Genesis are back to action! And opening a Tester Group!

Hello everybody! How's it been this Summer? We sure had a blast that one, for sure, and on August we just recovered our energies and prepared for yet another great year!

This time, knowing our target, we will primarily focus on mobile games mainly on Windows Phone and Windows 8 platforms, while also focusing on what the user really wants and how he feels.

Having all those great people testing Dementia has really given us the insight we wanted and helped us make a better game for them, as long as we had this constructive feedback, and we are really glad supporting them in creating the best experience for them. After all, our main focus is just that. Creating games that are addicting and fun for any gamer!

We are happy to announce our "Genesis Beta Tester Group"! This will be a closed group of Facebook where we will be inviting literally ANYONE willing to be a beta tester for our future games!

What you will be gaining?

• Be among the first to play our games. 
• Help us mold the game towards the direction you want.
• Mention inside the game credits as a "Beta Tester".
• In-Game Exclusives based on the game you are beta testing (This will be announced on every game)!!!

How do you apply ?

Pretty simple actually! Just send us an email at genesisgamestudios@outlook.com or just send us a PM through our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GenesisGameStudio asking us to become a beta tester! :D

That's all for now! Happy September people!

24/7 Rehearsing!

It's exactly one month before we fly off to Seattle, for the Imagine Cup Worldwide finals, and we are super excited and anxious about the whole thing. We want to give our best out there, and impress the judges, who will be announced in early July. 

We are working on the presentation, the game itself and our booth setup in parallel, and everyone is yet once more giving his best shot, in order to achieve our maximum potential at Seattle. 

There are too many things yet left to be done and they are all need to be done at once, unfortunately, this Summer won't be yet another Summer, but it will be THE Summer, at least for Team Genesis.

At the moment, we have also been working on Xbox 360 controller support for Dementia, in order to make the hands-on judging even easier for the judges themselves. While doing so we happened to be walking on the street, going to meet up and get some parts of the presentation ready, and we stumbled upon ourselves... at the newspaper of course! Ethnos newspaper has us featured in the back cover (Still good for now) and showing off our achievement to Greece.

Ahhh, the feels in this image are going over 9000. Anyway, back to the point. We feel like we're having our own little publicity here in Greece, and the more people see us and the more people like our page, then the more obligated we feel to those greek people and our followers to do exactly what they all want deep inside their hearts. A really good position for Greece in Imagine Cup, this year.

Did you know that Greece has never ever sent any game to the Imagine Cup competition, in the games category? Well, this is a first, at least, and we feel honored to be the ones to do it. Nevertheless, this doesn't really say anything else to us, rather than a plain and simple Imagine Cup trivia :P

Well, that's all for now,

happy gaming to all of you :)

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!

New secret project on the horizon!

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since our last post since we have been very active the last few days concerning the deliverables of the Imagine Cup World Semifinals (WSFs).

What's happening over here is a period of re-creation. We are trying to cool off, rest a bit, after the huge coding burnout that occured to us, and then out of all the sudden, a new idea came to mind, a new inspiration... Our next project.

We won't reveal much for now, except the fact that at this moment, the Game Design Document for this game is being written, and that we value each and every second of our productivity, so no days go to waste!

It won't be as big as Dementia. We want to go simplistic this time. But the end result will be fun, and we guarrantee this!

Until next time, where we will "hopefully" have some content to share with you :)

Imagine Cup Games National Winners!

We did it! We actually did it!

Team Genesis won 1st place at Imagine Cup Greek National Finals, and we are proud of sharing our latest news with you! Judging was a tough call, taking over 2.5 hours to complete, but in the end, we managed to creep everyone out with the Blackthorn Manor, and the Rat King!

We are already preparing our deliverables for the World Semifinals where we will be faced off with all the games throughout the globe. Our hopes are high and so is our excitement!

This time we won't say much, we'll let the pictures talk for us!

The Team, as we were preparing for our 10-minute presentation

Our Game Designer and Project Manager, Kostas, presenting Dementia

The croud that got to see the first ever public reveal of Dementia

Awards Time! along with mrs. Eleni Rachaniotou, one of the 4 judges 

The Team - Proudly showing off their trophies as National Games Winners

The Imagine Cup Team

15 of April..!

The day of submission! That's it! All the rush has come to a temporary end...
The game is now on "Imagine Cup Greek Finals" version, so we can use it for live demo in the finals.

But who is behind this game we've been talking to you about so much?

Introducing... us!

Kostas, Panos, Jordan and Manos are the guys who will represent Genesis Game Studios as "Team Genesis" at Imagine Cup 2014 greek finals at Microsoft Hellas.

