State of Play

Lume’s 1st Birthday

luke — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:48:52 +0000

Has it really been a year since we first launched Lume on Steam? Either my calendar has been tampered with or yes, Lume is indeed deserving of a proper one-year-old’s birthday. So lots of toys it can’t play with yet and cake only the parents can eat.

In fact, we kind of do have a present, for you or someone you know. For a limited time Lume is up to 75% off in the App Store, that’s just $0.99 or £0.69, for iPhone, iPad and in the Mac App Store. If we could put a miniature candle on each for you… actually we wouldn’t. Lume’s made of paper and it would go up like a bonfire.

Click here to go to the App Store if you’d like to make the purchase: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/lume/id502421311?mt=8

Not our papercraft this one, but it looks tasty.

We’re where we are now thanks to the great support of all you people. Since launch it’s taken us to the Tokyo Games Show and to the IGF awards in San Francisco, and meant that we’ve had the pleasure of being able to focus all our energies on the next part.

Speaking of which, we’ve got a Flash prototype of the first four scenes complete, and we’re refining the gameplay and puzzles right now. Alongside that, Catrina has built possibly our first final model building for it – it started as a rough and then we kept adding to it until we now think it might be good enough to keep. Again, more soon!

GDC and IGF: Well that was fun!

kath — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:03:42 +0000

So a few weeks late I know but thought I’d write a quick round up of our first GDC experience.

A very early start at London Heathrow, and we already bumped into numerous London Indie Devs in the departure lounge pub, the start of things to come!

We were on a high all week, the warm reception Lume recieved was phenomanal, for everyone that came up to us and said they liked and even fallen in love with Lume, we really want to say thank- you. The IGF Pavillion became the place to be at the EXPO with the rest of floor looking fairly quiet, the buzz and the people at IGF was non-stop. There were some fantastic games there, and we were so proud that Lume was enjoyed by all. We were also giving away a limited addition matchbox Lume set for people to take away and create there own tiny model of the game.

We were really pleased we decided last minute to pack an iPad full of making of pictures. It meant when we were at the IGF stand explaining how the game was made to people we could actually show them pictures of the glue, paper, sweat and tears that went into the game. With cries of “Oh wow, so an ACTUALLY paper model!” We were also able to show new pictures and early development sketches of “Lume 2″ which equally excited us by the reaction they got from the audience. So we didn’t win the Visual Arts IGF, but it really didn’t matter, and well deserved win by Dear Esther.

Other highlights of the trip include: Fantastically inspiration talks and presentations at the Indie Game Summit. Watching Indie Game The Movie with a room full of Indie Devs – a well deserved standing oviation for all involved. I don’t think I’ve felt so much love in a room at a screening before. Meeitng old and making new friends, Munching late night Ice Cream with the lovely Northways, Being mesmerised to a beautiful quiet slumber by Proteus while at the fantastic Wild Rumpus/One Live Left/Venus Patrol party. Watching Dick Hogg dance – enough said. Meeting Heroes and knowing that your heroes have actually played and enjoyed your game!! Johann Sabastian Joust in all it’s glory, and discovering Joust related injuries in the morning. Discovering San Francisco and of course there was some time for abit of cycling across the Bridge.

Thanks GDC and see you again soon.

Kath

Lume 2: Development update

kath — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:17:37 +0000

So, it’s that excitable time in a project, the shape and flow of the next game is coming together. We have lots of ideas flowing and together we are testing new and exciting methods and ideas to apply to the creation of Lume 2. We are working with the fantastically talented Catrina Stewart, who coming from an Architecture background has been able to lend a new dimension to the model making and a different angle to the puzzles. The next few months are going to be very exciting, we will try and blog more regular updates as we collate the development process.

Here is a snippet of what we have been working on:

Kath

Best of the Independent Games Festival 2012 at ACMI

kath — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:22:23 +0000

Lume is being showcased as part of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image: Best of the Independent Games Festival 2012 in Melbourne.

More information below:

“ACMI presents 14 brand-new international award winners that expand our expectations of what a video game can be, from the fast-paced 2D platformer Dustforce, to the puzzle filled Lume, and the latest trends in touch screen gaming.”

2012 games include
Botanicula, Amanita Designs
Dear Esther, Thechineseroom
Dustforce, Hitbox Team
Fez, Polytron
Frozen Synapse, Mode 7
Proun, Joost van Dongen
Spelunky, Mossmouth
To The Moon, Freebird Games
Lume, State of Play
Proteus, Ed Key

Featured mobile games
ASYNC Corp, Powerhead Games
Beat Sneak Bandit, Simogo Games
Fingle, Game Oven Studio
Temple Run, Imangi Studio

It’s running from Tuesday 27 March – Sunday 8 July 2012
Open daily 10am – 6pm > Gallery 2
Free admission

Kath

How to fix Lume iOS crashes

luke — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 09:44:18 +0000

Hi all,

A few people have mentioned that they get Lume crashing one in a while on some devices, so I thought I’d post something to let you know one thing which should fix the issue.

It appears that this is an issue with the amount of memory some of the devices have. So simply restart your device (this clears the RAM), make sure no other apps are open, and then play Lume, and you should be fine.

If you’re still having problems please email us via our contact page and we’ll do our best to help you.

Also, if you’ve come across a bug where you can complete the game early, don’t worry, an update has been submitted to the App Store yesterday which will allow you to get the whole Lume experience! Will post here when the update is live.

Thanks to all of you who are supporting Lume during it’s first forays onto the App Store!

Luke

Lume iOS is launched

kath — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:12:25 +0000

We are very excited to say that Lume has now launched on iPhone, iPod, iPad and the Mac App Store.

All the hard work has been worth it, and we are very proud of this new and exciting version of the game.

