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 :)

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:

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.

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.

The Road to Seattle

It's been some time since our last post, but to tell you the truth we have been resting like there's no tomorrow, for the most difficult, yet the greatest responsibility we had up to this time: We will represent Greece at Imagine Cup's world wide finals in Seattle, in late July, Games Competition!

Seattle, here we come!

So, what have we been up to?

We have been working hard to deliver the best possible experience for those who will try out our game at the world finals. As of today, we are revealing 2 apps that will be your handheld companion in your Dementia: Tales of Blackthorn Manor experience.

Announcing Dementia: The Companion App for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 !

You can get the Windows Phone 8.1 version HERE
You can get the Windows 8.1 version HERE

You can also search for the app with its' name: "Dementia: The Companion App - Imagine Cup 2014"

We have also been tweaking with the gameplay a bit, so you can now play faster, by adding in a "Turbo Mode AI" feature, making AI bots playing faster, giving you much faster gameplay for those who are more "Action-Oriented" gamers.

Every day here at Genesis Game Studios is a day of creativity, inspiration and awesomeness, the week following we will be making our appearance on TV for a live interview at Star Channel and this weekend, we will be presenting our game live to the audience of a 3-day Game Development with Unity on Windows Platforms event with Jaime Rodriguez (Microsoft Principal Program Manager) and Cark Callewaert (Unity Lead Technical Evangelist).

Finally, we are proud to present our video presentation for Dementia for the World Semifinals:

That's it for now! See you later for more content! Thank you for all your support!

Bugs on the loose!

There are bugs on the loose! Identify them, burn them, don't let them live...!! Oh! Hello!

As anyone can guess we are still on burnout mood. April has arrived and we got sweet news for you..!

The past month, HexCraft got featured in over 38 markets, we gotta admit we did not expect that coming, as it grew smiles on our faces and now we are working with a better mood..!

Right now, the Imagine Cup team is creating the initial and final screens (The Character Selection Screen and the Winning Screen) as part of the game flow, so that players may chose any character from the 6 given and take control of their very own destiny! The rooms have been redesigned a tad bit, some optimization here and there, and still we are quite a few AI tweaks away from going to playtest phase right before the greek finals!

Greek finals... yes, it has been announced, and it's getting more and more official by the day, here are the rewards of the greek Imagine Cup finals :

The Spoils of war!!!

Did you know that we are using Trello as our lead project management platform, for assigning tasks to everybody and killing off all those bugs that keep running away from our intense test cycles? We've been falling in love with it lately as we overcame our fear of trying out something new besides Visual Studio Online and Excel.

Stay tuned for our next post, as I am now promising to all of you that we will leak the first ever screenshot of the game with some rooms open, characters scattered around the house and the whole first draft of the game HUD on screen. :)

Till next time,
have fun all!!!

Deadline & Wrapping Up

Time is ticking away and that means only one thing : Imagine Cup is coming!

Our game has finally came to a "wrap-up" phase where we will now scatter around the code of the game, play it countless times, and identify all bugs. Then we will incinerate them.

Of course that would be the start because then we would scatter again, and play again, until we find more bugs to burn down. We will try break the game, we will try to make it tough, create complex pathways through the house, while keeping an eye on the framerate of the game as well.

We will try to make it bug, break, crush and cause all sorts of troubles. Imagine us holding a warhammer and bashing as hard as we can in order to make it break. If it does, we will patch it up, mold it even better, and start over.

April is almost here, around 15th we must submit our game for the Greek Finals. At the same moment, we have been preparing the deliverables that the world semifinals need (should we win in Greece), because we have only 7 days after winning to submit them all to ImagineCup.com.

So, as you can guess, these days you can see us re-writing our business model, writing the Instruction Manual of the game, and creating a final draft of our Imagine Cup presentation. Depending on the setup of the Greek Finals we will either show a quick gameplay trailer or showcase our game, letting the Rat King shine and wait for the judges' approval!

The tasks are getting pretty devastating though. It's like we destroyed the big ones first and now a swarm of the little ones are zerging our base. But we can do it! Deadlines may be pushing our limits but we can do it!

Stand by for more, as this month is hot for us.
Experience the curse...

The Edge of Insanity

The night draws near. The days are passing by like the sharpnel of Sanders' Handgun pierces through the Dire Rats' feeble bodies.

