I'll be Brave, Tomorrow is now available on Steam!

Play as a sick child in hospital, who finds escapism through a 2D Pixel Art platformer on their TV. The game is made in partnership with Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity! The game features:

-An adventure driven narrative experience...

-Precise pixel art platforming inspired by the 80's!

-Fun replayable minigames!

-A deep narrative revolving around a sick child.

-50% of revenue goes to Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity!

You can also purchase the digital soundtrack and artbook!

Hi everyone! Today is a very exciting day, so I won’t ramble on too much. This will be our last Devlog before the release of I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow, and so there is a lot to get through! Grab some popcorn, get yourself comfortable, and let's get started…

Release day is nearly upon us!

The 25th of September. 25/09/2024. That is the release date for I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow, locked in and fast approaching.

When we launched our Kickstarter campaign, we initially stated that we were aiming for an August release. While this was slightly optimistic, we really believed it was achievable. However, we want to make sure we release IBBT in the best possible state that we can. If anything from the last few years of rushed video games tells us, it’s to only drop it when it's ready. And in striving for that, we have had to slightly delay the release of the game - and for that, I apologise.

However, there was also another reason why the release was pushed back to September - To coincide with Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We hope by releasing IBBT in September, we can not only raise money to help GOSH, but also raise awareness for children suffering from cancer. We highly recommend that you check out the Children With Cancer UK website if you would like to learn more or find ways to get involved - https://www.childrenwithcancer.org.uk/about-us/childhood-cancer-awareness-month/


Console players - We have heard you!

From all the events we have gone to, we have heard over and over again how badly console players would love to play I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow. As a console gamer myself, I completely understood what had to be done. So, we are extremely happy to announce that I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow will be coming to Xbox, PlayStation and Switch!

The process of porting a game from PC to Consoles is certainly not an easy one. While I would love to give you a date for when these ports can be expected, I want to make sure we have enough time to bring the best possible version of IBBT to consoles. To that end, we are hoping to release the console ports in 2024, though it is possible this will be pushed back into early 2025. As always, we will make sure to keep you all updated regarding this, and hope all console players are very excited to play IBBT soon-ish!

Soundtrack and Artbook? Yes please!

If you were a Kickstarter backer, you are probably aware that we intended to reward certain backers with a digital Soundtrack and Artbook for IBBT. The creation of these has been going smoothly, and so we are happy to announce that players who were unable to support the Kickstarter will now be able to purchase the digital Soundtrack and digital artbook directly from Steam!

I’ll be BEAR, Tomorrow?!

Super Mario Galaxy is my favourite video game of all time. I know that’s weird to be reading within a Devlog for another game, but bear with me! In Mario Galaxy, you can find a secret room within the hub world where the illustrious character of Rosalina tells the player a heartfelt tale in the form of a children's storybook. And if you didn’t know this already, IBBT loves a good reference!

A completely original storybook, illustrated by the wonderful Seren Collier and written by Archie Crampton and Thomas Hunt, it features a timid bear cub who is too scared to hibernate! Take a look at the characters you will meet below!

Falling leaves…You know what time of year it is!

Time seems to be flying when you know you have a video game to release! As we are nearly into Autumn, I thought it would be nice to show you some of the Autumn levels of IBBT!

Featuring new enemies, new music, and even a new boss fight, Autumn is definitely a season to remember! Just be careful, Winter is on its way…

Final Thoughts

It really has been an experience of a lifetime making I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow. Working with Great Ormond Street, attending events all over the UK, and making a game with some of my best friends has been such a blast. But we aren’t done yet. InkForge Studios will continue after IBBT, with sights set bigger and better. And we hope you will join us for the journey!

A quick message for all Kickstarter Backers - Even through our best efforts, it is looking unlikely that we will be able to get you the physical rewards on time for release. I am really sorry about this. The physical artbook, Soundtrack, posters and magnets are all ready to be shipped, however we have hit a supply issue with the pins. We are expecting all shipments to be sent in the coming weeks. Again, we greatly apologise for this delay - All digital rewards will be supplied on release day.

Remember, September 25th…See you there!

Thomas Hunt, InkForge Studios Creative Director.

Hi all!

We are back at it again with a bunch of updates for I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow! We are now entering the final stages of development - it's pretty crazy looking back now at everything we have made and done.I won't lie, it has been a very difficult few months for us, but knowing that IBBT will be making a difference makes it all worthwhile! Now without much further ado, let's get into all the biggest updates!

