All aboard the hype train!

Yet another Saturday means another blog post for Acedia!

Every day that passes, each member of our team is boarding the “hype train”! Thus, everyone is becoming more motivated and productive while trying to stay focused on given tasks and not get too motivated and mess everything up! 

Our producer is trying to maintain a balance between our current productivity and our overwhelming hype in order to create a reasonable plan for our future steps. But enough with all that, let’s talk about this week’s actual progress!

After playtesting for hours, our programmers are working hard on fixing known bugs in our current puzzles as well as improving functionality for some in-game mechanics. 

Since the map and our assets have started to build up, bringing life to the whole scenery, but with a lot of work left to do in order to get the right "feeling", we threw our sound guys into the frey!

Oh, here is another angle of the map so far:

The sound designers jumped into our map and they have already been working on improvements on our current sounds effects as well as ambience sounds. More info on that later though, as it's still primitive to discuss.

Another segment of the map is ready:

The overall feeling of our game is taking shape and we will continue our journey towards a fully polished working prototype!

Until next Saturday, have fun!

Acedia Map is getting shaped!

A week passed since our last post and boy, have we got a huge update for ya!

Everything is going smooth and everybody is slowly becoming less sane, yet more productive, but that's the glory of game development as seen nowadays.

We have been coding our way into finalizing the puzzles, so that we can actually playtest, we have been creating some basic assets to use into the map and we have been working on... well, the map itself! 2D assets are being drawn, sounds are being recorded and adjusted and we, like our main character, have seen no daylight. Well... Almost!

Painful as it may sound, that's what got us here in the first place and we are happy to show you a single in-game screenshot on Acedia's map:

Development Screenshot while building "feels" for our map.

We'll leave you with that, so you get a better idea of what's behind the scenes.

Until next Acedia Saturday, cheers!

Acedia programming update

The beautiful procedure of game design has just been completed. Of course this procedure keeps going throughout the duration of production… until something horrible happens and then you have to change the whole game design… again!

Today we will talk about programming. Being our first project with Unreal Engine 4, we decided to code with visual programming, aka Blueprints.

Blueprints are the easiest way for someone who doesn’t want and/or know how to code. Really, it’s a piece of cake to create any mechanic.

The logic is very similar to OOP. But with blueprints you will not see endless lines of code or strange symbols, but many nodes with wires.

Here is a sneak peek of one of our Blueprints:

While programming with blueprints...

Blueprints can help you create an entire game, but if you are a hardcore programmer, you can write the exact same logic with C++. But some things like UMG, Matinees and persona, can be implemented using both technologies.

This is it for now. We will meet again next week!

Until then…See ya!

Acedia Level Design on the way!

Hello from rainy Thessaloniki. 

In the previous blog post we mentioned some info about our game design, however, in this post we will talk about the level design of our game.

When someone has to implement a level, he must take into account many parameters. The first (and most important one) is the feeling that the designer wants to express from the environment and this feeling has its own parameters which are particles, effects, meshes and of course lightning.

Awesome Fire Material

Each and every one of them, has an impact into your game.

Another very important detail is that level designer has to choose a method in which the environment will communicate with the player – meaning that your progress might be linear, so the player must act in order to progress and go further.

Thunderstruck!

In our game we decided to combine these two methods and to give a mystery and spooky feeling to our level and we think that we managed it well. So this for now from Acedia’s team.

Fog. Plain ol' fog.

Until next week…See ya!!!

Acedia Game Design Progress

The most beautiful procedure of game production is writing the game design document, provided you are a designer!

And this applies, because in this state you can write everything that you can imagine, until of course the game producer jumps out of nowhere and tells you, that if we put all this stuff in production, the game will be completed in 2025… years from now.

So you must stop your imagination from going wild and you have to focus on more realistic goals.

So we have done all the aforementioned and we will present you some features of our game design and especially of our puzzle design.

Puzzle Design Implementation in Unreal Engine

Our story takes place on a time-forgotten, god-forsaken Island, infested with mystery around the legend of the 7 sins. You are there to investigate that mystery, and overcome anything that comes to your way… Are you the one to solve it?

More info on that coming up next week!

Until then, see ya!

Introducing Acedia

Hello everyone! 

In this blog post we want to share how we conceived the story of our new adventure game, but to be clear, we will inform you only about the main aspects of it.