It's getting closer. I can feel it. Everyone here can. Imagine the whole Blackthorn Manor, and now imagine us inside it. It's a complete and utter chaos. Everyone runs around the house, having 10 goals that have to be done yesterday and simultaneously.

It feels as if we are puppets on a string, played by a force unknown. Half of us are wielding code guns and they shoot limitless lines and lines and lines of code to glue everything together. Our project is as unstable as a newly brewed potion. It does have improvements day by day though. Noticable improvements.

The others strive with writting, designing every missing aspect of the game, puting target dummies around the house, so the code gunners can bring it down. Once the target is being set, we unleash the code beasts and they nuke it until it's down.

Talk to other people. Make the game. Build a presentation. Run around aimlessly at times. Scream with agony. Feel the pressure swirling you inside a dark void, ready to consume you. But you will succeed won't you? You will beat the darkness.

Everyone is on the edge of insanity. Developers rejoice, for the time is getting closer..!

That would sum up the environment and feelings of Genesis at the moment, while we are preparing for Imagine Cup. We got less than a month to submit our game (!!!) and we are exhausted and excited at the same time. We hope we can make it! Ohhhh we sure can!

To the updates it is, then! The bots are much more clever now. It's insane! They run around, open doors, steal from other characters, attack them, and even hunt them down to destroy them, they have specific goals in their minds and they just can't get them off their mind. Our characters also have little light bulbs over them, as the AI *THINKS* the next optimal move, based on the current state, the scenario and the user.

We love how smart they can be, thanks to our CodeSquad, we feel that if all the holes of the game are filled and de-bugged to the end, our game will finally be playable..! :D

We'll now leave you with a screenshot of what the user will experience when someone is becoming a traitor:

The Curse of the Rat King - "BOW TO ME MY FOLLOWERS! THE VERMIN SHALL INFEST THIS LAND"

Till next time, more updates coming soon!

It's all about A.I. - And showing off rooms!

Finally! The game now properly locks to one character, and we control him only now! The rest of the explorers now have a very very very BASIC form of AI.

They can think for themselves! They can open rooms, steal from others and even attack them at will based on predetermined design guidelines. They know what's good for them, as such when you complete your turn with your character, you can FINALLY see all the others doing stuff at will. Mostly navigating into other rooms.

But what else you'd expect when the curse has not broken and the scenario has yet to be revealed? Their only goal after all IS ACTUALLY to open up all the rooms discover as much of the house as possible!

The AI to handle the post-curse effects is yet to be written, since we focus on polishing the pre-curse thinking patterns of the characters.

The rooms have also been optimized. Some messy models were thrown away, some others just got dessimated, just enough to keep the poly count low. We have also given the players the ability to tinker with the Video Quality Settings : Low (Without any shadows emitting light) , High (Which really takes the game to another level, if you can handle the FPS cost).

Currently we are focusing on making the game playable by one player. We believe we will reach our goal easily by the week, so we can start wrapping up and adding spice to the game itself the time remaining until the Imagine Cup Greek National Finals.

We are very excited and we hope that every sacrifice we've made so far won't be in vain. We will take this to the very end..!

We don't like not showing you what we are preparing, so here is a quick view of the Ritual Chamber, where the Rat King will perform his Wicked Rat Ritual..!

The Ritual Chamber - Perfect for Spellcasting, Rituals and other Demonic Sacrifices...!

Leaking one of the Rooms of the game and Promotion across the Internet!

It's about time Dementia got some publicity! We had our time on the project and we decided to do some sharing around the internet so even more eyes can see our game!

We want to create the community around Dementia : ToBM, we want people to start talking about our game, to anticipate it coming, we want to go to Imagine Cup Greek Finals and win.

So, for all those guys that managed to get to our blog, we have one huge question:
Do you know someone or have a friend who likes Board Games? Show him this blog!
Do you have anyone who likes online action with a bunch of friends online? Show him this blog!
Does your dog like ghosts? Show him this blog!
Do you know a bunch of people who enjoy horror stories around campfire at midnight ? Show them this blog!

Everyone who likes board games or video games should check us out!

We can't stress it out more - We believe that word of mouth can help spread this idea even further, and generate the amount of audience required for Imagine Cup and success for this game. We believe in our idea, now it's your turn to believe in us :P

We look forward to talking to each and every one of you, to hear out your ideas for the game, and to share as much as we can by the time of development of the game.

