Hiveswap is an upcoming video game based on Homestuck. It is planned for release on the Windows, Mac OSX and Linux platforms. The game was originally being developed by independent game studio The Odd Gentlemen, however during development What Pumpkin Studios took over the project. Dinosaur Comics creator Ryan North assisted with writing.
Production history
The project was announced by Andrew Hussie on September 4, 2012, and a Kickstarter campaign was launched to raise $700,000 to fund its production. The funding goal was met after just 32 hours; when the Kickstarter concluded on October 4th at 2:26pm EDT (18:26 UTC), the final total was $2,485,506 from 24,346 backers. Hours later, What Pumpkin launched a PayPal option for pledging that ran for two weeks and closed on October 18th. With the additional funds from the Paypal campaign, the total funds raised surpassed $2,500,000, however an exact figure was not given. However, it likely isn't that much higher, seeing as Hussie still used the value "2.5 million bucks" to refer to the entire funds.
Game development was initially scheduled to begin following the conclusion of Homestuck, then projected to end sometime in 2013. However, as the initial pre-development work began, Hussie learned that the game's release would have to be delayed significantly unless he began to write and plan it as soon as possible. As a result, Hussie put Homestuck on hiatus after finishing Act 6 Intermission 5 so he could devote his full attention to working on the game. The hiatus lasted about two months, beginning on April 14, 2013, and ending on June 12.
Andrew Hussie has mentioned that the adventure game was one of the projects he would be working on during the gigapause which started following the October 16th, 2013 update, and in the January 24th, 2014 news post, he mentioned that, during the first 3 months of the gigapause, he had been focused on writing for the comic and adventure game.
The Odd Gentlemen issued a press release on their Tumblr on June 21st, 2014, revealing two pieces of concept art and one character model.
However on the 30th of October the same year, Hussie released an update
stating that the game would 'continue production in-house' under What Pumpkin Studios, with the aforementioned Odd Gentlemen press release having since been removed. 14 pieces of concept art were revealed as well as three gifs of a new character in the game. In this update Hussie also revealed the plans for another game and to release the games episodically.
Currently there is no release date; Hussie was planning to test the game in late 2014 but due to the change in developing studio that phase has been pushed to probably early 2015. The episodic release of the games will 'shorten the gap between now and when something is ready to be released.'
Game details
According to Hussie's pitch on Kickstarter, the game will take place in the same universe as Homestuck, but is not a direct adaptation of the comic. Instead, the game is more of a spinoff, featuring many of the same elements but not directly interacting with the comic's narrative, with few references to the original Homestuck canon. The game's storyline will be smaller and more self-contained than the comic's and is designed to be accessible to players unfamiliar with the franchise.
Gameplay is expected to be a "formal exercise" in interactive storytelling, though Hussie has said that he hopes to play around with the genre and do things not previously attempted in adventure games. Thanks to exceeding Kickstarter goals, the game will be released in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish languages.
The game will be released over a series of approximately four episodes, and a second game ('not intended as a sequel') is planned.
As revealed on the publicly available update to the Kickstarter, the game will be comprised of two games, each of which will have their own main characters. The first game will revolve around Joey, a human girl from B1 Earth with a black skirt and a grey jacket holding a flashlight (nicknamed "Flashlight Girl" by the community before her name was revealed), who was, due to an unclear device, trapped on A2 Alternia and is trying to escape.
The unnamed second game will revolve around a troll from A2 Alternia who was, presumably due to the same device, trapped on B1 Earth and is trying to get back home.
Trivia
- The concept art for the circus area resembles the art style of some of Andrew Hussie's earlier work, such as And It Don't Stop and Whistles.