#posted by sean

Love at First Site

A few months ago, we got a piece of mail from Ryan (Ryan withheld his last name, even on the return address of the envelope). Ryan had played Firewatch and, quite generously, turned around and bought the Crime by the Numbers Notebooks available at store.camposanto.com. As a side note, there are many finely made pieces of merchandise on our online store, all fairly priced and ready to ship worldwide. The notebooks, which you can find scattered around the world of Firewatch, are reproduced down to their inside covers to be exact replicas of the type of pulp paperbacks you’d find in a supermarket and then carry with you out to the woods. On the inside back cover is a fake order form for other novels from their fictional publisher, and, much to our delight, Ryan Real-Last-Name-Withheld, was the first Campo customer to take the bait.

Yes! A compliment and an excuse to spend days on a one-off, never-to-be-reproduced piece of merchandise for a fan.  Our favorite type of mail. Plus, if you’re Jake, you now have a reason to head to Craigslist and buy an expensive large-format photo printer at a deep discount. Should we be working on our second game? Absolutely. Could we spend a few dozen hours of time on fulfilling Ryan’s order instead? You betcha.

Let’s see, Ryan Real-Last-Name-Withheld, would like one copy of Mo Marlowe’s Love at First Site and included $4.50 to exactly cover the costs plus shipping and handling. A few hours of illustration by Claire Hummel, a few more hours of design by Jake Rodkin and a little elbow grease in the form of creative writing by me, Sean Vanaman, and voilà, one copy of Love at First Site, ready for our friend Ryan.

A couple things to note: the “order form” itself (again, not a real order form, a prop, in a book that is itself a prop in a video game) is expired. Secondly, Conrad Hummel, the fictional (ie: not real) publisher of the prop book that is itself a prop in a video game, has included a letter to let Ryan Real-Last-Name-Withheld that not only is this the last copy of Love at First Site but, it’s the last book in the entire warehouse. In other words, we’re never going to make one of these again for literally anyone. Unless you’re Stanley Tucci, we would definitely do it for him.  

We never head from Ryan Real-Last-Name-Witheld (oh God, I hope he got it) and he never posted this anywhere on the internet so we thought it was time to share it with you. We hope you enjoy the fact that we made it as much as we enjoyed the actual making of it.

The Firewatch Soundtrack is now available on vinyl!

It’s $25.00 and you can get it on the Campo Santo store right now.

Firewatch is nominated for some 2016 Game Awards!

• Best Performance: Cissy Jones as Delilah
  
• Best Performance: Rich Sommer as Henry
  
• Best Indie Game
  
• Best Art Direction
  
• Best Narrative
  

Tune in on December 1st to find out if Campo takes home some hardware and thanks as always for your continued support!

Firewatch is now updated and enhanced to support the PlayStation 4 Pro.

If you’re one of the first to pick up a new PlayStation 4 Pro this week, be happy to know that Firewatch has been updated to support the new console!

With a lot of talk about what a “4K console” offers and what “PS4 Pro Enhanced” means, we thought we’d quickly break down the update for you.

• Standard PS4 Customers: no change
• PS4 Pro Customers with a 1080p Display: enhanced detail distance, smoother loads, and much higher quality shadows
• PS Pro Customers with a 4K Display: the world is now rendered at WQHD (2560x1440p) and the UI renders at 4KUHD (3840x2160) and you will have enhanced level of detail of a standard PS4

Furthermore, this update features the roll-out of Free Roam Modedetailedhere!  This is a free update for all customers, PS4 Standard and Pro alike.

ExperienceHenry’s lookout tower in VR thanks to Steam Destinations!

If you’ve got a Vive or Oculus Rift you might be familiar with Destinations, a great app that lets you visit all manner of real and imagined places. Today we’re releasing Henry’s lookout tower and you can walk around and poke your nose all over it in VR. 

CHECK IT OUT HERE!

To get Firewatch stuff into Destinations we had to rebuild the scene in Source (Valve’s engine) and I think you’ll agree that Jane did a masterful job. 

It’s really stunning to be in Henry’s personal space. In fact, while messing around in it the other day, I picked up and then dropped the twenty-sided-die in his desk drawer and it rolled underneath his chair. Then, because I was using the Vive, I had to get down on the actual floor and reach under there to get it. It was an interaction I could never have in non-VR and was pretty thrilling despite this Destination being a simple static scene.

Enjoy! And yes, we included the turtle.

Yesterday we announced that we’re partnering with Good Universe, a LA-based film production, financing and sales company to develop material for games and film, beginning with Firewatch.

I’d like to talk a little bit more about that, what it means for a Firewatch movie, and why we’d do something like that, in general!

Almost a year ago we got an email from Akshay Mehta. He claimed that he worked for Good Universe, a company in LA run by two men, Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane, and that they had made successful movies. (Most recently, the horrifying Don’t Breathe, but Joe had run Lionsgate for years and brought you a few little movies based on The Hunger Games). His claims were validated by Google in addition to the fact that he repeatedly said “I’m legit, bubby!” like a real Hollywood deal-maker. (Akshay didn’t actually say this but I could tell he wanted to.)

Around this time, it was right after E3, we were getting a few emails about the future film rights to Firewatch and we kept putting them off. It felt silly to pursue a film deal for a game that wasn’t even out yet and probably could be a stinker. Nevertheless, I got to know Akshay and months later, about four days before Firewatch came out, I was in LA and stopped by to show them the game.

Joe, Akshay and the rest of Good Universe work on Wilshire Blvd., about a block from an office where I used to make copies for a pair of producers in college, about fifty steps from Rodeo Dr. and a strong 7-iron from the agency WME. If you’ve ever watched an episode of Entourage,you have seen this stretch of street many times. 

Sitting in Joe’s office, I started talking a little bit about what we wanted for Campo Santo as a company and quickly began to hate the sound of my own voice and transitioned into showing them the game. It was maybe 5pm so I figured I had 45 minutes before folks wanted to head home but we spent the next couple of hours combing over the prologue, Day 1 and Day 2 of Firewatch. It wasn’t the first time we’d talked to folks about the story or the game but it was the first time I’d played with anyone and had such a strong emotional reaction. 

They understood what type of story we were trying to tell and were curious about the tools we employ to tell it. I’d never experienced anyone in that business have the sort of process curiosity they showed along with an easy-going demeanor that didn’t try to big-time the one guy in their office with an indie-game running on a giant laptop.

Conversations moved from Firewatch to the abstract ways Campo Santo and Good Universe could work together going forward. And in the end, we decided that, while developing a Firewatchmovie is exciting, and we are definitely in the early days of doing that, in Good Universe we had another company that shared our values and we could call upon with weird and exciting ideas (and that they could do the same). It’s not dissimilar to the wonderful partner we found in Panic Inc. when we set off on this scheme at the very beginning.

It felt ridiculous to notpursue a partnership with these folks. It’s rare that you find people who don’t just share your creative values but your business ones as well. Solid relationships are the only way anything in any creative business gets made.

So, when will Firewatch be in theaters? Who will play Henry’s hands? Who will do the voice of Turt? For those of you who understand what film development means you a) know I couldn’t say if I knew and b) know that getting a movie made is a tireless process that mixes luck, timing and sheer will together to create success. What I can tell you is this isn’t a situation where we sold someone the rights and they’re off to do whatever they want with with it – anything you see out of us will be the product of a partnership, brought to you by tireless people like Akshay and countless contributions by everyone here at Campo along the way.

Until next time. We’ve got convertibles to purchase and sunglasses to don. We’re in the pictures, bubby.

-Sean

Firewatch is out now on GOG.com! 

Since its debut, Firewatch has been the number one requested game on GOG.com and today, we’re thrilled to say those requests are answered.

Firewatch is available with GOG Achievements on Windows, Mac & Linux and retails for $19.99 but will be 10% in honor of of release week! 

Playstation had us on their live-streaming stage at PSX. For some reason, I thought it’d be a good idea not to prep a play-through. Nevertheless, it turned out! Plus, it ends with a-never-before-seen surprise.

We’ll be at Sony’s Playstation Experience this weekend in San Francisco, December 5-6!

Play Firewatch, meet the team and maybe take home a shirt or a poster (or one of our new Firewatch totes!)

How:single and two-day tickets are still available

When: 10am-10pm on Saturday December, 5th and 10am-6pm on Sunday, December 6th

Where is Campo Santo: Booth 1134/1135 on the 1st Floor

Plus:New posters, special limited giveaways for PSX attendees, and Patrick Ewing hosting you at a demo station (Campo Santo programmer OR former NBA Big-Man? You’ll have to come see us to find out!)