Anyway, back to the usual stuff!

We got our monkey programmers on site to create fantastic traversal experiences at the moment! Interestingly enough, the house itself is made of 3 floors (as you already know) - The Ground Floor, where all the ordinary rooms can be found, such as the Kitchen, the Dining Room, the Abandoned Room, the Altar and/or the Hallowed Organ Room.

Then there is the Upper Floor, which is a bit creepier if someone is fond of heights... You never know where you might end up to! Such rooms are the Attic, the Collapsed Room, the Office and the Master Bedroom.

Last but not least, we have the most dark place of the game: The Basement Floor! The Basement has all those creepy rooms that may give more spice to your horror stories, and all those horrible stuff happen there. Rooms of ultimate darkness include the Ritual Chamber, the Incinerator, the Machinery and the Crypt.

Now, what were those "traversal" experiences that we mentioned before? Our explorers can reach the upper floor by ascending the Grand Staircase, found right at the start of the game. Then, through the Collapsed Room, they can fall down to the basement. Their only escape is the Staircase to Foyer which leads to a Ground Floor Tile. Finally, they can find themselves in the Basement after discovering "The Leap Of Doom", a semi-collapsed room found in the Ground Floor that leads directly to the basement. One way!

Currently we are making sure that they reach their destination as requested from the in-game GUI.

Now, for the highlight of the post I would like to share a Leak of 1 Room with you - just to get an idea of what the house will evolve into:

Behold: The Main Entrance Hall, Including Foyer and Grand Staircase Room Tiles !!!

Welcome to the Blackthorn Manor. Dare to Open the Doors?

And with this... I shall leave you :)
Experience the Curse!

Cards! Cards Everywhere!

Hello everyone! We entered March, and our Imagine Cup project must be finished as fast as possible, there is a lot of promotion to be done, a lot of UX interviews to be taken at board game houses and in general, we gotta run a lot.

Thus, Genesis Game Studios are going IMAGINE CUP MODE! From now on, until the Greek Finals and why not even further, we will be informing you about our latest Imagine Cup endeavors. We will be posting more frequently, keeping you up to date with the latest of our Games Competition Entry.

Day by day, the house is getting bigger. That thorny manor is creeping everyone out. Do you have the guts to enter it? What will you do?

By this time writing this post, we have created most of the Items, Events and Seals that will make it into the Imagine Cup version of the game, that the judges will test.

So. Why Cards? Dementia : Tales of Blackthorn Manor is heavily inspired by Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Mansions of Madness and Arkham Horror board games..!

So, we have 3 decks of cards: Item Deck, Seal Deck and Event Deck. Each Deck has a number of cards. Each card represents either an Item, an Event or a Seal, depending on the deck drawn from.

The whole idea : Item Cards add Items in your inventory. Items are supportive objects that either aid in your progression or impede the progression of others. They can be the usual weapon that helps in combat, or the supportive item that either absorbs damage, reduces damage, or increases your defences in general.

The Lantern - "Don't worry, I will protect you"

Examples of Items are : The Shotgun, which can shoot your foes when they are far, The Lantern, which contains a friendly spirit that absorbs damage by destorying the Lantern, and The Everlasting Candle, which assists in your rolling against events by increasing your roll values.

The Shotgun - "Get ready to blow some heads!"

Event Cards represent Happenings that occur in the different rooms of the house. Events can be of many kinds: Positive Events, Negative Events, and Neutral Events. Such events test your might, wit and will. Should you fail, you lose stats, or even take damage. Should you succeed, you gain stats or healing. Some events just make you feel better. Some are random! Some events even create objects that are interractable in the room! 

The Red Night - "In a world full of terrors and horror...
Everything takes the color of blood"

Examples of Events are : The Whisper, which if heard correctly, may lead to a lost item. Contagion, which tests your will to resist a deadly plague. Blaze, which throws a burning man running at you, and Infestation, which spawns a horde of insects under your feet. Can you see them, or are they just your imagination?

The Whisper - "Caaaan you heeeeaaar meeee???"