But let's introduce ourselves:

Kostas - Game Design & Management
He's responsible for designing most aspects, mechanics and systems for the game, as well as the cards, the Characters and all the text you can read ingame and all the wireframes of the game itself. The one who had to get the message across the rest of the members, so they knew what to code and how the characters would behave.

He was also responsible for overall project management and to guide the team through the most difficult phases of the game, from prototype to the playable version the game has finally reached the last days. He is also the team blogger and that makes him feel awkward talking about himself in 3rd person. Marketing and Business are the other fields of the project he has been working as well, along with the deliverables of the World Semifinals or other Challanges such as project blueprint or UX Challenge. He is the Team Presenter for the project.

Panos - Systems Programming
He's the guy behind the cogweels, wielding the glue that binds every crazy mechanic together. In the team, he is known as "The Terminator" for his amazing coding speed as well as his ability to execute tasks one behind another. He quickly grabs his flamethrower every time he detects a bug and instantly kills it with style.

He is the one responsible for making core structures work in our game, such as the Pathfinding, the Combat, Stealing and Looting Systems, the Artificial Intelligence for our bots as well as their behaviors. The doors, walls and the rooms are in the game because of him. He also gave birth to our User Interface by punching in GUI code and every now and then tinkers with the performance of our game concerning bumpmaps, better texturing, lightmapping and overall quality of the visuals of the game.

Jordan - Gameplay Programming
Endless hours on skype would not be the same without Jordan and his contribution to the coding of Dementia. He would initially have a heart attack and then go and attack some gameplay tasks himself as he is responsible for bringing the initial vision of the game through the game prototype.

He is also responsible for most of the Gameplay that Dementia currently has, including usage of Items, Seals and Events, the maker of the Turn Flow System that rotates the Characters, the one who punched in all the different Damage Distribution cases in the Combat System. Without Jordan, Manos and Kostas would not have any Room Editor to create and Design Rooms inside the house.

Manos - Room Designer & Optimization
Every little detail you can see inside the Rooms is because of Manos. Every furniture, or light, or even the small portraits behind a rusty statue has come from him. He is responsible for designing every single room in the game along with Kostas and making sure that every model used is fully optimized for using in-game.

He is checking every furniture for meshes, verts and polys and has to dessimate them in order to be used in the game properly. He also did quite some Art direction with our artists to create models and furniture, as well as the overall quality (look and feel) or our rooms.

New merits for Team Genesis, Leaking Screenshots!

Hello again, people! This time we got EXTREMELY exciting news for you!

First of all, we would like to announce that Team Genesis won its' second reward in Imagine Cup - Honorable Mention in UX Challenge, climbing to the top 10 of the Games Category in the world once again...!

User Experience (UX) Challenge was about creating 2 documents filled with diagrams covering basic gameplay flow of our game, the target screens and their functionalities, 2 LowFi Wireframes about our gameplay and menu screens as well as one HighFi Wireframe concerning the gameplay.

You can see Imagine Cup's Official UX-Winner Announcement here: http://bit.ly/1kHjeTH

Kudos, team!

Secondly, and that's somewhat even more awesome for sharing with you, we will now leak the first ever "ACTUAL" screenshot of the game, which is actualy the high fidelity wireframe that we submitted over to the UX Challenge.

In the following screenshot we are revealing quite a few things:

1. The characters in 3D !
2. Some of the Rooms of the House!
3. The Whole User Interface!

So... without further ado, behold, our UX Challenge Screenshot:

Note: This Screenshot was taken in January. Trust us, there is MUCH more to show you :)

Things are about to get nasty, as one week remains until our game is submitted for the Greek Finals so now, team Genesis is going on full power! Let's do this!

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...!

Presentation, Progress and Awesomeness

Today's Thursday and we are around a month and a half until the Greek Imagine Cup finals.

The whole team is giving its' best self to overcome the difficulties we are facing every day with our code. Traversal is finally fully functional, you can see the characters ascending and descending staircases, falling into deathtraps and sliding gracefully into the dark corners of the manor.

All the work is focused around the Scenario at the very moment. Such tasks include:

• Spawning the Rats around the Manor.
• Perfectly Positioning them in their respective nodes.
• Correctly fitting the Rats into the Turn Flow.
• Getting the Rat King into the Ritual Chamber.
• Punching in the Winning Conditions of each side.
• Watching how wicked the Rat Ritual is!

Coming right up after this, we will focus on creating the Single Player aspects of the game, meaning that the User Interface will only draw our selected Character on Screen, and all other characters (Not Controlled by the Player) will be controlled by the CPU. This is our last stand, our final obstacle between us, and a game ready for the judges : The AI.

Meanwhile, we are working hard on the presentation for the Greek Imagine Cup Finals. Here is a quick view of the first slide : 

Team Genesis - Imagine Cup 2014 Greek Finals

The presentation itself will require ultimate overview of who we are, what we are doing, why we are doing it and trying to take a deep dive through all the aspects of our game, such as Concept, Gameplay, Goals etc.

