Developer introduction

[Pixel Night]

Hi, my name is Anton, and I am the game designer behind Empathy. 

What a journey it has been... I’ve always been a big fan of games that focused mainly on narration and storytelling, rather than action and combat. Among my favourite titles are games such as Journey, Brothers: A tale of two sons and Antichamber. Games that successfully inject the narration into their mechanics to enhance the experience, rather than feeling like a story added on top of existing gameplay. 

Empathy started as my graduation project back in 2012, when I was studying game development. Even then, it already had its core mechanic featured - affecting the world around you through different emotions; but was a completely different gameplay experience, since it was a point & click adventure. At first it made sense to have slower paced gameplay, but as we started experimenting with puzzles and narration, we found ourselves limited by the lack of free movement. 

In 2014 we had the opportunity to re-think our approach as we were porting the game from UDK to Unreal Engine 4, and we took the plunge into first person view. It proved to be the right decision, which allowed us to elevate the gameplay experience and better utilise our core mechanics. We expanded the team, made a tech demo, and got in touch with Iceberg Interactive regarding a publishing deal which was signed later in 2015. Now we’re heading towards a full release later this year!

Our goal with Empathy is to create an immersive experience that tells you its story through interaction, evolving as you explore the world. Exploration is one of the key aspects in Empathy, and players will find all kinds of secrets and Easter Eggs in the world as they progress through the game. There are, however, challenges you will have to overcome and puzzles to figure out along the way so don’t expect your journey to be simple. 

You can follow me on Twitter @Araklaj, and the game, @empathy_game.

[zakblood]

bump, just putting this back on the first page, as many will ask, and i'm glad to have read it, thanks for the ride and hope the game wins some awards

[mobidutch]

Just finished the game and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was surprised by the amount of content. Graphically very appealing. Nice job!

[oku]

Thank you for this wonderful game. I enjoyed it immensely.