Finally, Seal Cards represent demonic seals, which are essentially items, that when held, trigger the seals to break. When a Seal is broken, there is a chance that a greater demonic evil will spawn on the world. In other words, a Curse is Triggered and an explorer is forced to make a Dementia Roll (These rolls determine whether the seal broken contained an evil curse). Not all seals contain curses though. And you don't know which seal contains which curse. Every time a Seal Room is discovered, a seal is broken. A Curse is triggered anytime, when an explorer fails his Dementia Roll.

Examples of Seals are : The Plush Toy, a cute looking child's stuffed toy, but you never know what horrors that toy has witnessed in this house, thus declared demonic. The Holy Blade, an ancient weapon once held by angels who fought in the battle of Good versus Evil. The wielder gains angelic powers to fight off any curse. The Ancient Mask, which was looted from Ancient Aztec Ruins, which is said to grant the wielder great mental strength at the cost of his spirit, until he takes it off.

The Holy Blade - "By the power of light... I entrust you my blade.
With it, you may slice the Void and put an end to the Corruption of the world."

The Ancient Mask - "Dare to wear me, and I'll grant you infinite knowledge,
Dare to take me off, and the knowledge shall be taken along with me."

We are very glad to have made the addition of Items, Events and Seals to the game, because they just take gameplay to another level. You never know what you may find in each room... or what may find you.

Until next time ;)

Another weekend of burnout for Genesis Game Studios

It's a sweet Saturday evening, first day of March (Happy new month!) and we haven't blogged for this week for neither game. The latest updates:

HexCraft has been announced "App of the month" at the Official "Windows Apps Made in Greece" group on Facebook. And it was also featured in MSCorner! Check it out!

Thank you admins!

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Blackthorn Manor has been going under great pressure this time.
Everyone went into rage mode and programming has been going well!

We have been working on basic systems such as Combat System, Stealing System, Movement System, and set up basic AI functionality such as A*-ish pathfinding inside the house.

At the same time, we have been reviewing the final list of items, seals and events that will make it into the game, and have been designing rooms at the same time. You can see the walls are built up, doors opening when explorers pass through them, Intriguing Combat Cameras with Zooming Effects and dice rolls, and excellent pathfinding inside the creepy corridors of the blackthorn manor, ranging from the bone-chilling Mirror Room to the breathtaking Incineration Chamber that lies in the basement.

We are clearly seeing that the house is evolving quicker than before, now that Imagine Cup Greek finals are on their way, the team is clearly going for the finish line!

There still are systems left to be done though, such as the Item Effects when they are used, Flipping effects, binding unique Sound Effects to the Cards when they appear, graphical representations of the dice rolls, then again, there is the Scenario, and of course the Core AI that will support the game in a training / demo session that Imagine Cup judges will play!

Did you know that Imagine Cup this year is split into National Finals, World Semifinals and World Finals? The first two will be done online, just like Project Blueprint Challenge (Honourable mention, yay!).

It will be a very difficult project to build, since deadlines are approaching like vile serpents, but the expectations are going pretty high, should we manage to complete it, at least that demo version that we want to showcase.

We won't leak any images from the Project at its' current state *YET* but we promise that it's going to be worth waiting for. We are doing our best, and just like we never broke a promise, we promise you, you will like what you are going to see :)

Till next time!

HexCraft Release Soon!

It's #HexCraftWednesday, and we will fill you in with the latest.

Our game will feature 12 different leaderboards! Finally, we got this working with Azure Mobile Services and we feel that this game is really coming to an end.

As you saw in our latest photo in Facebook, we leaked how the main menu will look like!

HexCraft - Being Tested on Windows 8 - Desktop and Tablet versions.

HexCraft is currently under playtest mode and we look forward to hooking you up with the Download link soon! Expect the game to be released in February!

Also, we will appear at infocom to showcase our game, we will be expecting you :)

For more information, visit this link : http://www.infocomapps.gr/

That's it for today folks, see you next week!

Bashing code for HexCraft like crazy!

The days are passing and HexCraft's first release is being prepared. We got galactic monkey demons writing code, so you guys can finally play!

This week we have started going into rage mode for our promotional art, and adding finishing touches to HexCraft, such as Facebook login and In-App purchases. We expect to be done around the end of the week, if everything goes as smooth as we hope it will!

Each level you play is going to have a dead-simple goal : Solve the puzzle. That's it! You don't have to worry about the best time, or the best moves, anymore, as we are only recording these for getting you into the global leaderboards of HexCraft, meaning that if you like playing for fun, then we won't stop you, or mess up your experience!