It was Monday 15 June. After some additions to our team, we started working on a new project, a first person adventure game. However, the story was yet to be decided. Everyone was getting ready for our scheduled call. As we were talking about our progress, at some point, Kostas jumps out of nowhere and tells everyone that since our team consists of seven people we should take advantage of this number. George thought that this sounds pretty cool and started searching about how he could involve this number in a story. After some time, he recollected the movie Se7en and started to focus on the seven deadly sins and how he could involve them into a story.

Se7en movie

After some research, he found that in 1589 Peter Binsfeld has developed a theory which connects every deadly sin with a demon. George thought that this was enough information to make up a starting point for our story so he casually mentioned in the following call. 

Cover of Peter Binsfeld's book

Slowly, the story started to build up and George decided to search deeper for each sin and its corresponding demon. After a deep dive into various books he came up with a story and the core aspects were decided. If you want to learn more about this mysterious story, stay tuned.

See ya!!!

The mechanics behind the doors

Hello everyone!

This week we'll catch up with some programming! It may seem it's left behind, but without it, the game won't ever be a reality!

So, imagine you have a door right in front of you, or maybe to rephrase it, your CHARACTER has a door right in front of him. How should the overall interaction mechanic work?

There is actually a misconception on how the overall system works. As you'd expect, you simply hit the "Interact" button ( E ) on the door and then by moving the mouse you merely open or close the damn thing.

Actually, it's not that simple. Because it matters from which point you actually look at the door. and we are not even there yet! As we were testing our the overall interaction, we found out that the character's orientation towards that surface of the door matters as well.

So, how come a simple door-opening mechanic turns out to be such a code disaster? It's because of the numerous violent math calibrations, tests and adjustments that need to be made beforehand. That's even before we start coding!!!

So, as you can guess, the tough part was to design the whole mechanic and then cry in frustration, as the mechanic itself needed testing, and there were the newfound bugs!

The door had to have a specific joint on the wall, the door had to have specific angles, degrees if you like to keep it fully open and fully closed. A mechanism that controlled whether the door was absolutely closed or fully open had to be implemented, and some UX-friendly snapping mechanics were to be implemented to keep the player from losing his sanity (Yes, there is a sanity system!).

But, as it turned out, we were the ones losing our sanity after hours and hours and hours of design trying to find out which surface of the door the player is pointing at, and what's the player's orientation on that surface. Yes, he may be looking at the front surface, but the interaction mechanic would be different if the character would face the door on the right-most part or the left-most part because that would change the intended interaction the player would expect from the door!

That's all I am gonna write in this dusty journal for today.

Until next week :)

Concept Art : Behind the scenes

Hello people!

This is Kostas, reporting from Project AH (We really need to consider a name for our game to be honest!), progress is smoother than ever with both artists and programmers functioning at full capacity. Doors, cubes hunting us through narrow corridors, stealth inside wardrobes and the interactivity level is over 9000 !!!

Last week, we presented to you some sick concept art drawn by our Concept Artist and Art Director, Eliza Marinou.

This time, we will take you behind the scenes and let the whole blog post talk about itself in this great time-lapse video which shows exactly how Alma and Albert were made:

Until next time, were we will show you some sweet progress from the programming perspective!

Character Concept Art - The first two characters

Hello everyone!

It’s been two weeks since our last post and here we are with more concepts!

Although this time, we’re actually flexing our muscles even more, by presenting you with some of
the main characters taken right from our story!

So, let us share some insight on who/what you see, by beginning with Albert :

Albert - Full Body Concept Art

An engineer and physicist by study, having attended Eaton college in his younger years and King’s
College after that. His unquenchable passion for all things mechanical, as well as his unwavering
resolve concerning his experiments are the driving force behind this young genius.

Yet, a dark and heavy burden looms on this young man’s shoulders. A burden that remains to be
brought to light…


Introducing our second character, Alma:

Alma - Full Body Concept Art

What do you get when you cross a kind, poetic heart with the luck that August’s stars can bestow
upon a certain person?

The answer lies before you.

A kind-hearted girl, born to a rural family near Reading, the only daughter of her family - and the
only one to inherit the great secret arts that her family’s women possessed. The person whose love
is selfless - devoid of any notion of corruption. A pure-minded girl grown into the perfect kind of
woman that any man would desire to have by his side…

In the end, we are the masks that we choose to wear, are we not?

Doors, Stealth, AI and some Art

Hello!
How's everybody doing?

