At WX, Wakefield over 60 games will be demoing, along with 400+ developers, game industry publishers, investors and platforms in attendance for GaMaYo 25! Join us on the 13th of November for a day full of demos and round tables.
This event is brought to you by Game Republic along with their Official Partners Barclays Games and Creative, Xsolla and Red Kite Games, with event sponsors Plus Accounting, Escape Technology, HP and AMD.
Today we are looking at ‘A Line Held Tight’ which is confirmed to be at the event, from Humble Grove!
A Line Held Tight by Humble Grove
What would be your description of your game?
A Line Held Tight is a dynamic sci-fi visual novel that follows The Canary, a member of a mining colony on a far-off planet. Out there, cut off from the rest of humanity by a vast expanse of space, tensions both political and personal start to rise. As a strike boils over the player will help The Canary to decide where their heart and their loyalties lie. A branching narrative weaves its way through the deep tunnels of the mine to meet the characters within it as outside influences make themselves felt. Will you choose to make a stand? A Line Held Tight is visual novel made by Humble Grove, featuring impactful choices, traditional charcoal art and a trad folk soundtrack.
How did development start? (Were there any key inspirations or ideas that drove you?)
The first spark of inspiration for A Line Held Tight actually came from building a world for our other project, Twilight Array. We had created this gigantic sticky note timeline on the wall, starting from our modern day and ending at the beginning of our game, and were filling it in with events and ages and advancements and tragedies. But there was one event in particular that we found paticularly interesting, and ended up really focusing on, and that was the story of Riggers Moor, a union that changes the course of history. With all the labour issues going on in the games industry at the moment it struck a chord for us, and felt cathartic, delving into this union and their battles. It was also around this time that we realised that a project with a short scope might be a wise move for the studio. Humble Grove member Poppy had just released Lovely Lady RPG, made in Narrat, and we wanted to try out the engine as a team. Everything seemed to align perfectly, and so the germination of A Line Held Tight began. Of course it grew into its own beyond its original inspirations, as these things do. Cel in particular was watching a lot of Gundam and listening to a lot of Friends at the Table when we were crafting what the story would be, and these influences worked themselves in, creating the ‘Rigs’ that the workers use in the game, and our methodology of writing action sequences. It’s still part of this larger universe that we’ve built, but it has its own distinct identity as a game.
Tell us about the team behind the game?
Humble Grove is a UK based storytelling and game-making workers’ co-op made up of Cel Davison, Beck Michalak and Poppy Tilbury. The studio’s first game No Longer Home was released in 2021, and they are currently working on several exciting projects, including Twilight Array and A Line Held Tight. The goal of the co-op is to work as a team to make rich narrative experiences that draw on diverse inspirations.
Cel is the original member of Humble Grove, and co-creator of No Longer Home. They started their journey in games during their degree in Illustration at UAL.
Poppy has experience of being a developer both solo and in a studio. She released Lovely Lady RPG last year, and has previously worked at Supermassive Games.
Beck has been a hobbyist game developer for many years. They have shown their work at events such as Now Play This, and have released games as part of art collective Domino Club that have received critical acclaim in games media.
What kind of experiences do you hope to bring players?
We want to give the player a story that they can immerse themselves in, and that sticks with them long after they’ve finished playing. Choosing options and then getting to see them play out, seeing that your actions have consequences, is incredibly rewarding. It’s what games can do so uniquely and brilliantly. Players can experience the world we’ve made over and over, and have that experience be different, feel different, every time.
In 10 words or less, highlight the appeal of the game?
An emotive piece of interactive fiction with traditional art.
Any links to access/wishlist the game?
Not yet unfortunately! We’ve not formally announced the game yet. But we can update you when we do.