Further into the idea, we must discuss about ourselves, how we met, why did we decide to do this for Imagine Cup, how did we work at this project and what's the whole business idea behind it.

We are relaxed taking on Business again, as we believe we can punch in a couple of slides that perfectly explain our competition, our customers, our financial management as well as how is the game going to be distributed and monetized through various platforms, as we have already received an honourable mention at the project Blueprint Challenge and the feedback from the judges has been far more than just valuable.

So, here we are, trying to glue everything together.
Oh boy, what a month April is gonna be...

Till next time, Rat King says "Hello!"

The Curse of the Rat King

Hello people and have a great week!

It's Monday and it's about time we gave you an exclusive update for Dementia : The First Scenario to be implemented in the Game for our Imagine Cup version of the game..!

Story :

" It's been 10 years since anyone has set foot in the Bloodthirsty Manor. Spectral Remains of tortured people roam about. All the explorers shake hands at the entrance and they hope they do find what they seek in this God forsaken place.

Cracks on the floor, Chains can be heard from far away and nearby, a sound that no human ear can easily discern, strange light from unknown sources is filling our hearts with hope, as we venture deeper and deeper into the house.

We can hear the rusty gears of the machinery room every now and then, yet there is no power in the house. Only candles to show us the way, it feels as if the kind spirits of those who seek revenge from the evil ones, guide us to find their dirty little secret. You can feel there is darkness lurking in every corner of the house, under every sheet, or blanket, all you think you'll find is blood.

Everywhere. 

The whole house itself may be acting against us, but we know our true purpose here. And we hope our minds can bear with what tricks it will play us. Our sanity is the only veil that covers our terrified soul from the aparitions of this damned place. Dark Clouds gather and cover our footsteps. 

We feel like there is no way out. Most of our comrades seem to have lost their minds, they all have grevious wounds made by either cursed objects, animated furniture, or even themselves. Everyone is on the verge of insanity. Especially this shady man, with which we entered the house. But who is that man really?

You can hear his screaming. You can hear his pain. You cannot feel anything less than empathy for that poor soul. He seems completely ruined and drained. Yet here comes the skittering sound. Noises of low-pitched squeaks now roam in the house. You can feel that the house is infested.

Suddenly, the noise gets louder and louder. Every time. Things only get worse, as we have met up with our friends at the Entrance Hall. Except this one man. We know something has got to be happening. His screaming has now reached a climax. We can feel his tears on his face. He is not screaming because he saw something. He is crying out loud. He knows he has met his demise, or will probably do so soon.

Loud Skittering sounds are getting louder every second. We hold hands with our friends. We curse the moment we decided to enter that pesky manor. Why bother? Why leave that hot cup of tea and our favorite books lying in our rooms, yet to be finished, just to come here for "our greater purpose"? 

When we took the courage to walk forward, we saw him. He was not the same as before. He had a skull on his head, his body was hairy and pale gray. He had a long tail and his hands held a staff. Our friend became a were-rat. He were frozen in fear when we saw him. He completely ignored us, rushing towards the basement. We knew that such abominations should not live in our world. He was not our friend anymore. He was a demon.

"The Rat King Himself - One shall be deemed worthy enough
to command the army of Rats. That night, he is the chosen."

As we ventured towards the basement ourselves we were attacked by his vermin followers. Rats! Rats everywhere! It was a bloodbath. So we took matters in our hands and keep moving towards the basement. He heard wicked words out of the WereRat's mouth. He was their king. And even more Rats appeared out of thin air. 

We knew our final, true purpose. We HAD to destroy them all..."

The Curse of the Rat King - Scenario #1

We took the liberty of giving you out our first Scenario this way.
But what will you be at the end? The shady man who turns out to be a wererat? Or the fellow companions who must battle their way through the maze of Rats?

Most of all... Who do you think emerged victorious?

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!

Blackthorn Manor Interior : Volume 2

Blackthorn Manor has sure been busy this week. Characters started entering the mansion, exploring the first rooms of the house, they've been having a spooky time, facing ghosts or spectral monsters!

This week, we will keep throwing you more furniture from the Blackthorn Manor:

The Librarian's favored. Once said to be filled with books, now the library
of the Manor holds only the creepiest secrets one can ever know. Only
the fearless may attempt to reach out for the forbidden knowledge the
Manor holds. But what can someone do with such knowledge other than
being a lonelybeing, on the verge of insanity and complete mental breakdown?

Sinners, Rejoice! For the saintly chimes of the Church Organ can

calm your inner self, and aid in purifying your corrupted soul. Let the 

melody calm your spirits and be reborn from sin itself, to a new being.