Project AH is on its' way to becoming even better, day by day!

At the moment, the door mechanics are being designed and coded into the game, as they have offered quite a challenge for the programming department. You see, it's not a matter of opening or just closing a door. You will have to calculate the position of the player, their direction, and whether they are looking the front or the back of it. All this included, we are working on creating an absolutely natural door-opening mechanic.

Once this is done, we will move on to implementing this mechanic on double doors and thereafter, on locker / wardrobe objects (That will be used as the main mean to actually use stealth in the game).

That would bring us closer to the AI of the monsters. But then again, that would require some monsters designed, and then some puzzles, and then, and then... It's a BLAST! Such projects require time to handle and be developed properly.

So we will keep you informed on how that goes! As you see there is much to be made, and the team is so excited about the development! It's like our little baby, growing up day by day!

For example, here is a sample baby monster concept:

BANG! Unity Event Retrospective & Teaser

Hello everyone!

Another Friday post is here, and boy has it been a full week!

Last week you witnessed firsthand what happens in the minds of the artists and designers, that partake in this endeavor to create a deeply disturbing and horrifying experience. This time, we shall take it to the next step, with some insight on our latest video teaser for Project AH.

For those who have missed it or didn't have a chance to show up, we are now officially revealing the very first video teaser of our game!!!

Here is the video:

So, how does the backstory merge with what you've seen?

"I have been roaming my own house for hours. They are nowhere to be seen. Either something is wrong - my mind, perhaps? - or they are all jesting, waiting to come out of a corner in playful bliss. I can hear her - my daughter - calling me, I can hear that toybox i gave her so many years ago... I was almost certain I saw her, I was convinced that she was the one that called out to me and warned me of the Shadow. Without her I would have perished, or worse. Yet, what still scars me to my very soul's core is what she said when I entered the cellar - "You are being sacrificed, Daddy." It was a calm, ethereal aspect of my little girl's voice. I would also swear that as she spoke, I could see the orbs decorating the twisted cellar pulsate and quake, with fires resembling the deepest parts of Hell. But, in the end, there is no point in thinking too much of it. It was just a disturbing dream..."

Back to our weekly schedule now!

Monday's event went smooth as many people got into the idea of horror game design and game development in general and paid some good attention and asked a lot of questions!

Attendance rate was extremely high and good, as the event was sold out at 300 tickets! At this point, I'll let the pictures talk for themselves:

The time was nigh. And they kept coming... and coming... and coming... until there was no spot left!

The event is about to start. Getting ready for a mind-blowing presentation.

Basic Fundamentals of Visual and Audio Design in Horror Games

Discussion on importance of Player connection and UX in Horror Games.

Creating your first horror dungeon in Unity3D

We loved the Q&A at the end, all you folks seemed to enjoy the event! And the only thing we can say is that there will be more in the future! So stay tuned, never miss anything new!

Aaaaand that's all for now, folks, see you next week!

And that's how the story goes

So, how exactly did we get inspired to make a horror game?

What runs into our minds by the time we are visualizing our dream of creating a bone-chilling horror story? Let me introduce you to a brief overview:

A funny-looking figure was walking up and down a narrow corridor, filled with objects from another time. He would often pick up different objects and look at them with a faint spark in his eyes, then he would lose his cheerful expression and dive back into his chair, in front of a huge leather-bound book. Next to him, a series of pages with schematics of ingenious contraptions, all born of the master puzzler’s twisted mind and behind all that, a series of paintings, portraying people of different ages and genders. 

The funny looking man would look at all these carefully, then consult the great leather-bound book and scribble some notes in scraps of paper here and there. He would then proceed to read even more of that huge book, go fetch more books of its sort, consult them too, write even more scribbles and so on… 

Just as he was beginning to figure one thing out, another thing would pop up and concern his deeply disturbed mind, creating more problems that need solving. 

And when the final pieces of the grand puzzle were set, he just yelled “ah yes!” and gathered all these scribbles, to write them all down in the order they were meant to be, creating a monstrous book, not quite the sort of masterpiece one would expect, but still devilishly looking and perverse as it ought to be. 

“It is done!” He said in a slow, quiet hum and he would turn to his masters looking for approval. 

But alas, his masters were not beings of flesh, at least no more. So all he could do is write a letter to one, giving it unto the Raven, whilst waiting for the Great Old One to claim the Book of old.

