Working title : Trugbild

[Sascha Willems]

For the 3rd PGD Challenge I decided to try something I never done before : an abstract "game" with a serious theme. Actually I was hoping for a theme that would allow me create something more serious (and dark) and after reading the contest's rules, creativity immediately struck me and I decided to create a game about life (and death) and all it's negative aspecsts. Although this won't be your typical kind of game as it'll be more of an abstract experience. If I get it finished the way I imangined it, it should be a pretty interesting experience to play.

The working title is "Trugbild" (translating to "Delusion") and it'll have you "command" (or better guide) a human being through life by answering different questions. Each question will be represented as a corridor that your character then will walk through, leading to another questions on his journey through life time.

Each answer will influence different aspects of your character, mostly physical and psychic health, and bad decisions can even lead to death. You'll only have a limited amount of time to answer a question, and failure to do so will impact your character's self esteem.

Currently I plan on having you guide the character through the different stages of life (being born, exploring the world as a baby, being a child, a teenager, growing up, getting old and dying), though I'm not sure if I'll get all these covered within the one month time frame.

As far as the technical stuff goes there's already a working prototype that'll set the stage for the game's dark (and disturbing) visuals. It's running on OpenGL, will use frame buffer objects for off-screen-rendering and shaders for certain visual effects. The first screenshot already shows the film-grain / noise filter that looks much better in motion.

Depending on your character's situation, the screen may tilt stronger, heartbeat is reflected by a constantly increasing / decreasing FOV and I plan on adding different effects that reflect insanity or low physical health.

Download :
http://www.saschawillems.de/download...tion_setup.exe (~5 MBytes, Windows only)

Video :



Screenshots (in reverse chronological order) :

2013-09-07 :

New visual type (ladders), and debugging shots :


2013-09-02 :

Now with main menu, even more shaders (blur!) and different visual styles as well as a death scene :



2013-08-24 :

First screenshots from the "reality" scene that the game starts from and which is shown during the different stages of it.



2013-08-19 :

First ingame screenshots.



2013-08-17 :

And here's a first screenshot from the current prototype (including debug display for FBO and color picking). I've made this prototype this morning, and it already looks almost like I imagined the game's look in the first place, so I'm pretty happy with progress on this one, though it won't be heavy on the technical side and the content will be more work than the coding (at least that's what I predict).



This is btw. the mockup I made in Potoshop and after which I'm modelling the visuals after :

[pstudio]

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

[phibermon]

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

[Sascha Willems]

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

[Sascha Willems]

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) :

[WILL]

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.