay, I have to play this Will players be able to decipher the languages fully in-world, or will they be expected to have some knowledge of their similarity to irl languages and do research on those? Edit: nvm, I should just finish the video before asking questions! This project is incredible and I have endless respect for your approach and ability to self-assess!

[@dariamakesgames]

Thank you for these kind words! Fully in-game, the idea is that the player doesn't even need to know those languages are real. In fact I think it's better if they don't, then it's a great reveal at the end that those are all real languages. So revealing that fact in the video is a bit of a spoiler, but I like that part of the game a lot, so wanted to share it:)

[@SeanStClair-cr9jl]

@@dariamakesgames I love that!!! Thank you for the response, and I'm glad that's the way it is in-game!

[@Ciaoyinstudio]

That’s amazing 🎉

[@kairu_b]

Beautiful

[@kairu_b]

Also, what a beautiful handwriting

[@Shallsoar]

Genius work!!!

[@tristanm4332]

Cool!

[@yellow9053]

11 years is absolutely brutal, did you have issues with your later assets not matching with your earlier assets? I feel like even if I spend a few months on a project that by the end I’m having to redo so much by style creep

[@yellow9053]

Maybe I should’ve watched the video first aha

[@dariamakesgames]

There have definitely been issues related to things like that. But not so much with the art assets, more so with the design decisions or engine updates

[@Majnun74]

Awesome!❤

[@diribigal]

This looks great! Any plans to add a preview page I can wishlist to Steam or Gog?

[@dariamakesgames]

@@diribigal Thank you! There are plans, but I want the game to be in a more complete state and closer to release before then

[@abel9537]

🤩

[@KFGSHFDGJDS]

Wtf you cannot just make something this hard

[@Alain_Du_Bois]

The premise for the puzzles got me, where do I play? I beg you

[@dariamakesgames]

Thank you so much! I don't have it up on any platforms yet, but I will definitely update all the possible social media channels once I do!

[@Alain_Du_Bois]

@@dariamakesgames ​ Appreciated! I'm not big on puzzle games at all, but this one I'd play. Since the core game mechanic revolves around linguistics, I find the watercolor artstyle simply perfect. The way the paints blend with each other can be compared to the way an understanding of a language feels at some point. This emphasizes the mystery and draws me in, to not understand only the puzzles, but also the world and the narrative you've so painstakingly prepared. If given enough time this game will be a gem, but until then keep at it. You're the experienced one here, so trust yourself. The only thing I will add is this: maybe use this correlation I pointed out in an intresting, not obvious way? Feels like to me like you already have, since you aimed for such artstyle, but nevertheless - personally I'd try to build something on top of that, since it's one opportunity for an artstyle and a premise like that. Aim for something innovative, smart and beautiful and the rest will complete itself. Can't wait to hear more!