TRAILER
ABOUT EMPORIUM
HISTORY
SCREENSHOTS
LOGOS
FACT SHEET
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
ABOUT THE DEVELOPER
PRESS
EXTRAS
LINKS
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ABOUT EMPORIUM

Emporium is a short interactive vignette. Exploring notions of escapism, loss and a fragmented sense of self in the wake of a personal tragedy.

These pockets of dissonant clarity are a vain effort to find beauty, poetry and reason in one's bleakest and most desperate moments.

Emporium is a small game lasting roughly 30 to 45 minutes, available for PC from Steam, itch.io and GameJolt.

It has a minimal approach to game play, focusing on visuals and audio to build a visceral experience with sporadic dialogue choices leading the narrative.

HISTORY

Initially Emporium was going to be an academic study of suicide, from a psychology/philosophy standpoint. Delivered though a single branching dialogue between two connected characters, with a background narrative tying it all together. However during the writing process the whole thing was becoming very analytical and standoffish.

After some reworking and realigning my focus, the game took on a more introspective path - less academic. More sensory. This gave the game an overall more intimate feeling, and was a significantly more personal project for me to work on.

Although Emporium touches on themes of suicide, depression, bipolar and dissociative identity disorder in a very fleeting way, it’s not necessarily a game about those things. More a sort of confused, vaguely poetic response to those things.

SCREENSHOTS

download all full resolution screenshots as .zip

LOGOS

download full set of logos & branding as .zip

FACT SHEET

Developer: Tom Kitchen

Release date: April 21st 2017

DLC: Soundtrack & desktop backgrounds

Platforms: Windows PC (Steam, itch.io and GameJolt)

Steam: Steam store page

itch.io: itch.io store page

GameJolt: GameJolt store page

Price: $1.99

DLC price: Pay what you want

Language: English

Contact: info @ tom-kitchen.co.uk

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

MINIMUM:

OS: Windows 10

Processor: Core i5 processor or equivalent

Memory: 4 GB RAM

Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 645 OEM or equivalent

DirectX: Version11 or higher

Storage: 1 GB available space
RECOMMENDED:

OS: Windows 10

Processor: Core i5 processor or equivalent

Memory: 8 GB RAM

Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti or equivalent

DirectX: Version11 or higher

Storage: 1 GB available space


*NOTE* Not Recommended for Intel integrated graphics cards.

ABOUT THE DEVELOPER

Hello, I’m Tom Kitchen. I’m an artist, illustrator, and something close to a game designer.

In 2014 I joined up with a small group of friends to form Blind Sky Studios. In August of 2016 we released Mandagon, a small pixel art game inspired by Tibetan theology and philosophy.

Mandagon currently has 300,000+ downloads on steam, with 3,500+ user reviews - overall very positive.
view Mandagon on steam

Following the success of Mandagon I began work on a small side project titled EMPORIUM. This game would become my first solo endeavour as a game designer.

Right now I’m in the beginning stages of Blind Sky Studios’ next collaborative project titled Adam, an expansion of a prototype built back in 2014. Adam tells the story of a man suffering from alzheimer's who is disowned by his family.
view adam’s website here

PRESS


indiegames.com said of EMPORIUM "It's striking in its art and music, all while the story drags you through some ruthlessly emotional moments."
The full article can be seen here.
Early in Emporium’s development I spoke to Kill Screen about the project.
The full article can be seen here.

*NOTE* This article mentions a potential collaboration for music. This was the plan early on but due to scheduling conflicts it didn't come to fruition and I tackled the music myself.
In this interview with itsoncraft.com I go into more depth on the creative process of EMPROIUM.
The full article can be seen here.

EXTRAS

A collection of art prints and cards taken from Emporium is available here.

LINKS

Steam store page

itch.io store page

GameJolt store page

My personal website

Blind Sky Studios

Development blog

Trailer

Twitter @tom_kitchen

Instagram

facebook