During the time you didn’t hear from us two vital changes happened. First change was my move from Istanbul to my hometown Izmir. I decided to do this because my conditions in Istanbul started affecting the making of the game negatively and my living standards started to fall. But this took much longer than I estimated, just like the game’s general progress, because quite a number of sensitive sound equipment and musical instruments had to be transported and things to be done to settle in the new home. Also, it may look as if the game’s progress is affected negatively because of me being very meticulous about settling and having high life standard expectations, but it was necessary for my output in the long run. Thus I said hello to a very satisfying new living surrounded by nature.

Second change was that I had to part with our programmer Serdar Büyüktemiz in a way I never would have thought. After this unexpected separation, I decided to do the programming myself as well, like all the other things. Previously Serdar and I had agreed on using game engine Unity, but during the moving and settling process, it gave up its place to Unreal Engine. The most important reason for this was that it provides tools for someone being not a programmer like me to make a game like Laranzuh with special custom programming needs. After studying the game engine in detail and also finding other positive aspects of it, my decision became final. Of course, if my brother Tugan Eritenel had not accepted to support me on programming, a much tougher and longer period would be ahead of me.

As I summed up the past and the present let’s talk about the future… for better or for worse, from what I got to know and the lessons I learned in the past 10 years, I don’t like to set a launch date for the game, however I sincerely aim to finish off Laranzuh by getting into a one year period of hard work. Because neither do I want to have Laranzuh interfere with making my long lasting other dreams come true, nor do I have the patience to wait for Laranzuh to reach you all !

I can line up the daily workflow by roughly splitting it into five steps to finish the game; image processing, video processing, audio processing, soundtrack production, and game programming. Also, there is some extra design and shooting work to be done. I might not be able to write from here due to the busy pace, but you can follow up on the developments from our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram account. Those of you who don’t prefer social media may subscribe to our Email Newsletter or RSS Feed. At least, I’ll definitely inform about the game’s launch. Also, check out our YouTube Channel for future video uploads !

Now, let me go back to my game…

To tell the truth I could not see what Batu saw 7 years ago. From a software developer’s point of view, Larunzuh was just another application to code back then. Now I can see that Batu started out to create a new “adventure game” sub-category.

We went through a period of inexpertness and ambition. Life first confronted us both with the wrong people. Besides, this game is more to handle than expected, and actually now we know that there is a reason for this game not to have finished earlier.

Now we have a more powerful synergy…

We rolled up our sleeves to finish Laranzuh this year.

I can’t wait to play Laranzuh by turning off the lights and enjoy it with a surround sound system and 4K resolution.

Serdar Büyüktemiz
Programmer

I would like to share a very exciting news with you. Up until now, there have been a lot of problems and setbacks, but I would have never thought that this would be a sign for a very good thing. Since I started making the game in 2009, rapid technological development made me take a step further from HD resolution, which was back then my highest goal. In short, Laranzuh’s native resolution is going to be 4K Ultra HD !

I know you deserve much more for all this wait, but unfortunately, I can only share three in-game test images with you for now.

Click here to download the 4K HDR in-game test images. To be able to view images at the actual resolution in full-screen, a minimum 3840 x 2160 resolution monitor is needed.

There is more news to come and I will keep you updated more often, so stay tuned!

All photographs within the game, together with 360 degree panoramas were taken in HDR (High dynamic range), and the videos were shot in 1080p HD (Full HD). Stop-motion technique has been used for the animation scenes. All this raw data takes up a space of more than 1.5 TB.

Reasons for delays in process duration and not meeting the deadlines are, that I didn’t anticipate the time I would spend in regards to my meticulousness and perfectionism, my team being a small one and the collection and maintenance of music equipment. Good thing I didn’t anticipate all these, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the courage to begin this project.

In the meantime, of course, to get the sound and music of the game done the way I wanted it to be, I tried to get the needed equipment. Because most of these equipment are vintage, to find, test and repair them takes a lot of time. Fortunately most of this work is done.

I will write again when shootings are finally completed….

Game Language: The game is primarily planned to be in my native language, Turkish. I made this decision because a lot of complicated texts would need to be translated into proper English before the production. Moreover, to do the live sound recordings with a non-English cast (some of whom don’t know English), would be a great problem. For now, there is no time, budget and assigned crew to solve these problems. But, every little bit will be meticulously translated to English (and most likely, to other languages by the publisher) with an in-game motivated way. I mean, you will choose your language within the game world using a kind of special glasses.

Game Engine: The most recent decision is using Unity (No, we’re still doing first-person panorama, not 3D). By using Unity, it’s possible to compile the game to Web, PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Xbox 360 and PS3. Doesn’t this sound great !

Scriptwriting: Well… I have been writing for over a year now and 95% of the script is finished. Right now, I am working on the final scene, do overall revisions and retouches, etc. Actually, I didn’t realize that the details and maintaining the whole quality would become such a real problem as the scriptwriting advanced. Also, all possible in-game action combinations, adding realism and these kind of things took a lot of time and effort.

Pre-Production: I have been collecting props, equipment, accessories, etc and exploring locations for the last year as the script progresses. The pre-production will end approximately in two months and the production will begin immediately after that.

Wish you all a Happy New Year filled with health, wealth, love, peace, music and adventure gaming!

I prefer mostly analog because of its warm and lush sound. Sound effects and music will have both analog and digital characteristics, mixed in a way that consist of my own ideas, which are kept secret for now. This means, you can expect some original timbres. I have been organizing my written ideas of sound, and now, some recent experiments have just revealed that the ideas are getting close to become real. This should give a glimpse of what I’m talking about.

The soundtrack may be both on Audio CD (16 bit / 44.1 kHz) and DVD-Audio (24 bit / 192 kHz). The DVD-Audio will be the original master recording of the soundtrack.

Some of the master recordings will be made on a reel-to-reel tape recorder and then be transferred to digital for storage. So, the original analog master recording should be on a vinyl record to get the pure analog experience. Long Live Analog!

Here are the photos of some of the equipment that I have bought recently { Korg MS-20, Oberheim Matrix 1000, Bojidar BE 430 Stage Echo ( Front – Back ), Monacor EEM-1200, Yamaha Pro R3, Revox C 115 }.