Trailers
Sneak-peek images
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - BUCHAREST, RO – DECEMBER 6, 2017 Black The Fall is Coming to Nintendo Switch™ This Winter After a short debate, The Party has unanimously agreed to open a new branch this Winter, in order to enable more workers to serve the country. After being successfully launched earlier this year on Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Black The Fall is coming to the Nintendo Switch system on December 14th in United States, Canada and Mexico and, in early January, in Europe. Grab your Joy-Con™ controllers and prepare for some emotional time travel into a dark world inspired by Romanian Communism and 90’s Sci-fi universe, as you take control of an old machinist who manipulates his way out of The System. Nintendo Switch Announcement Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02T_wyctkQQ Nintendo Switch Game Page: https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/black-the-fall-switch ABOUT THE GAME Black The Fall is an atmospheric puzzle-platformer, where you:
Sand Sailor Studio is a Bucharest-based independent game development company founded in 2014. Their adventure began with Black The Fall, an atmospheric puzzler which gracefully made it from a successful Kickstarter campaign, through a gaming accelerator and onto a solid collaboration with Square Enix. Now, the fizzy team of eight is determined to create new, daring projects, after they brought to light Romania's Communism stories by launching Black The Fall on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on July 11th, 2017. More on the team, here: http://www.blackthefall.com/sand-sailor-studio.html CONTACT: Andreea Vaduva, Community Manager Email: [email protected] Phone: +40 742 013 683 Skype: [email protected] Web: http://www.blackthefall.com/ © 2017 Nintendo. Nintendo Switch and Joy-Con are trademarks of Nintendo. AboutThe Game
After decades of toil, an old machinist plots his escape from the oppressive grasp of the Communist regime. Through hidden passages, shadow and grief, he struggles. Ingenuity, reflexes and deception are his tools. Along the road, he befriends the most unlikely creature, an abandoned little robot. Could they escape this bleak and deadly world, together? Features
Game History Black The Fall was born in 2014, as Cristian Diaconescu and Nicoleta Iordanescu's art project: a black & white stealth-platformer, set-up in an alienated world. The game concept came as a way to illustrate and express rebellion against the mechanisms of a heavily corrupted system, rooted in the decades of communism, Romania has endured. In the months to follow they discovered there's so much to show about the communist mentality: distrust, dehumanizing work environment, uniformity. "We chose a puzzle game approach, as this would better illustrate what it means to cope with a restrictive regime. We lived in times where there was no freedom of speech, intellectuals were thrown in prisons and tortured, food was subject to rationing, there was no access to contraception. Access to western culture was minimal. It sounds Orwellian, but unfortunately it happened in real life in most of communist countries. And the worst part is that it's still happening in some parts of the world." said Cristian Diaconescu, Creative Director at Sand Sailor Studio. "Also, as we explored this path we realized that the oppressive mechanics apply to the western world today, where a lot of people feel trapped in conforming with a system they don't believe in. With Black the Fall, we are offering an alternative course of action, where anyone has the chance to outsmart the system and escape it." The Studio Sand Sailor Studio is a Bucharest-based independent game development company founded in 2014. Their adventure began with Black The Fall, an atmospheric puzzler which gracefully made it from a successful Kickstarter campaign, through a gaming accelerator and onto a solid collaboration with Square Enix. Now, the a fizzy team of eight is determined to create new, daring projects, after they brought to light Romania's Communism stories by launching Black The Fall on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on July 11th, 2017. Studio History In January 2014 two artists, with basic programming skills, started working on a noir mobile game prototype. This naturally led to asking friends for: feedback, funding, help with programming, you name it. In a few months the team doubled in size having two programmers join Cristi and Nico on this journey. Sand Sailor Studio started their odyssey by competing for the Square Enix Collective program with the prototype for Black the Fall, where they had a 70%+ YES. This feedback empowered the team to build a successful campaign on KickStarter. Then Sand Sailor Studio won a scholarship with their prototype and took part in Execution Labs' accelerator program. "With XL labs, we learned a lot about the industry mechanics and decided to reshape our game, in order to better reflect the concept of escaping an oppressive system; something we are very familiar with" says Cristian Diaconescu, Creative Director at Sand Sailor Studio. "Since then we've added more talent to the team, going full steam ahead with a team of nine people working on Black The Fall." In 2016 the Sand Sailor studio signed a publishing contract with Square Enix for Black The Fall and was lucky to showcase the game and meet the players around the world at events such as E3, Gamescom, Tokyo Game Show, Comic Con, EGX, Unite Europe, IndieCade Europe and many more. |
Awards & Nominations
WINNER - Excellence in Game Design, by BIC Award 2016
WINNER - Best Indie Game at Gamescom 2016, by spawn.sk NOMINEE - Best Indie Game, by Gamescom 2016 NOMINEE - Best Art, by BIC Award 2016 NOMINEE - Best Narrative, by BIC Award 2016 NOMINEE - Best Art, by BIG Festival 2016 Fact sheet
Developer
Sand Sailor Studio based in Bucharest, Romania Publisher Square Enix Platforms PC, PS4 & Xbox One - July 11th, 2017 Nintendo Switch - December 14th, 2017 (self-published) Studio founding date February 2014 Contact support[at]blackthefall[.]com Social facebook.com/blackthefall twitter.com/BlackTheFall Wiki Gamepedia Wiki Page Downloads
Selected ArticlesAs a piece of self-expression, Black the Fall is therefore more an impressionistic sketch than a historically accurate document.
- Thomas McMullan, alphr.com Perhaps that's the most inadvertently chilling thing about the game — how quickly the world moves on, and how soon we forget. Then again, that's why humans create things like Black the Fall. - Elliot Gardner, kotaku.co.uk Death, followed by success, followed by death, and success, repeated across a series of brain-tickling teasers of macabre design.. - Mike Diver, vice.com An example of beautiful minimalism in game design. - Matt Kamen, wired.co.uk Lovely aesthetic and nails-tough puzzling. - Jason Schreier, kotaku.com I have a crush for Black the Fall - [87], jeuxvideo.com Its dystopian, industrial setting is particularly worthy of praise. -Kris Lipscombe, thesixthaxis.com I’m in love with the aesthetic. It’s a remarkable vision of a destroyed world. - Ben Barrett, rockpapershotgun.com One of the more striking 2.5D adventures on the horizon. - Jeffrey Matulef, eurogamer.net ' You are not alone in this world. - Christian Valentin, pocketgamer.co.uk The game looks really cool and sounds even cooler. - Lance Liebl, gamezone.com Dark and brooding puzzler. - Dave Cook, vg247.com It looks stunning visually. - Rob Morrow, destructoid.com 
Credits Cristian Diaconescu, Creative Director
Razvan Dumitrache, Senior Programmer Adrian Licuriceanu, Senior Programmer Adrian Cristea, Render Programmer Nicoleta Iordanescu, Level Designer Andrei Dragomir, Level Designer Marius Mustata, Level Designer Andreea Zamfir, Level Designer Alexandru Seidiu, Sound Designer Ewen Sinclair, Music Production Environments, Music Production Andreea Vaduva, Community Manager |
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