Project Galileo, the preview of the soulslike made in Italy by Jyamma Games
Project Galileo
We have repeated it countless times with a fair bit of sadness in our hearts, but Italy is not a country for developers, and this harsh truth is quite evident even for those who have pursued a career in gaming and in some way they made it. In our part, the established teams are few, most of the indie realities have to navigate between a mixture of minor or corporate projects just to obtain the necessary resources to produce games, and finding study addresses seriously oriented towards the creation of video games is an absolute rarity. Talents eager to be part of the field, therefore, either flee abroad as quickly as possible, or find themselves tossed here and there in the chaos of Italian gaming, where poorly managed software houses or unworkable projects are on the agenda.It is also for this reason that, when a new team appears apparently equipped with the necessary resources to give shape to something concrete, a large part of the sector press openly takes his side: there is always the hope that that group is the right one, the one destined to create real landslides capable of opening the eyes of the country (or at least some well-fed investor). That said, the desire to find something valid is always accompanied by the inevitable skepticism born of too many years of disappointment.
It is above all for the latter reason that we arrived at the Milanese headquarters from the young Jyamma Games team with expectations that were nothing short of non-existent. Capiteci, the historian of the house is linked only to mobile projects and we are talking about a team that went in a very short time from a hub of about ten people to more than fifty members, with the intention of throwing itself into the fray by developing nothing less than a soulslike. If on the one hand, therefore, there are commendable resources behind them, on the other there is a genre where dozens of emulators have only rarely managed to get close to the works of FromSoftware, which after the release of Elden Ring has seen the already far off the bar.
The Jyamma, however, welcomed us with a fair degree of confidence, thanks to a playable demo (it was a hands off, but at least tested just a few steps away from us) and a more competent team than we expected. There is only one small problem: the main build is far from complete and in continuous development, therefore - given the possible changes to the final product - we have not been given permission to go into the details of mechanics, locations, characters and systems. . If nothing else, after this atypical press event to say the least, we can give you some important information in preview of Project Galileo. And our impressions are quite positive, although the doubts remain manifold.
The potential of the boot
Project Galileo: Sabaku no Maiku offered valuable advice to the team during development. But here in reality we just wanted to show you how beautiful Pregianza is (caption written by Pregianza) The underlying concept of Project Galileo is already in itself very tantalizing for anyone who lives in the beautiful country: it is a soulslike focused on Italy and its folklore. , where the protagonist plays a sort of incarnation of the natural force of change committed to fighting against "stagnation". A very topical issue for Italy, for heaven's sake, but here this cultural swamp of creativity and the drive towards modernity has been reworked in the form of a superior evil entity, whose yoke has corrupted the various kingdoms that make up the world of title.Now, we cannot discuss these kingdoms in depth once again, but we have observed the first of them and we know that they are based (as expected) on the artistic beauties of the boot, from ancient ruins to classic villages medieval. Considering how much our country offers from this point of view, the potential is nothing short of gigantic, not to mention that the villages and fortresses of our lands lend themselves more than ever as "soulslike" maps, given their labyrinthine nature.
Double A
Project Galileo: the potential of a setting inspired by Italian history and folklore is immense. surprised by a fairly stable build, and rather refined mechanics built around somewhat flexible underlying ideas. The primary problem to be faced here is the general refinement: alternative systems are a must and what we saw was appreciable, however it is not conceivable to compete with FromSoftware (or even just Team Ninja, to say) in terms of level design or gameplay. Our advice on the spot therefore was to concentrate all your energies in creating a technically flawless title with extraordinarily clean and precise mechanics. Where, in short, there is no way to compete with quantity, it is necessary to win with quality, creating a less ambitious work capable of offering an incritable contained experience.I Jyamma, if nothing else, they seemed very receptive to this; the awareness of not being able to churn out an open world at Elden Ring obviously exists, and the intent is to stand out with a minor project: a double A gem that can be appreciated by anyone, in other words. Although the work to be done is still huge, however, we believe there are ideas in the game with enormous evolutionary potential, and we were positively impressed by the visual management of the impacts (in turn usable in a rather creative way). Too bad we can't go into detail about these factors, but if nothing else they have given us a cautious optimism for the future.
Project Galileo: another artwork of the title, in the absence of official screenshots The rest? It's all about design. The art direction of the game has incredible roots to build upon, the technical skills seem to be there and the team's underlying philosophy seems to be the right one. The quality of the clashes and maps will make or break the experience, and a lot of time will have to pass before you can actually evaluate these aspects. If that wasn't enough, the Korean Lies of P seems to be a rather fierce alternative to the more popular souls (even the one with roots in Italian folklore, for a strange twist of fate) and could be a dangerous rival to say the least. Well, when the time comes, we hope to return to test everything, with more information to give to you readers and a lot of optimism for the future of Jyamma.
Having witnessed the direct test of Project Galileo , despite the many limitations imposed by the developers, it was an interesting opportunity to get an idea of the actual potential of Jyamma. And actually the team seems to have the technical / artistic skills necessary to complete such a title, not to mention the enormous potential deriving from a base built around the folklore and history of Italy. What we saw did not leave us speechless, yet we were positively surprised by the demo, so much so that we now have reasonable expectations for the future of the team and the game. Who knows this new development house may not really make the gem it aspires to. Certainly the mission they have set themselves is not the easiest.
