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Articles by Adrian Chmielarz
Witchfire's creative director on the benefits of small teams and the mystery of how Clair Obscur turned out so brilliantly
Adrian Chmielarz co-founded the Warsaw-based studio People Can Fly back in 2002, working on titles like Painkiller, Bulletstorm, and Gears of War: Judgment. Then in 2012 he co-founded The Astronauts, which went on to release The Vanishing of Ethan Carter in 2014. The second game from The Astronauts is Witchfire, a dark fantasy RPG shooter that entered Early Access in 2024 and is now nearing its 1.0 release.
How to Make a Game That Punches Above Its Weight
Before we get to the fat community update, here’s a guest post from Adrian, our Creative Director, on the secrets of games that punch above their weight… Most of Witchfire was done by a team of twelve people. When we revealed that, people noticed: But this started earlier, with The Vanishing of Ethan Carter: It sounds insane today, but one of the stronger marketing beats we’ve done was to give the press three very short GIFs from the game.
Witchfire Early Access Roadmap 2024-2025
EDIT 2024.09: We have updated the road map to reflect all the latest developments like the Steam release. Please see the Timeline section for a nice road map infographic! Last year, we shared a roadmap with you, but since then, we’ve gained more wisdom and experience. For many of us, this is our first Early Access game, so the learning curve has been steep. But now, we know better. At a high level, I believe we’re delivering well on our promises, with one exception: time.
The Astronauts
Heh, I probably should not be writing this post. You’re not here by accident, so most likely you know we are a small team who made Witchfire (now in Early Access). A small team means each day of work matters a lot. One of my jobs – apart from management, finances, business, marketing, outsourcing and production– is designing the game. It’s also obviously the job I love the most. Writing a blog post takes me a day. The idea, the structure, the research, lots of reading and watching and screen grabbing.
Two Weeks of Witchfire
Here’s a candid report on the first week of Witchfire. What went right, what went wrong, and what blew our minds. The reception is phenomenal to us. Most – not all, to be clear – players and professional reviewers seem to like the game. Witchfire enters early access with a bright future ahead of it. GamesRadar Its’ 3 am, and you decide that you still have time for “just one more run”.
A date, a feature, an indie drama and the biggest Q&A yet!
As promised last week… It's Wednesday, my witch hunters, so here's entire four seconds of #Witchfire in glorious Twitter video quality! Next week, a fat #Witchfire update. We'll be talking release date, features, and other thrilling stuff. Ask your questions here, if you need any answered! pic.twitter.com/0jwTl94DvL — The Astronauts (@TheAstroCrew) January 12, 2022 …here’s the update on Witchfire. We will discuss the release date, a certain core feature of the game, and the fandom.
Classic Postmortem: People Can Fly's Bulletstorm
On the fifth anniversary of the release of this unique and underappreciated shooter, Here's an in-depth postmortem that first ran in Game Developer magazine in 2011. It was written by Adrian Chmielarz, who was creative director of People Can Fly. What could go wrong if your first project is an unassuming old-school PC shooter, and your second project is a big, multiplatform AAA title? Why would things be different if you grew from 15 to 70 employees in a couple of years?
Witchfire, a Year After Reveal
During the 300 years of European witch hunts that started in the 15th century, tens of thousands of women, men and children lost their lives due to superstition, politics and profit. But that’s our history and our world. In the world of Witchfire, witches are real. And you are the punishing hand of the Church. That’s the core idea behind the game, even if things are not as black-and-white as one might think. If you have issues with the video clips or just want the source, here.
Review: “WTF Is Wrong with Video Games?”
WTF is wrong with video games? — asks Phil Owen in an article written by Phil Owen and with the introduction from Phil Owen, advertising a book by Phil Owen. A lot of people disagreed with Phil Owen’s message, but some of them went a little further and blamed Polygon for the whole thing. I disagree with those people, but I also blame Polygon for the whole thing. This particular gaming website is not the place you associate with the video game love.
5 weird tales from the development of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, out next week on PS4
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a first person mystery game launching on PS4 on 15th July. We thought it might be fun to introduce the game to you all by sharing a few secrets behind the game’s development process. The game is a ‘weird fiction’ story, or “horror meets pulp”. The best known weird fiction writers are Howard P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. To honour the game’s literary roots, we wanted its title to resemble the pulp horror stories of the 1930s and 1940s.
What Really Happened to Tale of Tales' Sunset
In a month, Sunset sold only four thousand copies, and Tale of Tales decided it was their final game. The industry sent a lot of words of support, and mourned the death of the studio. Many of your favorite games would not exist today if @taleoftales hadn't blazed those trails first. Support them. For video games. — Chris Pruett (@c_pruett) June 21, 2015 I'd like to wish @taleoftales best of luck in whatever they decide to do next.
The Truth About E3 2015 and Female Protagonists
Apparently, at E3 2015 the industry listened and we finally had more female protagonists in video games. But did we really? Before I go any further, two things. First, even though I always play as a male whenever a game offers a character creation option, I like or even love female protagonists in good story-driven games. What’s not to love about the juggernauts like Tomb Raider or Bayonetta or smaller games like Parasite Eve or Blackwell?
On Polygon's The Witcher 3 Review
I consider Polygon's review of The Witcher 3 poisonous to the industry: to gamers, to game developers, to game journalists. But before we dive deep into details, a disclaimer. The review has been written by Arthur Gies. Mister Gies is someone who - without knowing me, talking to me, giving me the benefit of the doubt - decided to announce it to the public that... You read that right, The Reviews Editor of a big gaming website decided to publicly call me indecent, terrible human being because...
When Two Game Designers Argue About Silent Hill
(This is an archived old post from the previous version of the page.) It all started with a game developer Jurie Horneman asking what is the example of a sequel better than the original game. Easy. Silent Hill 2. Well, not according to Thomas Grip from Frictional Games (Penumbra, Amnesia, now SOMA). He claimed Silent Hill 1 was better than its sequel. Thomas was kind enough to write a Twitlonger.
Women and Video Games
This is the tweet that inspired this post. This is very cool, very striking, and completely untrue. By all accounts, League of Legends is a “good videogame”, loved by millions. And yet most women gamers do not want to play it. 90% of LoL players are male. It’s even more severe with EVE Online: only 4% of players are female. This is not limited to online games, where sometimes people hide their gender to not find themselves in an unpleasant company.
#CHANGETHECOVER - the Story is Not That Simple
I keep repeating that bias and ego are our worst enemies and #CHANGETHECOVER is a good example. I was part of the anti-tag protest myself… …as the story seemed simple enough: the chronically offended got their feels hurt and are now attacking the artistic freedom with the buzzwords again. Examples: And now the cover has officially been cancelled. Time to despair and ragequit comics?
I Want to Murder Some Nazis and Save a Damsel in DDistress
So even though a lot of the re-designs in the post could be described as “cover the belly button” (some of which are just misguided, like Red Sonja, while others, like Nariko, make total sense), one can find a lot of great and inspiring stuff there. And not just the subversions, of course. I am not exactly sure why The Great Fairy is so tragically sad, but I cannot take my eyes off her either. We found the “slow projectile” subversion interesting.
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