Today I would like to talk about my inspiration behind Hyperventila, the road that led me to start this project and all the people who supported me along the way.

Hyperventila started in the past, not just my past but also the past of the Hyperventila galaxy. Six years ago I wrote and narrated a series of short stories set in a fantasy world called Mikomwood. Mikomwood was this comical and bizarre region of a planet that ended up being the focus point of meddling god-creatures that, while they never directly featured in these stories, always made life more interesting for the inhabitants of this world.

It was a world of mages and wizards, trolls and goblins, elves and humans, you know... fantasy stuff. My main inspirations there were the works of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. Their style of writing and abstract way of thinking always resonated with me.

I wrote one of these stories every few months or so and this world is what ended up becoming the basis for Hyperventila. I thought; what if I could bring this world into a future where magic has been largely abandoned, replaced by technology but the mystical forces remain.

At this point I was living in Sweden, had a job as a technician at a company that did 3D printing in a bio-composite material, a piece of information that's not at all relevant to anything, you're welcome.
After getting sick of living in the same routine every day in a place I absolutely hated and had no connection to whatsoever, I decided to travel and see the world. This journey, while a fascinating and engaging story, is something I'll leave to your imagination.

At some point I ended up in Edinburgh, that's in Scotland for all of you who skipped geography in school. Edinburgh is a city famous for its creative inhabitants and celebrates this every year with the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Perhaps it's something in the air but it was here that I started working on Hyperventila.

Living in one of the most beautiful cities on Earth, I had recently moved into a new flat with my girlfriend ...I sat down at our living room table and started hammering away at the keyboard on my little HP Spectre 360 laptop, my 'workhorse'.

By the end of that year we had moved to London, my girlfriend got a job there so it was either stay in Edinburgh and never see her again or move there, a city that's famous for... I don't know, a big clock, a bridge that is also a tower, a tower that is really just a castle, a globe that is more of a cylinder with a roof and a queen that is sometimes there as well.

After a few months of work I had a working base for the galaxy, some ships that could move and a station to dock with. I also had a hacking mechanic for the doors, even though at that point I didn't have any doors to hack, nor any plans to make doors a feature... development can be like that. It was a time of experimentation and learning what could be done and how far I could take Hyperventila.

It was around this time I decided on the art style. My love is for spaceships of any kind but for this project I knew what I wanted...

I wanted Star Wars meets Alien meets Spaceballs. A world that is hyper futuristic, full of realism and detail ...in the eyes of an 80s film director on a budget. Something that could have been made by the great model makers of the past, before CGI became widely used.

While it is relatively easy nowadays to make greebles* through procedural generation, I still make a point of modelling all detail on the ships by hand in my 3D program. I love it for some reason, it is one of those 'Zen' activities.

*The little mechanical details that decorated the hulls of ships like the Millennium Falcon and the Nostromo in Alien

Of course I would have never made it this far if it wasn't for my girlfriend, my parents and my family who have supported me over the last two years by not telling me I was crazy, for not telling me to stop and to encourage me to keep going even when I wanted to give up.

They all made immeasurably large contributions and I will be forever in their debt.

As you can imagine behind every project like this there is a story, and this was mine.

I want to once again thank all the backers that have contributed to the IndieGoGo Campaign so far and are making this IndieGoGo campaign a memorable one. I want to encourage new visitors to back the campaign and spread the word!

Keep sharing links around the web, tell your friends and let's make it to 10% before the weekend!

- Tymen Muller, developer

The Hyperventila crowdfunding campaign has gone live on IndieGoGo!

Hyperventila is a narrative-driven open world RPG set in the Hyperventila galaxy. A world of disreputable space bars, rogue trader captains and totalitarian space empires.

Fans of the classic 70s and 80s era of science fiction films would find themselves right at home in this universe. Jump in your spacecraft and immerse yourself amongst the stars.

Spread the word! and try the demo: