Distant Meadows Shows Exclusive First Impressions of Waters of Sal Naména
With an exclusive reveal on GamesMarkt, Nuremberg studio Distant Meadows is sharing the first screenshots of in-development game Waters of Sal Naména. The game in the wake of Outer Wilds and The Witness wants to bring the genre of 'Metroidbrainias' further along.
Waters of Sal Naména is a new Metroidbrainia by Distant Meadows from Nuremberg.Distant Meadows
Waters of Sal Naména is an explorative open-world puzzle game in the guise of traditional Game Boy productions that combines the cognition-driven game structure and survival gameplay of games like Outer Wilds with the rule-setting and puzzle affinity of The Witness to create its own interpretation of the still young ‘Metroidbrainia’ genre, Distant Meadows says.
Waters of Sal Naména is an explorative open-world puzzle game in the guise of traditional Game Boy productions that combines the cognition-driven game structure and survival gameplay of games like Outer Wilds with the rule-setting and puzzle affinity of The Witness to create its own interpretation of the still young ‘Metroidbrainia’ genre, Distant Meadows says.
The catch of the game: Player progress within the game world is not saved. Progress - in this case the opening up of new areas in a large, interconnected game world - is instead the result of continuous knowledge acquisition and is implicitly reconstructed from the player's mind with each game session.
Previously unannounced, Distant Meadows is revealing Waters of Sal Naména with a first batch of in-development screenshot exclusively here on GamesMarkt. See the first impressions below, and read on for details on the studio, the genre and all further links:
GamesMarkt's exclusive screenshot reveal for Waters of Sal Naména (Distant Meadows)
GamesMarkt's exclusive screenshot reveal for Waters of Sal Naména (Distant Meadows)
GamesMarkt's exclusive screenshot reveal for Waters of Sal Naména (Distant Meadows)
About Distant Meadows
Distant Meadows is a two person indie studio based in Nuremberg, currently working out of the shared co-office space of German Computer Game Awards (DCP) Studio of the Year 2024, Pixel Maniacs. Founder of Distant Meadows is Felix Baumgarten, Media Engineer and Multimedia Didactics Designer with an unconventional vita. Before his studies and following studio founding, Baumgarten has moved from Halle an der Saale to Nuremberg in 2006 to intern at Computec, having written for various publications like N-Zone, Play3 and GamesAktuell there. In 2008, he opened a retail shop: the "Wunderlampe" (later "Konsolerie"), a specialist shop for video games as a cosy, family-friendly lounge for trying out games, drinking coffee shopping. In 2010 then, he started his studies, and has founded Distant Meadows in March 2024.
Employed at the studio is Pixel Artist Myrto Peppa-Boy. Distant Meadows is also working with two freelancers and plans to outsource some programming work to Well Done Games, the developer’s of IndusTree, who are also situated at the Nuremberg co-working space.
The team of Distant Meadows, from the left: Founder and CEO Felix Baumgarten, freelancer Damian Thüring, pixel artist Myrto Peppa-Boy, freelancer Leyla Schlopsna (Distant Meadows)
What is a Metroidbrania?
To explain the vision of his game, Baumgarten has used the newer genre term Metroidbrainia. “Metroidbrainias are adventure games with a branching, freely accessible game world whose different areas are unlocked over the course of the game according to the lock-and-key principle. In contrast to their namesakes, the Metroidvanias, however, this type of game development is not based on finding and fighting objects and abilities, but on the player acquiring knowledge”, Baumgarten explains. “Once acquired, this knowledge is used to cross the threshold to an unexplored area, where the next knowledge awaits - and so on. The most well-known, clear-cut Metroidbrainias that players are currently familiar with are Outer Wilds and The Witness. Depending on how narrowly you define the term, some also include games such as Minit, Return of the Obra Dinn or The Forgotten City.”
The developer is conscious of the challenge this type of game design entails. “In my opinion, the best way to distil the essence of a Metroidbrainia is to see whether a game works or would work without saving your progress from one session to the next. It is particularly impressive when you manage to create an extensive adventure game with several dozen hours of gameplay despite not having a save function. Because then you have to dig deep into your bag of tricks as a game designer to maintain the consecutive development of the game.”
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The catch of the game: Player progress within the game world is not saved. Progress - in this case the opening up of new areas in a large, interconnected game world - is instead the result of continuous knowledge acquisition and is implicitly reconstructed from the player's mind with each game session.
Previously unannounced, Distant Meadows is revealing Waters of Sal Naména with a first batch of in-development screenshot exclusively here on GamesMarkt. See the first impressions below, and read on for details on the studio, the genre and all further links:
GamesMarkt's exclusive screenshot reveal for Waters of Sal Naména (Distant Meadows)
GamesMarkt's exclusive screenshot reveal for Waters of Sal Naména (Distant Meadows)
GamesMarkt's exclusive screenshot reveal for Waters of Sal Naména (Distant Meadows)
About Distant Meadows
Distant Meadows is a two person indie studio based in Nuremberg, currently working out of the shared co-office space of German Computer Game Awards (DCP) Studio of the Year 2024, Pixel Maniacs. Founder of Distant Meadows is Felix Baumgarten, Media Engineer and Multimedia Didactics Designer with an unconventional vita. Before his studies and following studio founding, Baumgarten has moved from Halle an der Saale to Nuremberg in 2006 to intern at Computec, having written for various publications like N-Zone, Play3 and GamesAktuell there. In 2008, he opened a retail shop: the "Wunderlampe" (later "Konsolerie"), a specialist shop for video games as a cosy, family-friendly lounge for trying out games, drinking coffee shopping. In 2010 then, he started his studies, and has founded Distant Meadows in March 2024.
Employed at the studio is Pixel Artist Myrto Peppa-Boy. Distant Meadows is also working with two freelancers and plans to outsource some programming work to Well Done Games, the developer’s of IndusTree, who are also situated at the Nuremberg co-working space.
The team of Distant Meadows, from the left: Founder and CEO Felix Baumgarten, freelancer Damian Thüring, pixel artist Myrto Peppa-Boy, freelancer Leyla Schlopsna (Distant Meadows)
What is a Metroidbrania?
To explain the vision of his game, Baumgarten has used the newer genre term Metroidbrainia. “Metroidbrainias are adventure games with a branching, freely accessible game world whose different areas are unlocked over the course of the game according to the lock-and-key principle. In contrast to their namesakes, the Metroidvanias, however, this type of game development is not based on finding and fighting objects and abilities, but on the player acquiring knowledge”, Baumgarten explains. “Once acquired, this knowledge is used to cross the threshold to an unexplored area, where the next knowledge awaits - and so on. The most well-known, clear-cut Metroidbrainias that players are currently familiar with are Outer Wilds and The Witness. Depending on how narrowly you define the term, some also include games such as Minit, Return of the Obra Dinn or The Forgotten City.”
The developer is conscious of the challenge this type of game design entails. “In my opinion, the best way to distil the essence of a Metroidbrainia is to see whether a game works or would work without saving your progress from one session to the next. It is particularly impressive when you manage to create an extensive adventure game with several dozen hours of gameplay despite not having a save function. Because then you have to dig deep into your bag of tricks as a game designer to maintain the consecutive development of the game.”
Never miss anything from the German, Swiss and Austrian games industry again: subscribe for free to our Daily newsletter and get all news straight to your inbox.
