OK, So I Was Wrong

“Absolutely not.”

That’s what I initially told Liam and Meredith, our Director of Marketing, when they proposed the idea of a live event at the beginning of this year, showcasing some of our cast singing songs from the game. The initial idea was to have it happen at GDC or shortly thereafter, and maybe we’d even have someone in the audience selecting options during a song and have the singers and musicians respond to the choice accordingly? Wouldn’t that be neat?

The logistics of that aside – I, for one, didn’t look forward to the notion of asking Laura Bailey to rehearse and remember an entire Stray Gods song with all its permutations – I still had a lot of unease at the idea of showing our songs out of context. Back when I worked at BioWare, the marketing team once thought it would be a grand idea to show off some of the romance dialogues with Morrigan, also without context, in order to sell the “new” romance features in Dragon Age: Origins. It landed much as you’d expect: like a lead balloon. Plus, I had this lingering notion that a live demonstration of our songs might feel somehow too earnest and cringeworthy.

Liam and Meredith were undeterred by my pessimism, however, and pushed forward. More surprisingly, to me, was that our publishers at Humble Games were also excited by the idea. This was going to happen. What’s more, we were going to use the event to reveal our new trailer as well as our August 3rd release date. Surely, I thought, this isn’t how games go about doing this sort of thing?

And it’s not. But, then, Stray Gods isn’t your usual kind of game. First and foremost, it’s about performance… and isn’t that exactly the sort of thing that would go over well in a live venue?

Thus, we fast forward to April, where I find myself aboard a plane headed to Los Angeles. Liam and Meredith have already been there for several weeks, helping with the planning and set up. It’s happening a little later than we’d originally proposed, but they’ve found an amazing venue at the El Rey Theatre. They sent out fancy invitations and were expecting over 200 attendees. Laura and several of the other cast members had agreed to perform (without the bit where someone would make choices, thankfully, though Austin had devised another way to show the differences that choices could make – they were going to sing one song twice!), while others were going to attend and appear on stage to have their involvement announced. We were going to live stream the first half of the show, Troy Baker had thankfully volunteered to host as a replacement for our original host falling ill… everything was happening at a dizzying pace.

I was nervous.

The El Rey was gorgeous – it absolutely blew me away with its chandeliers and its understated elegance – and I began to feel better about this whole endeavour. My feelings didn’t really go away, however, until the show began. I mean, I knew the songs were good. I’ve loved seeing them develop for years. Austin is an amazing composer, and our singers are incredible. Laura has so much more range than we could ever have hoped for. There’s this wonderful synthesis that occurs when performers are supported and given license to perform. Between them and the writing and the music, you end up with something that’s far better than any one thing could have achieved on its own. I knew that, but I think this was the first time I’d felt it.

Listening to this diverse crowd react to seeing the songs for the first time with utter delight, watching the live reaction of fans on the stream completely losing their minds… my nerves utterly vanished. This was exactly the kind of showcase Liam and Meredith had promised it would be, and deep down I knew that all the heart the entire team had been pouring into everything was going to prove itself. By the time I had to make my brief appearance on-stage to close out the streamed portion of the event, I felt completely calm… mostly thankful to everyone who joined us on this journey, and to my co-workers who rightfully ignored my hesitancy and bullied me into coming.

There is, after all, something magical about making something you love and then putting it out there. You’ve had years to see all the issues, all the compromises and the things that could have been better. You’ve heard every song a thousand times, from back when it had scratch track and vocals right up to the dozens of recording sessions with the actors and the point where a live orchestra played them for the first time. That’s not what everyone else sees and hears. To them, this is exactly the kind of joy I’d imagined way back when Liam and I first conjured this idea in the first place.

If anything, this event made me anticipate what it’ll be like in August. There’s so much more to reveal, so much that everyone will get to explore. The team is still working so hard to make everything perfect, and I know it’ll be just as thrilling as this event was. I guess, for me, the difference is learning to trust it.

For those who joined us at the event and who’ll be there in August: thank you. You’re every reason we started this in the first place and, while I’m amazed we got this far on this impossible project in the first place, there’s still so much further left to go.

David Gaider
Creative Director

A new chapter for Summerfall

Hi everyone,

Welcome to our shiny new website! For the past 2.5 years, our team has been hard at work on our first title, a game that began life in November 2019 with a successful crowdfunding campaign.

So much has changed since, both for the project and for the world. We’ve had to quickly adapt to unpredictable challenges of a global pandemic, learned to work remotely as Melbourne endured the world’s longest lockdowns, while keeping each other safe and supported.

The game has grown and evolved remarkably over the years. So, today, along with my fellow co-founders, David Gaider and Liam Esler, we are pleased to announce that Summerfall Studios’ debut title has a new name: ‘Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical’. In addition, we are thrilled to welcome Humble Games as our publishing partner for the game.

The new name better reflects the thematic elements and narrative intent of the story we want to tell, and our partnership with Humble Games gives us the opportunity to take Stray Gods to new heights. 

Our primary focus right now is on production and development, and Stray Gods is shaping up to be quite a magical experience. To our Fig backers, who had believed in our vision from day one, thank you for helping us get here. And if you had missed the campaign, you can now wishlist Stray Gods on Steam.

Please note that neither the name change nor partnership will impact any of our Fig backers’ orders and rewards, which will remain the same and valid.

We can’t wait to see what the future will bring for us, and we are excited for you to be a part of it. We’ll share more on what comes next for Stray Gods at a later date.

Elie Young
Executive Producer