You are now chosen for a purpose, either it is life or death.

Only the most peculiar and weird objects can be found inside the Manor's
treasure chests. Sometimes it can be a stuffed animal from the child
that used to live there, or you may even find a Rusty Spear to use in
your... adventage if the spirits agree with you that is...!

Books. Holders of secrets known to few. Every page holds a feeling,
every word holds dreaded pain and eternal sorrow. That's because
no ordinary books can be found in the Manor. No sweet fairytales
or steamy romance novels. Only vile tomes of blood and cruelty.
Only hideous chapters on headhunting or Voodoo.
Even grimoires of black magic, undeath and corruption.

In many rooms, you may find a heater that was once used to keep the former
owners of the Manor warm in the cold winter nights. Even if they still work though
they have completely no effect on explorers when the house itself is creepy as hell
and cold blood runs through everyone's veins. Especially when bone-chilling
apparitions wander around the house, seeking to avenge their death.

They may look comfy but noone can guarantee that they won't animate,
hurl themselves at you, or even grow a blade among the comfy pillows underneath.
This is the house of a murdered family after all. Yes they were harmless once.
But times have changed... And so have the armchairs...

You can find plants around the house. Whilist the house is full of evil
entities, these plants somehow give you the idea that there may still
be hope after all, when life is still blooming inside a deathtrap.
What would you do if you were actualy given a second chance?
You know it could be false deep inside you, yet you want to believe.

Angel Statues to greet Explorers in the Blackthorn Manor and
guide them to the upper sections of the house. Some of them can be
found broken, as they are ruined by unknown abominations, others
are still intact and await their demise... or resurrection by greater beings.
Far greater than one can even conceive.

That's all for now, from the Blackthorn Manor. 

We'll catch up next week!!

Stay tuned, and of course... 

Experience the curse...

(  ;...;)

HexCraft Published for Windows Phone!

OMG It's HexCraft Wednesday and we are giving you the best we have given on any HexCraft Wednesday there ever was, after HexCraft booth at Infocom!

HexCraft for Windows Phone has been officially published globally!

You know what you have to do right? Download the game right away and send us your feedback! Which level seems the most challenging? Can you get into the leaderboards?

Download the game HERE :
http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=625582ed-a7fc-485f-bb4d-279d25be5540

...Or just search for it on the Windows Phone Store ;)

As you are mashing your way on Windows Phone, we are awaiting like predators for the Windows 8 version to be certified. Be on standby, those who are holding tablets and those who play on PCs and Laptops. You will be notified the moment it passes certification :)

Enjoy HexCraft on your mobiles for now! :D

Blackthorn Manor : Interior - Volume 1

Heya folks, how's it been? It's been an exciting week over here, since we had a blast at Infocom this Wednesday, thus the first HexCraft Wednesday without a HexCraft blog post! BUT, we won't let this week go without one, so expect a post about our impressions and personal experiences this weekend.

So let's continue with bringing you the latest information about Dementia : Tales of Blackthorn Manor.

Since we've already "Met the Cast" , we will now move on to giving you more concrete things, other than plain concept art, so you can see where phase 2 of asset creation is getting to. 

This week, we will present you some of the furniture of the Blackthorn Manor, that reside inside it, waiting for you to tinker with them, explore them, search them for clues, and interact with them. Here comes a burst of 3D models created just for the Manor, by our 3D Environment Artist , Menos.

A spooky chair to greet the explorers near the entrance hall.
Sit on it, and your fate shall be sealed. For eternity.

A bed, with unknown history of events occured over and... under the sheets.
I am talking about demonic rituals and sacrifice.

A wooden bench, which can be found at the Altar, for
those misguided souls to pray when there is no hope of atonement.

Wall candles attached on those bloody walls, to bring warmth and light.
Merely an essence of Hope, in this Dark Manor.

A Grandfather Clock, to remind us of time, aging and our life cycle.
All sort of weird stuff can happen at Midnight... Besides Chimes.

What's in the closet? Is it some bloody casualwear? Or maybe a hidden weapon?
Maybe it's the corpse of the owner, in pieces, or maybe it's Boogeyman.
It could, of course, be empty.... Right?

Don't look in the mirror, you may not like what you see.
It may be your reflection, but then again, it may be someone else's reflection.
Sometimes you may even the owner standing right behind you.
LOOK BEHIND YOU NOW!

Some events may occur that depend on these objects, because everything counts, everything can happen inside the Blackthorn Manor. You never know what rooms you'll explore or who will betray the rest. And of course, WHAT he will turn into. These objects add up to the total experience of the curse.

Are you still bold enough to explore the manor?

Till next time.... 

*buwahawhahahwahahahahahahah* 

*flies away*