A special mention to our fantastic Developer Roger, who made this version all happen.

Lume comes to iOS. Launch date 23rd February 2012

kath — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:57:00 +0000

We’re very excited to announce that Lume will be launching on iPhone, iPod, iPad and the Mac App Store this Thursday 23rd February.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Following on from its Independent Games Festival 2012 Finalist nomination in Excellence in Visual Arts, and its huge success on the PC, Lume brings a fresh and beautiful approach to games and has a tactility and charm perfect for the iOS devices. The iPhone4 and iPad versions now have a higher resolution than the original and look gorgeous on the devices

Luke Whittaker, Director of State of Play Games says,

“We are extremely excited about launching Lume to the iOS market. We have had fantastic feedback from fans of the PC game, it’s been great to be able to bring it to a new audience. In fact we’d designed the original with iOS devices in mind and really delighted we can finally bring it to the handheld market, it feels like a perfect home for the game.

We really went to town with the style of Lume, building a model rigged with miniature lighting and placing the character in a real setting that just feels more tactile than any we could have created with 3D software. All this shines on on these devices.

We’ve also added plenty of additional detail for iOS, new sound effects and an improved interface for touch devices. To cap it all, the iPhone4 and iPad versions are now in a higher resolution than the original PC release, and look particularly spectacular.”

Great deal on Lume in IndieRoyale!

luke — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:54:44 +0000

Lume is included in Indie Royale’s Valentine’s Bundle!

For the next four days, you can purchase Lume along with four other games:

Zeno Clash for: steam (pc)
Hoard for: steam (pc and mac)
*BONUS* Includes individual keys for two DLC packs.
Lume for: windows, mac, linux, desura, steam (pc and mac)
Soulcaster for: windows, desura
BONUS: Soulcaster II

The Indie Royale Bundle is a fluctuating minimum price bundle, meaning that the minimum price goes up the more people that buy it! And if people pay more than the minimum price, it reduces the price for other buyers!

So grab the Love bundle at Indie Royale quick smart, and get a piece of the action! And a piece of the Hoarding. And Soulcasting. And Luming, if that’s a word.

Secretive sketches for the sequel to Lume

luke — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:33:23 +0000

Work on the sequel to Lume is afoot. And what a foot it is. This is like the Yeti of feet. I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about a project. Thanks to the success of Lume and everyone’s fantastic support, we think we might be able to make the sequel the game we dream of, it’s going to be bigger, more beautiful and be more puzzling – in a good way *nods apologetically at those who tried for hours to solve Lume’s cupboard lock puzzle*.

There has been a lot of sketchbook work on the game so far, and one of the reasons I haven’t uploaded anything is that you don’t want to see scratchy doodles from the inside of my brain do you? You do? Well, okay here’s a little something.

I went to see the Russian Constructivism show at the Royal Academy in London – a fantastic exhibition full of wall-high photographs of powerful, sometimes almost abstract architecture, as well as small photos and drawings of little models. After a few minutes of awestruck wandering I realised I had no way of recording what I was seeing, no cameras allowed in there, and no sketchbook on me. So I raced out of there, checking first that they’d let me back in, and got my hands on a sketchbook and pencil from the gallery shop (it was difficult to find one that wasn’t a novelty bendy one, or oversized, or, bizarrely, covered in purple fur), then spent a happy few hours making sketches of things which interested me.

Hopefully you can see how we’re thinking of interesting shapes and dramatic camera angles – I seem to have scribbled ‘Imagine balancing here’ on one of them. So it’s been a lot of imagining, but we’ve also been translating these things into reality recently – we’ve been making some real models. I’ll post some pictures of them next.

Lume Nominated for Best of 2011 by Jay Is Games. We need your votes!

luke — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:02:09 +0000

Sometimes you get weeks where everything seems to be happening at once, and, in this particular instance, that’s fantastic. Right after our recent nomination at IGF, we’re delighted to discover that the highly respected folks at JayIsGames.com have nominated Lume for their Best Games of 2011. And we need your help! If you can head over to the site and vote for it that would be very kind of you! And if you think it deserves the title ‘Game of the Year’ make sure to tick the box at the top of the page. Apparently you can vote every day. If you can do that that, and some might say that’s above and beyond the call of duty, we would furnish you wish something lavish. A bit of early Lume concept art? Bits of the model we mangled with glue before we stuck it together? We would rummage round the studio for you and see what we can find.

Thanks again you all for all your support for Lume!

Luke

Lume Independent Games Festival finalist

kath — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:44:25 +0000

We are chuffed to bits and a little bit elated to discover that Lume has been nominated for Excellence in Visual Art at the Independent Games Festival in San Francisco, we have been mostly jumping around our studio with a massive smile on our faces since we found out. There was such huge competition with nearly 600 fantastic games submitted for consideration. We were so pleased the Lume has been recognized for it’s achievements. After working hard on something it’s great to see the Indie community enjoy it too. Here is one of the the jurors comments about the game.

“Lume is beautiful and fascinating and it’s like playing a game in a children’s book. Technically, there is some pretty interesting things happening here that you have to see for yourself.”

“Lume is such a handsome feast… overall, very lush and touching. The rich contrast, lighting and depth of field made me feel cozy.”

We are really looking forward to taking part in the event, and meeting all the other nominated people at GDC and IGF. It’s great to see many other Brits nominated as well, it just goes to show the Indie community is thriving over here. The award ceremony is 7th March, so look out for more updates in the run up to it.

75% Holiday Discount on Lume now until 2nd January.

kath — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:33:02 +0000

As part of Steam’s Holiday promotion there is now for a limited time an incredible 75% off Lume.

Grab yourself a copy or maybe a fantastic Christmas present for your nearest and dearest on offer until 2nd January.

Buy Now