A to Z complete!

We have just finished the creation of every single level for IBBT! This means that we now have internal builds which are playable from start to finish. Every 2D level, every 3D room, and every minigame!

It's crazy for us to look at everything finally coming together - but there is still lots of work to be done. Lots of assets are still missing, bugs are running rampant, and that extra layer of polish is yet to be finalised. However, it does mean that we are definitely on track - Expect a release date announcement in the next few weeks (We don’t want to rush anything, so sorry that it has taken us this long to come up with a concrete date!).

VROOOOOOM!

One of my favourite parts of IBBT to make is the racing minigame. Having gone through countless iterations, I feel content with the gameplay and aesthetic, but I knew I wanted to still push it further. So now, instead of just 1 track, there are going to be 3 to race through! May I introduce to you - Molten Mayhem and Stardust Skyway!
But that's not all! We felt that there just wasn’t enough challenge in these races - So say hello to the Ghost Racer! This racer can’t interact with you or the world, so don’t worry about being nudged off your lines - Instead, just try to beat them as fast as you can! It is much easier said than done.

New Faces!

We loved seeing the reception to Don Hedgehog and Sheriff Snail during Steam Next Fest. So, we have a few new faces for you to welcome to IBBT!

Elder Worm - This mysterious Worm will guide the Robin to new heights. Seemingly infused with magic energy, they will be a huge asset to help finding the Robins parents.
Wasp Soldiers - These loyal soldiers are not to be messed with! They will track you down and if you're not careful, it may BEE a problem!

We have more faces to show off in the full release, so we hope you are looking forward to it!

Kickstarter rewards

We are currently in the process of finalising all the Kickstarter rewards! If you supported us in our Kickstarter, we are still so incredibly thankful for your contributions - We promise to do everything we can to make sure you are happy with your rewards, and to make sure they arrive on time for the release of IBBT.
Unfortunately, we have run into a slight problem with the order of the patches as part of the ‘SUPER COOL SWAG’ tier. As a replacement, we are including a custom made magnet in the order - We hope this will be okay!

Final Thoughts

Development is moving along smoothly. We are all incredibly dedicated to make IBBT the best it can possibly be - Fighting through the hot UK weather at the moment is our current biggest issue!

Thank you again for your continued support, and as always feel free to reach out to us on our community discord server!

https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/2741070/Ill_be_Brave_Tomorrow__Narrative_Platformer_for_Charity/
[discord.gg]

• An adventure driven narrative experience

• Precise pixel art platforming inspired by the 80's

• Fun replayable minigames

• A deep narrative revolving around a sick child

• 50% of revenue goes to Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity

The game itself has two aspects; The 3D hospital room, where there are many objects to interactive with, as well as mini-games to keep the kid entertained...

But there is also the video game they play, which is a classic 2D retro platformer! The 3D world will interact with the 2D in various ways, from new mechanics found, to boss fights!

InkForge Studios are supporting the wonderful Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Charity, pledging to donate 50% of the games Steam revenue!

https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/2741070/Ill_be_Brave_Tomorrow__Narrative_Platformer_for_Charity/
[discord.gg]

• An adventure driven narrative experience

• Precise pixel art platforming inspired by the 80's

• Fun replayable minigames

• A deep narrative revolving around a sick child

• 50% of revenue goes to Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity

The game itself has two aspects; The 3D hospital room, where there are many objects to interactive with, as well as mini-games to keep the kid entertained...

But there is also the video game they play, which is a classic 2D retro platformer! The 3D world will interact with the 2D in various ways, from new mechanics found, to boss fights!

InkForge Studios are supporting the wonderful Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Charity, pledging to donate 50% of the games Steam revenue!

Hello again! Welcome to the second Devlog for I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow. The day this goes live will be the same day that Steam’s Next Fest starts, so we have got lots to talk about - Mainly, our brand new demo! Featuring brand new 2D levels, minigames, and much more, we hope that you're excited! To start this Devlog, we wanted to first talk about what you can expect from I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow in the coming months leading up to release.

What’s coming up?

From now until release, we are going to be hard at work making sure IBBT is as great as it can possibly be. In order to help us out, please feel free to join our community discord server, where you can chat directly to us, spot bug fixes in the game, and let us know what you want to see in the game (Unfortunately, a fishing minigame is off the table!).

You may be able to find us at some upcoming events! Firstly, IBBT will be attending TwitchCon. From the 29th of June to the 1st of July, you can visit the Great Ormond Street stand to learn more about IBBT, and possibly even get your hands on our coveted stickers! Unfortunately, none of the dev team will be in attendance, but you will be able to talk to our amazing connections at GOSH!

Develop Brighton. From the 9th to the 11th of July, the InkForge team will be attending Develop to meet fellow developers and members of the public. While we will not be exhibiting, we are very excited to talk to as many people as possible about IBBT!

Recently, we attended our University game expo, Falmouth Games Expo, and showed off IBBT to lots of members of the public, staff and students - below you can find a photo of a few of us after 4 long days of expo!

Watch out, it’s hot!

For the new demo, we knew we wanted to include a brand new minigame, unlike anything seen in our first demo. This got us thinking back to how our imagination was as children, and how even a boring room can become an obstacle course with just a little stretch of the imagination. From there we ended up with something I think almost everyone played as a child - The Floor is Lava!

Become SpaceSoldier-Sam and use your jetpack to navigate the hospital room like never before! You are tasked with collecting stars dotted around the room, all the while dodging the lava covering the floor, which was placed by SpaceSoldier-Sam’s arch nemesis - Space Chimp!

This level was a lot of fun to make for me in particular, as I was able to stuff it full of cheeky references to not only other video games, but some of InkForge’s own titles! If you’ve played our first ever game SEMU, you may see a familiar face…Mine!

Somebody called for a mechanic?

From talking to fans both in person at events and online, it was clear how fun everyone found the racing game! Although we were happy with how it was in our first demo, we knew we could improve on it in a lot of different ways. So, we hope you are excited for Racing 2.0!

The track has been completely re-imagined. With new bridges, spinning wheelchairs and even boost pads, you will be flying around the track! We have tried to keep the feel of the RC car the same, with just an extra layer of polish to really make you FEEL the speed.

We have many more ideas for the racing game…But that's for another Devlog ;)

For fun, we must go to Don Hedgehog!

We absolutely loved seeing everyone's reaction to fighting Fred the Frog from the first demo. However, we felt as though Fred wasn’t intimidating enough. I mean, look at those rosy cheeks!

We knew we wanted to expand upon the idea of ‘Boss’ levels in the 2D game, but also wanted to make them feel unique from other games. A major point of criticism we faced about our first demo was that the Boss Fight against Fred was too easy. We totally agreed, but it wasn’t going to be as simple as just changing a few numbers. From the get-go, the idea of ‘hurting’ other animals never felt right in IBBT (or in real life for that matter!). Therefore, we decided to lose the idea of ‘Fighting’ bosses. Instead, you have Don Hedgehog!

Leader of the hedgehogs, he really isn’t one to mess around! You better watch out, otherwise you will be running away from a spiked boulder…

Getting that Summer feeling!

When it came to deciding how long this demo was going to be, it was very tough. We wanted to show what we were capable of as a team, show what you can expect for the full release, but also keep back some of the larger secrets and narrative points. To that end, we are only including the Summer levels of the game, which in context of the whole game, is under a 1/3rd of what you can expect.

These levels all take place at the start of the game, and are used as an introduction to the mechanics and narrative. If you feel as though the demo is too easy, that is completely understandable. However, please remember that there will be lots more to come, with a lot more challenges as well!

Final thoughts

We really hope you enjoy playing the new demo for IBBT. We have poured months and months of hard work into it, and we hope it's up to your standards. We still have so much more to show you, so we hope you are looking forward to that.

From all of us here at InkForge, and on behalf of GOSH, thank you for your continued support of I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow. We will see you in the next Devlog!

https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/2741070/Ill_be_Brave_Tomorrow__Narrative_Platformer_for_Charity/
[discord.gg]

• An adventure driven narrative experience

• Precise pixel art platforming inspired by the 80's

• Fun replayable minigames

• A deep narrative revolving around a sick child

• 50% of revenue goes to Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity

The game itself has two aspects; The 3D hospital room, where there are many objects to interactive with, as well as mini-games to keep the kid entertained...

But there is also the video game they play, which is a classic 2D retro platformer! The 3D world will interact with the 2D in various ways, from new mechanics found, to boss fights!

InkForge Studios are supporting the wonderful Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Charity, pledging to donate 50% of the games Steam revenue!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to our first Devlog for I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow.

We know it's been a little while since you last heard from us. For that, we are really sorry. Balancing development, all the events we have been exhibiting at, and our uni work has been a challenge. We have a lot of exciting stuff to show you, so we hope you are ready!

