Hey cultists,
About a year ago, we launched Universe for Sale which was a beautiful, hand-drawn interactive story which pulled on the heart strings of the audience. Yes, we are technically a month late and it was 13 months ago since launch but uhhh… Jupiter has 13 month years. Yeah, let's go with that.
I talked a little with Tmesis Studio about Universe for Sale in celebration of the one year anniversary and wanted to tell you a little story about how Universe for Sale came to be.
Federico met Zeno by chance 10 years ago during an evening out. When Federico learned that Zeno was a comic book artist they collaborated on The Spirits of Kelley Family which was released a few months later. Tmesis Studio was officially formed years later with the creation of Universe for [Sale after several years of personal projects.
Zeno remembered a time when Federico was cleaning up their Telegram chat to get organized but he didn’t realize that deleted a lot of the backups they had sent to each other for the project. Thankfully, nothing current was lost but they couldn’t revisit some older iterations.
Tmesis had trouble coming up with the right idea for an indie game of their own. While Zeno and Federico spent countless nights pitching some ideas and discarding others, they eventually settled on pushing themselves to create something a bit out of the ordinary.
Universe for Sale started as a comic book in which the game remains extremely similar to the original comic idea. Tmesis Studio said the biggest challenge was creating a gameplay rhythm that maintained player attention, especially during dialogue-heavy moments. The pacing, character interactions, and even some plot points had to be adapted to fit the interactive nature of a video game while ensuring the players stayed engaged.
Some changes that had to be made to the story when transitioning it to a video game to help it flow. A lot of the lore and details were initially more static in the comic format. For the game, Tmesis Studio had to create more dynamic story beats and dialogue to ensure the player felt actively involved. They also added branching conversations that could change based on player choices. Most of these changes were to give the player some control over the progression of the story, making the narrative itself a part of the gameplay.
Tmesis Studio wants players to feel like they've sat down for a chat with old friends in a warm, comfortable place. The universe may be vast and strange, but it's the small, human connections that make it feel alive and real.
To celebrate, you can get the game for 18% off in the steam winter sale until Jan 2nd. Now's a great time to pick up the game! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1627840/Universe_For_Sale/
-riv otter