Science has determined that the best song is “Where My Heart Wil Take Me,” the theme song to the television show Star Trek: Enterprise. It begins with the line “it’s been a long road, getting from there to here,” and I figured I’d recap some of the steps that we’ve taken to get to where we are today. Like the intrepid crew of the Enterprise NX-01, Null is ready to explore the galaxy…of video games.
Building a business is tough, and a lot of work here at Null thus far has revolved around building processes and systems to lay a foundation for sustainable growth in the future. A bunch of our time is spent evaluating contractors, building relationships with third party vendors, finding solutions to technical issues, interviewing and hiring, hearing pitches, and so on. But, oh yeah: we’re also trying to publish some video games. In case you missed those announcements, here’s a recap of what we’ve announced so far this year as we arrive at its halfway point.
Tape To Tape: Tape to Tape is an arcade hockey roguelite featuring addictive gameplay, a progression system that lets you get stronger from run to run, and a wonderful community that is constantly helping Excellent Rectangle refine and polish the game while it’s in Early Access. It’s one of my favorite games of the year and I’d say that even if I wasn’t working here! After a blockbuster first week where they made over $600,000, the game has continued to gather great reviews while in Early Access. Excellent Rectangle is currently heads-down on development, and you can help out by joining the official Discord and giving them your feedback. As we approach a full release you can also expect to see some *Tape to Tape* Merch in the official Null store…coming soon
Athena Crisis: Built from the ground up by solo developer Christoph Nakazawa using his own web-based game engine, Athena Crisis aims to bring old-school tactical combat gameplay back to PC and other platforms in 2024. Christoph has some big ideas for the game, including an online mode in which your game state can affect other people’s online experience, so he’s going to be taking the rest of the year to focus on developing the underlying tech and working with artists, musicians, and a narrative designer to round out Athena Crisis for a launch in 2024. If you’re interested in seeing a bit more of Athena Crisis, you can check out Christoph’s recent discussion on how the game is being built here or visit the official website.
ExeKiller: With over 80,000 wishlists and well over half a million views of its trailers across various channels, it’s safe to say that people are _really_ interested in *ExeKiller*. In this post-apocalyptic bounty hunting title, you’ll be tasked with roaming an alternate history version of New York, 1998, bringing in targets and doling out justice in the wastelands. *ExeKiller* is the biggest game in terms of budget and developer count that Null is currently publishing, and while it’s not planned for release until 2025, it’s been fun to see it create waves in games media even this early in development. If you haven’t seen the Gameplay Reveal trailer for ExeKiller, now’s the time!
While these are the games that we’ve announced, there are yet more titles that we’ve been signing behind the scenes. We’re all looking forward to showing off what Null and our developer partners are cooking, when the time is right. Stay tuned to this very news section for more info!
In other goings-on, we had our first in-person meeting since I was hired on Monday, with Chris, Karim, and I heading down to Palo Alto to discuss a raft of marketing efforts that Karim will be heading up in his role as Head of Marketing for Null! The meeting also happened to coincide with Karim’s first day on the job, so please welcome Karim Chaoui to the Null roster! Karim’s most recent jobs were at Meta and Ubisoft, so we’re looking forward to his insights on video game marketing. We’ll have a longer Q&A with him on the website sometime in July.
It’s been a wild 2023 so far in a lot of ways, but the Null train is only picking up steam. Here’s looking forward to a second half of ‘23 full of great news, big announcements, and excellent games.