The very first release of HexCraft will be for Windows Store, and soon there will be a Windows Phone version coming right after.

Stay tuned people, till next Wednesday!

HexCraft Promotional Image - Coming first on Windows Store

Let's do the HexCraft Dance! - Gameplay Video

Hello people!

How's everything going? It's HexCraft Wednesday! Everything goes smooth in the world of the hexagons. We are adding timers on each level and playtesting like mad, every single level. Some of us suck at this game, we got to admit, others are just getting better, so we really hope the time we give out for each level suits everyone's playstyle and it really helps them out to gather as many stars as possible.

Besides designing for levels we are just begining turning our wireframes into in-game UI, so that is "under development" as well. Social Media is still a pain, since we have been researching quite a lot on how to implement such features correctly.

Remember what we promised you last week? Was it a candy? Was it a toy? Or maybe was it a HexCraft Alpha Version Exclusive Gameplay Video? Bwahahahah, and just as promised, here is some video footage from our gameplay currently in alpha version (Which only means it will only get better)

By now, you get the idea of the whole game, and for those who still haven't i gotta warn you it may not seem as easy as it seems on first sight. There are actualy some hexagons that will make your life easier and some that will make it harder, by turning around all other nearby hexagons. Sure, you want to turn that Cyan Hex into an Orange one, but just by doing that, you may turn all Orange Hexagons around it to Cyan Hexagons.

Think before you act! But then again, there is the factor of "Moves" and "Time". It's a tough call...

Catch you next week folks! ;)

The Setting of Dementia : Tales of Blackthorn Manor

It's #CreepyFriday! Time to get you the latest of our dark project.

The Blackthorn Manor is an old house, aging back to the 1920s, the environment sure is telling us a lot about the house itself, you can see broken objects on the ground, debris, junk. The house is creepy, dark and noone knows what happened inside. With the fear of breaking evil seals and triggering a horrific curse, we tread lightly as we explore the rooms of the manor. Dark, Dusty rooms which are now infested with hordes of insects and bats, are some of the places with cracky floors that we will be exploring.

You never know what horrors can occur in the Blackthorn Manor...

The house has internal and external sections. For example, you may find yourself picking up objects at the Junk Room, or you may witness the impossible, while being out in the graveyard of the house. Some rooms also can be outside facing, which gives you a greater grasp of where you are standing right now. But then again, being right next to a window is not a safe option when exploring Blackthorn Manor, is it?

Some Rooms may hold a secret, while others may be keepers of cursed items..

The rooms seem so natural, and the furniture seems so cosy, but noone has ever been to Blackthorn Manor without seeing his friends taken over by a horrible monstrocity trying to backstab them at some very crucial point of the night where everyone's flashlights go out and there is no escape from the manor.

Sometimes you may end up witnessing a vision of the dead owners of the house as a mere warning, other times you may find a lockbox with items inside, and sometimes, nasty ghosts or the evil undead may be tempted to attack you based on your will not to freak out when you see them.

...But can you NOT freak out, when you see a burning man running straight at you, or when an animated table is hurled at you? That's up to YOU. 

See you next week, where we will be showcasing some of the characters who have the guts exploring Blackthorn Manor.

...Experience the Curse!

Unity3D Event @ Found.Ation

Last week at Found.Ation, we co-organized a Game Development event along with Microsoft Hellas. All sorts of concepts of the game development industry were introduced to the attendees and we would like to thank you all guys for coming over, it was a pleasure meeting and talking to you all.

We hope we can host more events in the future so you can see more of whatever field of the game industry you like!

Some photos from the event :

Dimitris-Ilias Gkanatsios from Microsoft Hellas on
Multiplatform Game Development

Kostas Dokos, our Lead Designer Presenting the Art of Game Design

Kostas, Along with Theodoros Doukoulos, our Product Manager,
presenting Unity Fundamentals

It's Marketing Time! Panel with special guest George Karavias from Anlock

Event Attendance - Presenting Unity Basics

Finally, here is the link for the Game Design presentation as well as the Unity demo:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/49ulbxx0dg36oqe - Art of Game Design
http://www.mediafire.com/download/l8uggfvtspizdoi/SpheresVSCubes.rar - Unity Demo

Thank you all for attending, catch you guys later..!