The mechanics behind the doors

Hello everyone!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next week :)

Concept Art : Behind the scenes

Hello people!

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

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

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

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

Character Concept Art - The first two characters

Hello everyone!

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

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

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

Albert - Full Body Concept Art

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

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


Introducing our second character, Alma:

Alma - Full Body Concept Art

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

The answer lies before you.

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

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

Doors, Stealth, AI and some Art

Hello!
How's everybody doing?

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

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

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

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

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

For example, here is a sample baby monster concept:

BANG! Unity Event Retrospective & Teaser

Hello everyone!

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

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

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

Here is the video:

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

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

Back to our weekly schedule now!

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

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

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

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

Basic Fundamentals of Visual and Audio Design in Horror Games

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

Creating your first horror dungeon in Unity3D

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

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

And that's how the story goes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This, is the art of narrative design in games.

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

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

How things work out on Project AH

Hello everyone!

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

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

The Mechanics (Game Design)

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

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

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

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

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

The Story

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

And the best part?

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

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

The Coding Part 

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

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

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

The Audiovisual Part

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

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

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