Events

Firstly, we just wanted to cover all the events we have been to. At the end of March, we showed off I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow at our first major event - Insomnia! This was a crazy experience for us, showing off the game to so many people. All the feedback we got was amazing, and overall the event was a huge success!
Recently, we also showed off IBBT at WASD in London. Over the 3 days the event lasted, we spoke to hundreds of people, handing out nearly 2,000 stickers and leaflets! While we would love to have some time to recover, we have more events to come soon! Mainly, Steam Next Fest in June - Keep an eye out for more in that in the coming weeks :))
A lens to an alternate reality

One of the first things we did this month was plan out the whole game. Yes, every single level! It was a long meeting with plenty of coffee, cool ideas, and heated debates (the professional term for arguing!) In this discussion, Technical Director Archie Crampton brought up something we had talked about months ago.

Before I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow, we had a very different game idea in mind, titled ‘Project CATH’. We were going to make a cyberpunk inspired skateboarding game… I wonder how different things would be now if we had stayed with that idea! In order to pay homage to what could have been, we decided to create a small snippet for the player to play on the child's handheld console. Its fast gameplay is really a change of pace. Check out how cool some of the art looks!
Change of scenery

Obviously, the main focus for us with I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow is to make a heartfelt narrative. To this end, we have started to further develop the 3D side of the game.

One aspect we found from the demo that really resonated with players was the back and forth dialog between the child and Fred the Frog. To expand on this, I have started working closely with our lead 3D artist, Oliver Wheeler, to create a dynamic hospital garden for the player to explore. In those segments, players will be guided along the path, whilst having a discussion with the child's nurse. It is always important to get fresh air every now and then (the biggest challenge for game devs)!
Out with the old, in with the new!

It's a very scary thing to release your work out into the world. When we decided we wanted to release a demo on Steam, we knew it was going to have its pros and cons. It was definitely a great help for the Kickstarter, giving potential backers an easy way to experience what we had in mind. However, it also meant that certain elements of the demo were not representative of what we wanted the finished product to look like.

To that end, we decided certain things needed a little… glow up! Most importantly were the tilemaps. Just look at the difference!
The power of Music!

Our composer, Snosm, is actually a childhood friend of our creative director Thomas Hunt! Snosm has been making music for as long as Tom can remember. Now, with I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow, Snosm’s music is reaching a whole new audience!

To celebrate how amazing his music is, we have created a dedicated space to listen to Snosm’s music in game. Just press on the ‘StrollGuy’ in the 3D room, and you can listen to all the tracks in the game!
InkForge…Assemble!

We have expanded the ‘I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow’ Team!

Making ‘I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow’ the best it can possibly be is no small task. With a core team of 5, we knew it would be a challenge to bring our creative ideas to life. That’s why we decided to grow our close-knit team, allowing for even more creativity and innovation, which will help us bring ‘I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow’ even closer to what we know it can be!

Our first new addition is Indy Salisbury, an incredibly talented 3D artist with a real aptitude for character design. They will be joining our wonderful Oliver Wheeler Wheeler in bringing the hospital to life, immersing the player even further into the world around Robyn!

Helping out more generally will be Sophie Savva. With a keen eye for QA, social media, as well as more specific in engine components such as environment design, with Sophie's knowledge of physical production design for film, she will have a massive impact on the games virtual production design!

Next, joining us will be Seren Collier, a 2D artist with a broad range of skills. They will be primarily focusing on the development of a storybook which will be accessible within the 3D room itself. Keep an eye out for more on this in the following weeks!

Alongside Seren is Kaja Maryniewska, another amazing 2D artist. While we aren't ready to talk about what they will be working on yet, we are sure it's going to be great :))

Finally, we have another 2D artist - Nel Spence! They are going to be developing something really special for the Hospital, so stay tuned for that!

Final Thoughts

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading our first Devlog. This is my first time ever writing one, so I hope it was what you were hoping for!

We will aim to update everyone more regularly from now on. We are still incredibly thankful for all your support, whether you were a Kickstarter backer, someone from one of the events we exhibited at, or anyone else, we really appreciate you!

Now back to it! Remember to keep an eye out for Steam Next fest… I have heard there may be a new demo in the works!

Just a few minor fixes added to the game:
-

• Fixed credits fade
  
• - Fixed FredTheFrog Splash Screen
  
• - Added Button for Kickstarter
  
• - Added Button for Wishlists
  

This update may have wiped your save data unfortunately.