That is, more or less, what happens in the writer’s head during the process of production. A state of convergence of the old with the new, where his influences must be harnessed into something new and completely different, giving birth into a new form. When the form is almost complete, the storywriter will have to combine the fine artistry of the concept artist, with the mind-blowing game mechanics and puzzles of the game designer, enriching his writings with the flow and pace that would make the story really shine.

During the final stages of conception, the storywriter will have to do the one most difficult task there is: Hide the main bulk of his story, along with tons of the game designer’s flow and the artists’ concepts and paintings, letting the ones that are courageous enough to brave through the hazards of the programmer’s sadistic machinations discover the truth behind the veil of lies, and see things as they really are.

This, is the art of narrative design in games.

If you don't believe us, here is a brief sketch of how is one of monsters portrayed by our Concept Artist :

If you cannot see clearly what this monster is about,
then you may as well Imagine seeing it in front of you.

How things work out on Project AH

Hello everyone!

It's been a week since our last post and we are very happy with our reach so far. Over 200 people have subscribed for our Horror event on the 30th of March and this makes everyone happy, and fuels us for more sweet things to show you!

So, this time, we thought it would be a good idea to share our working methods and our workflow for the project. So how was the idea structured and went into Unity?

The Mechanics (Game Design)

First of all, we wanted to merge core mechanics of 2 of our favorite game genres, them being Adventure and Horror.

We want to keep the original thinking and puzzle part of Adventure games, making people use pieces of paper in front of their PC to write down the clues we give them! We want people to start cross-referencing and gluing together the core hints and images / events they have witnessed in game in order to get a better grasp of the task at hand, how to solve puzzle X? Should we think about spatial recognition and/or riddles? Should we use different parts in the house in an illogical, yet clever and surreal way? Should we just google the answer? Hopefully, the thrill of solving a puzzle on your own will feed their curiosity and help them solve the puzzles on their own.

At the same time, we wanted to keep the horror part that makes horror games... well. Horror games! That comes down to a deranged and mutated creature lurking around in the dark corners of the game environment, always looking for you, waiting for you, wanting to kill you in many ways. The lurking horrors that make you stealth, sneak past them and think of ways to avoid them, since our character will be practically useless against them in pure combat. It all comes down to using your head much more than using your wits.

Combining these two together, we have created a formula that requires the players to be constantly vigilant with their surroundings, and always on the lookout. Being unable to stand in one place the whole time, will sure terrify some players, especially those who take their time into thinking and solving puzzles, because you will never be actually safe...

Spatial Recognition Puzzles and Sequence is playing a major part.
Not to mention the surreal illogical thinking required for some of the puzzles.

The Story

What good would a horror/adventure game would be without the story element? That s the reason for delving deep into the classics: From early Gothic Fiction, such as the Castle of Otranto, to Poe's writings and with a deep love for Lovecraftian lore and the occult, we've written a true horror piece that will shake the very foundations of your sanity, depriving you of your well-earned rest and make you lose countless hours of sleep, engaging you in one of the most disturbing adventures you have encountered so far, in order to solve the ultimate mystery of one's life. 

And the best part?

It's staged in the heart of all that is morbid, in the late 1800s, the end of the Victorian Era, where civilizations' foundations change from the roots up and the occult takes over every dark corner, every little crevice of one's mind.

Just another ordinary looking haunted house. Why the heck not?

The Coding Part 

With a few scratches on some notepad, agony, pain and some brainstorming hours later, we knew exactly what our game needed in order to build up our mechanics, so we got together and in a few days prepared a very draft prototype of the game, white-boxed with dummy graphics. We are going to post about these mechanics in more depth in future blog posts.

Having a clear image of those 2 genres in our head, it was no hard task to implement such mechanics. It would seem that our game had the minimum available mechanics and it was still playable. After looking through the features over a second iteration, we started adding more tasks that add to the immersion of the game, such as better AI, better VFX and better SFX Systems.

THAT door... Is sure to be hosted in another blog post all by itself. Mark my words...

The Audiovisual Part

After the breakthrough we had with the mechanics being programmed and the story being written, we had to marry the puzzles (Mechanics) with the plot (Story) of our game. That combination however could not be seen or heard with the proper props.

