Hello and welcome to Totality Gaming’s official devlog! I am super excited to start this new chapter of development and wanted to start the year off right by making introductions, providing insight as to what we are all about, and announcing what news we have regarding our current project. So please sit back, grab yourself a nice cup of chai, and let’s get this party started.
First things first, I’d like to introduce ourselves. My name is Amy Grecol and I am the founder of Totality Gaming LLC. I have partnered with two brilliant minds, Wil Schaeffer and Darrin Cooper, to develop a video game to help put our faces and portfolios into the Game Development industry. The three of us were Game Development majors at Kent State University and have worked together on a number of projects, namely our senior thesis video game. After graduating in 2023, we went our separate ways for a while as we looked for jobs with our new degrees but were disheartened to realize that entry-level jobs were hard to come by without at least 5+ of professional experience along with at least one properly shipped game. After a few months of applying to unresponsive job applications, I’d had enough and decided that it was time to make my own experience. So, I contacted my old teammates, who shared the same attitude towards the job market, and created our very own game development company!
Mind you, we started from nothing. At that time, I had no idea how to even begin making an LLC, how to promote our work, or anything involved with running an actual company. But we knew how to make a pretty darn good game. So, with plenty of help from old professors, LinkedIn connections, and even some family and friends, we are here today in full production with a fully legitimized LLC and ambition that’ll take us to the moon.
So now that you’ve gotten to know us a little bit, let me talk about what you REALLY came here for: what is our game??
We call it Project Totality. While that is not the official name for the game, this is the title we use when referring to it until we make an official announcement, which is due to happen at some point this year.
Project Totality is a 2.5D stealth platformer that takes place in the futuristic cyber city of Zircon. You play as a retired spy named Dain Cypher who is on the run from the law and organized crime mafia of the city. Running from a dark past, Dain finds himself backed into a corner when his wife gets kidnapped, forcing him to come out of retirement and reluctantly work with old allies to locate her and bring her home. This is a game of strategy, puzzle-solving, and quick thinking to complete missions and successfully navigate through levels with varying enemies and obstacles. But it also tells a story that brings to light the difficulties of working through past mistakes, developing trust, and taking a stand against corruption.
I want to say so much more about this game, but I must refrain for now, or else you’ll be reading this log until 2026.
Not to worry! More will be posted on the ‘GAMES’ page of our website, along with behind-the-scene photos of levels, character designs, and maybe some spoiler-free lore facts about the game’s people, places, and organizations. We are SO excited to share what we’ve been working on.
Finally, I will do what developer logs are supposed to do and explain what has been happening this month. I just had to get all that introductory stuff out of the way!
To catch you up to speed, we have been working in pre-production for the last year. It’s too much to write as a small paragraph to do any justice, but to summarize: we’ve gone from designing the city districts where the levels are going to take place, to carefully choosing spy gadgets that are helpful and rewarding to use, to writing scripts and character sheets, to working in-engine to make sure movement is fluid and precise, and much so more. What we can say is that we have come up with a game that brings new ideas to the table along with inspirations from and homages to some of our favorite games. It’s an ambitious project for sure, but we are no strangers to the challenge.
Now, we have entered a new year which means new year resolutions. So, as a team, we came up with both long and short-term goals we want to make for ourselves and a plan for what we want to see for the game by the end of 2025.
Darrin has been hard at work revamping a new level design format that will make it easier for him and any other help we bring on to quickly and efficiently design levels. Each section of the game is different in challenge and aesthetic, but all follow the same general blueprint that is built for a cohesive gameloop. Placing puzzles, obstacles, and enemies with his new format will make it easier to keep the player engaged and attentive without being too repetitive.
Wil has been in charge of making the project’s Game Design Document, or in other words, our “Game Bible.” For those who do not know what a GDD is, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It is the flesh and bones of our game put onto paper. Or, screen, I guess. The most up-to-date document to keep everyone on the team on the same page about every key detail of the game. This includes mechanic systems, color scripts, character biographies, lore, and everything else you can think of that is a part of a video game. It’s no small task, and Wil has been doing awesome keeping it updated and organized for ourselves, and any other help we decide to bring on in the future.
This month, I have been moving my focus away from writing the ending of the game and instead on making a presence for ourselves on the internet. Though I already have the LLC established, we needed a website so we could prove the company exists. So that’s been my focus: conquering WordPress! And here I am! As I mentioned, I had been writing the ending of the game, constantly reworking it, and playing with potential routes to see what fits. At the same time, I am fixing up Dain’s backstory along with some key relationships between characters. It’s all falling into place.
So, that is what we have been individually working on this past month. Then as a team, we also came up with some long-term goals and checkpoints we would like to see ourselves reach by the end of the year. These include finalizing our mechanic systems for the stages of pre-implementation and testing. So a functioning XP system, currency, gadgets, equipment, and upgrades. All things we need for a proper demo so we can get feedback from play-testers to ensure everything is balanced and enjoyable to play! We also want to establish a platform for ourselves on the internet, which means social media, a completed website, and updated monthly devlogs. And as you can see, we are already on the right track for that! And finally, the biggest goal we have is that we want to establish a Steam page and a playable demo by the end of the year. There are a lot of moving parts that go into this, but we will eventually decide to either have a demo on Steam, Itch.io, or a support page to help development along. Either way, updates will be posted on both these logs and the games page of the website.
We have come a long way since 2023 and I couldn’t be more proud of the team, however, we still have one heck of a journey ahead of us. But we are so excited to bring you along and share what exciting news and features we have in store. We plan to post once a month on this website, so remember to come back every once in a while to check out our progress. We will have social media available to follow for more updates soon. Until then, here’s to another productive month and a great start to the new year! Thanks for tuning in!