Bernband: Born Under Saturn
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
What is about
You're a space cowboy trying to survive through the hardships of living in the city somewhere, some time in the universe.
An urban survival game with bullet time, shooting and melee where you have to drink, sleep, and hunt criminals in order to pay for your expenses. The idea would be to be able to live, pay rent, drive, sell, buy, and do all sort of things that Spike Spiegel or Jet Boba Fett would do to get their bread.
Development Status [Prototype]
This game is still in development by only one student so it lacks content, polish and development resources but I hope you see where this idea could go and enjoy it even in the current stage of development. Any kind of feedback will be highly appreciated!
About the game
Around five years ago, I don't remember how, I stumbled upon a "game" that completely broke all my schemes about what could be experienced playing a video game. That game gave me such amount of inspiration that I decided to study game development with the purpose of further exploring the new horizons that game showed to me. That game was called Bernband.
Bernband is a non-interactive walking simulator, made by @TomBoogaart about exploring an alien city in a lo-fi presentation. That game was also inspired by another previous game, a little more obscure, called Hernhand. What those two games did was something I never experienced before. A sense of total immersion and presence in a world that was not the "real" one. It was totally mind blowing!
Since the start of the history of videogames all it seemed to care was to create more and more immersive experiences by pushing forward the technology trying to get visually as close as possible to the "real" world. Lately the line between real and virtual has never been thinner. But, even now that there is such big words with tons of detail and things to do I don't find myself really that much immersed in those virtual worlds as I expected as a kid.
What Bernband and Hernhand showed me is that graphic fidelity has nothing (or almost nothing) to do with how immersive and believable the final experience is. You don't see with your eyes but with your brain (to put it simply), that's why there is no need for photorealism in order to achieve the subjective experience of being in a real world.
After all these years studying game development, taking apart and trying to understand how the game worked, I've been finally able to try to push a little bit forward that idea. I've tried to follow and stick to the original artistic vision of the creator as much as possible. It was a hard thing to do because I only had some small clips of the further development of the game that he unfortunately later abandoned.
On this version of the game there is an extra layer of interaction that the previous one "lacked". I thought that If you could LIVE in the city and have some sort of routine the immersion of the experience would be even bigger. The game is still in development and it has been harder than I expected but now you have some sort of systems working. The idea is to live in the city and survive like a bounty hunter of Star Wars, Blade Runner or Cowboy Bebop.
Credits
Original idea: Tom van den Boogaart @TomBoogaart
I hope you enjoy the prototype <3
Download
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Comments
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Man this is amazing, can't tell you how many times I played trough bernband
I love you for even thinking about doing this, let alone nailing the aesthetic in a prototype
thank you, means alot :)
made me consider comming back to it for a bit, as I have been working on another project for three years already so...
hey Nerbons, where did you get the early build for tom's bounty hunter game? Ive been learning game development and Im curious how he made certain things.
For legal reasons, I don't think I can give you details. You could learn how a project works doing reverse engineering. For unity games that's quite easy, with dotPeek you can decompile the assemblies and if you dig a little bit you will find some tools to extract and get a recreation of the unity project.
I think that this skill is one of the most important ones for learning about development, I learned a ton thanks to it, good luck.
Thank you very much!
Nerbons Is there any possible way to convince you to finish this masterpiece? You've literally created my dream game, especially if you add more of the immersive elements you originally had planned for it. It just sucks because all the guys like you with all the creativity are always just making games as "a hobby" and we get stuck with all these triple-A cookie cutter games and innovative games like this never get finished.
So happy to get to know more people who fuck with my vision. I was not thinking about continuing with this game due to the hardness of its design requirements. I don't think I am smart enough to achieve my vision. I should have to dedicate all my time, mental resources, energy and focus on this project (as I did to make this one) in order to stand a chance to successfully end the design of the gameplay (and everything related). And currently I can't afford to do that (I am working on another game meanwhile and in university so...). I abandoned this project like two years ago and never thought about finishing it (even though it's my dream :/ ) because of burnout. But this comment hit me so hard that I am considering again to go back to this project and keep updating it, this summer I will put my mind into it and check if it's a viable option. I would have to resolve some design problems where I was stuck. But man, thanks for appreciating my work, it means a world to me. You will be in the credits if I publish it some day. Thanks <3
You should make a proper trailer for this game and make a patreon/kickstarter in order connect yourself with other people that might find your work resonating to them. And you might even get funding to keep the project going.
And if it still doesnt work out, you can always refund the backers. No one's losing here.
I wish the best for you and your work, Nerbons <3
Another bernband fan here. I liked what i saw in this prototype. My Norton AV went nuts on a bunch of dll files, but i think that was from the linux or mac folder. As the game ran okay.
I couldn't find anywhere to buy food?
At first i kept throwing my gun down instead of firing it until i worked out how to use it properly. Would be nice if we could holster (unequip) the pistol. At one point i couldn't collect money, whether it was because i had too much i dont know?
Also when i killed bounties and then checked the contract, i expected the number of them to be killed on contract would go down. But it didnt. So then i wondered maybe i was shooting the wrong ones? even though they were same color as image in contract. Is there some other difference we need to look at? I think it would be interesting if there are some subtle differences like different color shoes and maybe some lines for a breast pocket or something like that.
So you have to get close to them to see if its your target. Maybe they will run off if they see you coming with a pistol, so only draw it out when you are ready. Perhaps the enemy has a faster rate of fire to make them a little harder. And adding more NPC milling about could make it harder to find them, but also easier to blend in if following a target.
This game also reminds me of another game that is similar to bernband, where you had to follow targets around in crowded areas at an alien spaceport or city?? I cant recall the name of it. It had an insane amount of NPCs.
Do you remember the name of the game you mention at the end? Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor maybe? Thanks for the feedback!! ^^
No it wasn't that game. It was like a prototype or could of been from a GameJam. But it was 3rd person and in some alien city which had tall buildings and you walked around the streets which were full of moving crowds of NPCs- often going one direction on one side of the road and another on opposite side of the road. You sort of had to move with the flow and then attempt to cross the street which had hovercars going to and fro. I dont recall there being any interior locations. But you had to track down a bounty amongst the throng of alien citizens.
insane
glad to hear that! Whats the thing that you love more about the experience? Its just a prototype but I hope I have set successfully an interesting atmosphere.
Really interesting game. I feel like it's Bernband 2.0. WOuld love to see you continue adding to it, maybe the pimps fight back, etc.
Thanks! They do :0
Hey hello! I'm pretty excited to try the game, the screenshots look amazing and the whole concept is pretty dope! But I just tried to run it on my mac and it says it can't be opened. Can you help?
Ill look into it, did you try to open the MAC version right?
Yes! My mac is running High Sierra 10.13, it's a 2011 so I cannot upgrade the OS :/
i could see this becoming very popular if you were to release a full version with aliens, vehicles trading, and stuff. also more planets maybe?
You just told me exactly what I was thinking about, I am only one dev with little to no time nowadays but indeed, this is the plan I had for the game. I wanted to make a open world that let you do all of that and live there. I am thinking about it, I am happy to see another person seeing the same vision for the game as I do :D
also this gsme is really good
Thanks!!!
Made a video
You just stumbled upon all the bugs of the game in one run xD
Yeah, we tend to break games easily
it wont let me open the game. ):
What platform are you in?
It's brilliant! I'd love to see it completed!
Thanks!! Glad you liked it! :D
is a mac build possible? this looks beautiful
Ohh thanks!!! <3 I will work on it, give me 1-2 days! :)
im excited!
Done!
Show post...
good
Wow. Good job!
Thanks!!! ^^