It was then, when our artists stepped into the battle field of production and had their say into how the props and models would appear in game, how creepy the feel and aesthetic would be and how much immersion would the audio part add to the game. All that, in conjunction with the main story plot, the mechanics being tested in the prototype scene inside Unity, and the unstoppable flow of ideas from the minds of our art and audio team.

A 3D Head, because i have nothing to share here.

The Nuts and Bolts of our new project & Horror Unity Event at 30 of March

Hello Everyone!

At first, I'd like to let you know that Genesis Game Studios along with Student Guru Unipi will be hosting a 3-Hour Event at University of Piraeus, on 30th of March, with me talking about Unity3D Game Development and more specific a quick development of a 3D Horror Survival Game. This is the poster for the event:

And thus, the time has come to reveal more details about our new project. It is Friday the 13th after all, which fits perfectly into the mood of our game.

So, last week, we said that we are preparing a somewhat big project, at least moving away from mobile titles a bit. So, it's a great pleasure for us, assembling a new team once again, and going through the path of PC Indie Game Development.

At this very moment, we will not reveal the true name of our game, and will merely call it with a codename, more precise, Project AH.

Okay, straight to the main course then! What is the game all about?

Project AH is going to be a First Person Adventure / Horror Hybrid game that is going to be featured in full 3D, and released in the PC Platforms, aiming for as many digital stores as possible, including the Windows 8 Store.

What can someone expect from the game? Of course, everything that you can expect from Adventure Games and Horror Games. In a nutshell: Puzzles, Riddles, logical thinking and Spatial Reasoning Puzzles, that each affect the progression of the story. And on the other hand we have the creepy presence of a terrifying Monster that lurks around, that has made the goal of its' life not to let you rest. Not to let you think straight before you solve the puzzle.

As a result, the player will be in constant vigilance and in parallel will try to solve the puzzles thrown at his path in order to proceed through the game. Everything will be story driven, and it's the player's goal to go and find out the rest of the story. The whole theme and setting of the game will be revealed in later posts though, so you know exactly what we have in mind..!

The thing that got us into the project in the first place was our urge to beautifully and creatively manipulate the strongest and most ancient emotion the world has ever known : Fear. Which can be easily elevated in First Person Horror Games when done right.

So, that's about it on our genre and platform reveal, next time we'll talk about the inspiration part and story and setting.

As a side gift, here is a screenshot from our prototype build:

"Open the door, or Stay right where you are?"
Dummy Prototype Screen with Dummy Textures on the walls. Don't mind the Sanity Meter. It's built for testing purposes.

Have fun!

Genesis Game Studios' New Project

It's been quite some time since we posted anything on our blog.

To tell you the truth, we were so busy catching up and cooking the next game in our horizon, that we wanted to be sure.

So, let me tell you a quick story.

6 months ago, I got a job as a Lecturer at SAE Institute. My field of expertise would be no other than Unity Game Development. Then, I got to meet many greek students who wanted to become game producers and change the image of Greece in the fields of game development. I saw the fire in their eyes every time they talked about their dreams. It would seem as if they felt that living in Greece would cut their wings, not let them fly and not go after it. But after a couple of off-the-record conversations they realized that it's not the country they live in, it's how badly they want to go out there and become someone. So, after some days of thought, a couple of inspired students stepped up and talked to me about creating something big for their portfolio. Something that would exceed their expectations of themselves.

"We want to create a game that would exceed our expectations and would not fit into the mobile genre. We want to remember something big after we graduate and having something significant and unique to show to possible employers out there. We want to go Indie."

These words pierced my mind like an arrow to the knee. I knew I had to take part in this!

And so i said "meeeh, why not" and thus me and some other students began assembling a team of developers, mostly students who wanted "the big hit" for their portfolio. And then, after talking to a couple of students from the 3D Animation Department of SAE, they quickly became interested in our secret project idea and wanted to go full throttle into doing something different for themselves.

My goal was to assemble a team of passionate students who wanted to take their next step in their game development career and have something in their portfolio / CV that would stand out.

And then... The idea of our game was born.

So, I'm officially announcing that we, Genesis Game Studios and this small student team will work on a new project, that will not be a mobile game, and we plan to release it on as many digital stores as we can.

A Note Left on the Table. What does it say? Find out on our next blog post!

What about the project you say? We will not reveal THAT much for now, but be sure to keep in touch, as it's going to be our biggest project yet, and this is going to be, yet again, since Dementia, our Development Blog, to keep you guys informed of how things will work on this game and what we are going to do.