The gaming industry contains an enormous amount of talent. From veteran writers to highly skilled coders and artists. Game development nowadays requires a wide arrange of talent involved to become the entertainment experiences we came to expect. Surrounding yourself with talented people is always a great catalyst to inspire creativity. As developers are building their career and skills, they might come up with interesting ideas or concepts that could be incorporated in their game. Some of these might end up in the final product, while others are put on ice and become an itch that need scratching.
Gregory Louden used to work at Remedy in various roles. Many of them tied to Narrative Design on projects like Quantum Break and Control. Louden has a history in the movie industry and is well known for his visual effects work on blockbusters such as Gravity and Prometheus. However, during his time at Remedy he developed that infamous itch. He wanted to create his own game projects. Projects that would provide a unique narrative experience. That intention lead to Stone.
Louden is now employed at Convict Games, a development studio he founded with other industry veterans. Their debut game is called Stone, a so called “Hip-Hop Stoner Noir” that follows the story of a baked, hungover Koala detective trying to put together the pieces from the wild night before to find his “Chookie” Alex, a lorikeet raver and artist. The game encourages players to explore and features an interactive conversation system. It is very much a mature game that was inspired by classic stoner-noir films such as The Big Lebowski.
It is a project worth checking out and rumor has it will release soon. In order to make people familiar with the game’s concept, Convict Games released a 15-minute demo narrated by Louden himself. That video is embedded below this article, while it loads, be sure to check the project’s steam page.