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 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 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!

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...!

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?

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! ;)