Oooh
This game seems to be right up my ally. I really dig these more abstract and experimental kind of games with a more serious tone.
I can already now picture the game in my head. Judging by the screenshot and your description this could be a game setting an amazing and intense atmosphere.
I wish you good luck and really hope you'll make a great game/prototype so that I can play it
Imagine I've written something clever here inspiring you to make something awesome. If that happens give me credits
The concept sounds verymuch like one of my favorite childhood games 'Alter Ego' but a lot darker, if you've not played it it's available for various systems, notable version on the C64, deffo worth a go
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie - that's an extinction level impact event.
I know about alter ego (you can actually play that one online), and even played it myself back on the C64.
But my game will be very different. It's not about making decisions change how you life your life (like in alter ego) but rather decisions on how you actually see life itself, inflicting your mental and physical health. And now imagine the screenshots above with some dark ambient music and you'll get an idea of what I'm aiming at
Things are moving quick, the prototype is already "playable". The technical base is done with heavy use of shaders (for halos, highlights, noise, and more planned) and frame buffer objects for offscreen rendering (currently four) and the design document is growing nicely.
The visual stlye is now almost 100% what I imagined in the first place, and seeing it in motion (which the screenshots won't judge, I'll try to get a video up soon) is even better as it looks totally as dark and visually nightmarish as I wanted it to be.
Over the next few days I'll implement an editor for the questions along with different visual types. Currently there are only corridors, but I want to use diffferent "objects" as a metaphorical tool to emphase on the type of player choice. I'm planning on adding holes (for very negative decissions), upward stairs (for positive stuff), windows (for things realted to other people or stuff out of the player's control) and plain light cones in the distance (maybe for decisions that are connected to being lost and or lonely).
Since fragment shaders and stuff make it kinda easy to get a nightmarish, dark and hazy look I also plan to make extensive use of them for different visual effects that pertain to the player's current mental and physical health.
And last but not least some screenshots (click on the tumb nails, best watched on a well-calibrated display on a dark background) :
Last edited by Sascha Willems; 19-08-2013 at 08:23 PM.
Oow, screenies already! I like your style Mr. Sascha!
Lookin' good so far. Kinda scary looking, but pretty cool. Throw in some moody music and I might just pee my pants.
Jason McMillen
Pascal Game Development
Co-Founder
Well, it looks even more disturbing in motion, believe me
And the other day I had an awesome idea about the setting of the game that perfectly fits into my initial idea. I dunno how it's for you folks out there, but I usually get the best ideas when not being near a PC. So this one came to my mind while doing some complelty boring routine stuff at home. I guess my brain is bored in such situations and decides to spit out great ideas
The game will now play in the mind of someone who's about to die and starts off during his last moments on a sickbed, with doctors and family around him / her. So upon starting the game you can see people around you talk while you're just lying there and your eyes getting more and more weary. At some point you lose consciousness and the real "game" starts, where you (that's still the same as in my initial post) guide that person through his / her thoughts. At certain points your character will suddenly wake up for a short amount of time and see more conversations between the people around him.
I made a quick drawing of how this scenery would look at work, and over the last two days I implemented it as a dynamic 2D scene into the game. It contains animated discussions, several effects and some old-school parallax effects when "looking" around. Once again this looks much better in motion, and maybe I'll get a video of the current version done tomorrow (no promise. not much time for video shenanigans).
But here are two screenshots from the game itself (click the thumbnails) :
So it's progressing along very nice, and seeing it on motion in a complete dark room with some moody dark music is kinda scary.
promising game idea
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks