Almond Hill Silent Meow(Better than Slender)

project first revelead 6/12/2013
hi unity community. Since its E3 week I decided to also reveal the project I have been working on. A new Almond-Hill game.
I just posted a big post with all the details on my blog and I encourage you to visit it to check it out. For my WIP thread here I will make it short and sweet.

Ok, so my newest game is a new original horror game called "Almond-Hill: Silent Meow" which is a complete reboot to my original Almond Hill game I released back in October. This will not be an Almond-Hill 2 but a completely new almond hill that wont play anything like the original one I created at all. I have been using unity for 2 years and am very experienced and created many games up till now but none where serious and quality attempts but more experimental projects for learning. Starting with this project and future projects I will be taking on larger games and more serious attempts. So I hope to create a really well polished quality game with unity.

I have coded my previous projects but I will be using playmaker for this project this time around.

Ok about the game:

"Almond-Hill: Silent Meow" is a stylized horror game.

You play as Leon Coffeebean. One day you receive a call from your grandmother Grams Coffeebean who lives in a town called Almond-Hill. Grams tells you that she needs help with a "special search". You later learn that her cat Almond has gone missing and she needs to to explore Almond-Hill in search of her lost cat. As you get to Almond hill and start your search you find out that the town is haunted and there is someone/something living in Almond-Hills forest. Grams stays in her house the whole time and that is why she is unaware of the happenings in Almond hill.

Characters:

Leon Coffeebean, the main character of the game:


Grams Coffeebean, Lives in Almond-Hill. Leons grandmother, asks Leon for help.


Almond the cat. The missing cat you are searching for, no one knows how, when or why the cat became missing. Almond is a very special cat that can walk on two legs and is a loyal feline companion.



Vehicles:
You will be able to drive vehicles in this game. Since I am a solo dev, I am definitely not going to try and make this crazy big map like you see in the GTA games and red dead redemption for example, but I will make a decent size map. A map big enough to drive in
Dont worry, I have lots of experience and I understand the limits of not over complicating things and trying to make this AAA game that would require a whole company. I am not going for that, but definitely something unique.

Snowconesolid Transport Taxi: (First car you see and can drive)


Almond Red Truck:


there wont be many, but I plan on creating other vehicles in game to.

There is still a lot more work to do. I also plan on creating an awesome render for each character in game like the first image you see above.

Final thing to say:
Bashing SlenderMan

What this game is not going to be is a Slenderman game. This will be a truly unique and original horror game that will be better than slenderman in every way. And no its not going to be anything like Slender. I bring Slenderman up because all I see when people want to make a horror game (Esp on the unity forums here) is Slenderman. Honestly, I am sick of seeing slenderman everywhere. Its not original and very boring. If you want to make a Slenderman game that is fine, but one of the reasons I am making this project is to also encourage you slenderman nuts to try something new. There is unlimited possibilities with what you can create and I believe you can create it. So Slenderman people. do not take this the wrong way, but this is more for motivation so you guys can unleash your true creativity

Anyway thats all for now. be sure to also check my blog in my sig below. I will have more soon

8/6/2013 UPDATE: Almond Hill silent Meow Teaser Trailer

8/9/2013 UPDATE: New main character announced
Special Detective Pekoe Tea Leaf


Detective Pekoe has been sent to the town of Almond-Hill to investigate a recent murder and the mysterious town itself. He might not be the best agent for this job but he has style and gets things done. The Agency did not give Detective pekoe a handgun because he has terrible aiming and failed the target shooting test. But all in all, he is a good at what he does. Also, he prefers tea over coffee.


8/10/2013 UPDATE: First playable Demo released


Today I have the very first playable demo of Almond-Hill Silent Meow up.
This demo is the very beginning of the game where you play as Leon Coffeebean. Its a pretty short demo but I hope you enjoy it and it keeps you wanting more. Keep in mind that after this part of the game, the gameplay will switch completely because the player will play as the new main character Detective Pekoe. Hopefully I will maybe have a second demo out soon when I get more work done so you guys can play as detective pekoe. My aim is to try and get in a variety of different gameplay into this project so it stays interesting throughout the whole game.

Anyway enjoy the demo. Any feedback is welcome.

Demo Link (Dropbox)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50235309/AlmondHillSilentMeow/Demo_1_SilentMeow%20Opening/Demo_1_Build.html

UPDATE:8/17/2013
Newest screenshots from the Almond-Hill main village area

at the phone booth


at Silent Meow bar


Update: 8/28/2013
Alarm Monster screen shot


Update: 9/7/2013
ok todays update.

Ill start off with my new character that will be part of the game.

The Patrol doll


an early enemy you encounter in the game. She cannot be defeated so the best thing to do is avoid her by sneaking past. usually there is more than one patrol doll in the area. They shoot out yellow beams of light from their eyes to represent their line of sight. Stay out of this line of sight to avoid getting put in the "Feeding Room"

With the addition of this character I can move on and talk about those major changes and what you can expect from gameplay.

So lets talk gameplay. As I mentioned above, the patrol doll is an enemy you avoid and sneak past. This adds in stealth elements to the game. Actually, I believe I mentioned somewhere in this thread a while back that I was going for a stealth-horror type gameplay. I think the game will be more unique with these elements. This character is only one you should avoid, but throughout the whole game there will be other charactes/enemies you have to avoid. I will try and get a different enemy for each level in the game.

more changes, Major changes

Remember that demo I released a couple weeks ago? if you played it you know that at the end of the demo Leon coffeebean is killed by some unknown masked man who is chasing Almond the cat. Well, after doing a lot of thinking and making a bunch of changes to the storyline I decided that entire part of the game will not be part of the final game at all. I took it out. Leon never died, actually he has an even more important role to the games storyline now. Leon is actually teaming up with Detective pekoe to search for his lost cat almond now. So this means that I am also taking out that killer character I created. He no longer has any purpose to the game.



I think the game is turning out great so far despite all the changes I keep making and I can't wait to show you guys some more in the future


Update: 9/10/2013
The very first level of Almond-Hill is finally complete. I did a lot of work. created AI for the Patrol dolls that works good, set up the puzzles and main missions in the first level. And it maintains a dark atmosphere.

Its a horror game but the gameplay is fastpast and so is the stealth. You don't slowly sneak past ghosts and what not, you wait for your opportunity and run past them.

Also, I mentioned that it would have a sort of zelda type element added in. In each level there will be a unique item you obtain to help you through complete the level.

I don't want to spoil anything but I will reveal the main item in the first level.

It is a boxing glove.



Update: 9/12/2013

finished the newest character for Almond hill.

This one is very important.
The Feeding Demon


I am not going to say anything about this character so nothing is spoiled. You will have to play the game to find out, when its finished of course.

more soon!

Update: 9/14/2013
Screenshot of the day


Car is approaching Leon on foggy road.

See, Leon is back in game now


Update: 9/19/2013


Stank's Gas station in game render
I posted a WIP screenshot of a place called Stank's Gas. The only gas station in Almond-Hill, which you can go to in game.
Today I finally finished creating that stank's Gas scene and worked on it in unity. I set up lighting, fog, etc and designed the inside of the place as well.

So I just want to show how this gas station will look like in game. I am proud of it if I must say so myself.

Stank's Gas in game


As most of you probably have figured by now, this game is heavily inspired by the popular "Silent-Hilll" series.In my game "Almond-Hill", the gameplay, storyline, characters, etc is completely different. However, I must admit that some (not all) places in the game I created are inspired by places from the Silent Hill games. Stank's Gas station for example is a place inspired by the gas station in silent hill. So, I just wanted to post this screenshot from Silent hill I have been using as inspiration as I created Stank's Gas.



I posted that just to compare my gas station and the gas station in Silent hill. In terms of design and atmosphere.

Silent Hills screenshot wins of course as it clearly has better fog and lighting than mine but I like to think that my gas station came close enough. Lighting is much darker in mine and fog is less dense and darker. My screenshot is pretty small for some reason but up close and running in game it looks much better I think. (Not better than the silent hill screenshot, I mean it looks a lot better in the actual game of mine)

Major Updates and changes soon
I know in my previous post I mentioned that I was going to keep making changes, major and minor with the game and that I would just not talk about them anymore. Well, after I talk about this next major update/change I am making to the game I wont say anything else after that for sure I promise. I know I said this before, but I believe that now I truly have good planning for this project and finally decided what I wanted it to be. But that is for a different post because I don't feel like talking anymore at the moment. So stay tuned for my future posts in this thread as I discuss the final (hopefully final) major changes I plan on making.

More Soon!

Update: 9/22/2013
Places to go!

Just wanted to post pictures of two unique places you go to in the game I finished creating recently for the project.

well, first here is Stank's Gas station, a place I showed progress a day or two ago and have completed and already put in game.


and here is the newest scene I just finished creating. The Silent Meow bar.


if you any of you have been following this thread from an earlier time you might have noticed that I created a bar called "Silent-Meow bar" a while back.
I decided to completely redesign it and make if from scratch again while keeping some of its original design. I am making big changes to the game so I had to remake the silent meow bar. Its bigger now and I actually designed the insides of it because every building/scene you visit in the game, you will be able to go inside. I am not completely done with this scene, I am still working on more of the insides of it but pretty much it is near completion and I should have it in unity by tomorrow where I will start making it interactive and part of the gameplay/storyline.

If you havent seen the original Silent Meow bar I made a while back you can see it somewhere in this thread. But if you feel like comparing my old one with the new one I will post it here to.

Old Silent Meow bar


The old one I made was good to but only to look at. It was to small and I never made an inside for it. The way I made the old one also made making an inside for it to difficult since I used one sided tiles.

Final major changes soon and possible finish date

anyway, real soon I will talk about the final major changes I plan on making to this project and then I will continue to make more progress.

due date?
I am not completely sure yet, but I plan on having the entire game finished and released sometime November. But that could change, I will have to see how things go. Hopefully though I will because that is what I am aiming for. I might put the game on hold during October. But that is something to talk about for another time.

anyway, more updates soon!

Update: 9/24/2013
New Character

Everybody meet Drunk Guy



Drunk guy is a character you meet early on in the game. He is literally drunk when you meet him. You eventually learn his real name as you progress through the story. He is not one of the main characters but a side character.

More new characters, more big changes and news and more soon!

Update: 9/27/2013

Another new character

Just finished my newest character for the game.

Today you will meet non other than Stank himself. The owner of "Stank's Gas" in Almond-Hill.


I started modeling him yesterday and today I finished the creation process so he is game ready now.

Like I said before, there will be a good amount of characters to meet in this game.

I will be revealing a new character daily, or whenever I finish a new one.

more updates soon!



Update: 10/1/2013

New character
Leon Coffeebean version 2



Interesting story behind this character.
I planned on redesigning my original Leon Coffeebean model and it became this new Leon model that you see here. But I was having a lot of trouble getting all the old systems that I created for my original Leon model to work with the new one. So I decided forget it, I will just stick with my original Leon design. Dont get me wrong, I love the original design for Leon that I created but I thought I would just try to make him a little more like my newer more recent characters. Anyway, making this short, it didnt work out so I am just going to stick to using my original Leon coffeebean model for the game.

But I really do not want this new Leon model I made go to waste so now what I am planning is adding this Leon as one of the secondary characters into the game.
So there will be this comedy moment in the game where you meet this new leon who looks like you and has the same name as you.
So Leon 2 will also be in the game



Almond-Hill project on hold during October New horror game project coming soon
Ok todays news. Just as I said earlier in this thread, I will not work on Almond-Hill during October. And October just started. I just posted a blog entry about all of this over here on my dev blog if you want to read it http://snowconesolidwho.blogspot.com/2013/10/almond-hill-on-hold-new-halloween.html

if you dont I will quickly explain. I released the original Almond hill game last year as a quick short horror game project around Halloween. Since that time I have decided to make it a personal tradition of mine to work on and release a short horror game every year for Halloween. So this will be a project I only have this month to complete, it will be a short and fast project I will challenge myself to complete and have released by the end of this month. That is why I will not work on Almond-Hill during this month. I am very excited about this new small project and have plans for what I will make. I can't wait to get working on this project and it feels good to know I have a deadline so I will have to have a game out by the end of this month. again, it will just be a quick short horror game project. Almond-Hill is a much larger project that will require more time to complete and it feels good to take a break from working on that so I can work on something different.

As for Almond-Hill, I will resume working on that project after October. In the meantime you can enjoy this final in game screenshot I took when I last worked on that game.



so that is all for now, be on the look out for a new thread I will create soon once I make good progress on my short horror game.
see you back in this thread sometime after October!

 

Looking very good!
Will it be released for PC?

 

Thank you Virror. And also thanks for reminding me. I can't believe I forgot to say what platform this will be for.

I plan on releasing this for PC and Mac at first. And after I finish and release on those platforms I might go back and consider porting it over to Android. But thats for later on. Right now I am focused on the pc/mac version.

 

Also, do you plan to release it as a free game or paid?
Sorry for all the questions, just curious : D

 

At the moment I don't know about that Virror. I wanna see how things go. Like I said,this project will be different than all my previous ones in terms of quality and I am taking a much more serious approach in its development to deliver a solid game that plays very well, does not have these crazy bugs everywhere (almost all my previous games had major bugs/problems and I wouldn't take the time to fix them which is not a good way to be a game developer haha).

So I am not really thinking about stuff like if I should sell it or release it for free, or should I create two versions and release one for free and one paid, etc. Im not focused on the "Business" side of things but I am more focused on the more important stuff like I mentioned above about creating this really well polished game, so creating a quality game is my top priority for now.

Ok todays Progress Note:
At the moment there isn't really much show. I am jumping between different areas in the games development, sometimes working on the 3d modeling, sometimes working on the characters animations etc. Something I will focus on before starting to create the games levels, gameplay, etc is the controls. Unlike in my past games where controls were sloppy, I want to get the controls done really well this time. The games controls should be smooth and simple to use. I want the player to be able to just jump right in and get a hang of the controls within seconds and not spend a lot of time just learning how to move the character around like in a lot of pc games. Boring update for today but I will have better updates as the project progress. More soon.

 

So as I said in the last update, I am focusing on controls as one of the first things.

Today I started just playing around and came up with a quick prototype. I have set up controls entirely with playmaker and so far, these are the best controls I have created so far (well I think so). I am amazed at how well you can quickly create controls and at the same time easily blend animations together with playmaker. Honestly thought I would need to spend a lot more time on controls but they are coming along fast.



of course they are still not complete and there is still a bit of tweaking I need to do as well as add in the other controls besides just moving/blending animations. I will also be creating a mouse control which will be a really important part of the controls. Also, I will need to create controls for the vehicle driving.

When I have more done on the controls I will be putting up a webplayer prototype so you guys can give it a try and tell me what needs improvement and what not. I might think controls are done well but others might not. It would be good to hear what others have to say. So, I will try and have that up soon once I get more done.

 

hey everyone.

I just got done creating the main character (Leon Coffeebean) controls. All done with playmaker. It was a bit confusing at first because I had to figure out how to blend all of my characters animations depending on whatever state the character is in and what input the player is entering but after spending a bit of time it became pretty easy and I resulted in this very clean state machine system for the players controls and animations.



I have been testing it and the controls are very smooth and efficient at the same time simple. There is still more I need to add but for now everything is working nicely. I will have a video demonstration and perhaps a playable prototype webplayer up real soon so you guys can tell me what you think of controls so far and how they can be improved as well as see the character Leon Coffeebean in action for the first time.

 

hello again.

as I said a couple hours ago I would have a video demonstrating the contols I have created for the game so far. So here it is.

The controls are not final yet and still need a bit of tweaking. Also there is no sound effects yet. But so far I am very happy with what I have accomplished and the controls will continue to improve over time.

Also, I have created a playable webplayer version so you guys can test out the controls for yourselves. So please feel free to check it out and let me know your feedback on my current controls.

(Dropbox link)
Web Player Build

Controls:
move with WASD or arrow keys
Left click to turn on/off flashlight
Press space key to preform a set trap action (this only plays an animation at the moment, the set trap action will be explained more later on)

press the L key to turn the scenes lights on or off. This is so you can test out how the flashlight would look in dark areas.

 

Nice start. If you turn the ambient light down to zero and use local fill lights you'll get more contrast and dynamic range from your lighting.

 

This looks pretty awesome snowconesolid. You've come a very long way since your first models. Keep up the good work!

 

bro i like what you been doing so far, it would look more scary if (when lights are off) it would be darker so u cant see ur surroundings.. other than that, keep doing ur thing bro!! you heading in the right direction!!! if u need any ideas for anything just PM me.

 

Controls are looking waaay better than the last games.
Some small suggestions to make it feel a little more fluid:
-Make it possible to turn flashlight on/of while walking, a little bit annoying to have to stop : p
-When placing traps, you need to wait before animation is 100% done before you can press a movement key, you should change how you read them so you can start pressing before animation is finished and you start moving as soon as you are done playing animation.

Keep up the great work!

Edit: Is that you on the wall there? : D

 

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback!
@ben24bk, this was just a test room. The actual game levels are going to be more out doors type areas to explore like forest and what not. The flashlight wont be necessary in all areas of the game, and some areas will be darker then others and the flashlight will be more useful in areas like that. Since, I give the player the option to turn the flashlight on and off whenever they want, I dont want to make the game so dark that it requires them to use the flashlight at all times. If I was going for that design, then I would of just kept the character using the flashlight at all times and didnt give the option for turning it off. I am still planning this but I might also include a day and night cycle. So you will be able to explore the area whenever you want at different times in game. And each time you explore, it would be different, for example exploring the same area at night would be different because it would be more dangerous and more ghosts appear at night. I dont know, ill talk more about all that when I get more work done. haha.

@Virror, thank you once again! I know what your talking about not turning on the flashlight while moving. It might get annoying to have to stop moving your character to turn the flashlight on or back off. So having the ability to turn it on while walking is important and thats something I will be fixing up in the controls as I tweak them more. As for the set trap function, that still needs some work because I just did a quick setup for that, but I kind of like having the player to wait until the animation finishes until they can start moving again because in other games, MGS for example, say you set a claymore or something, you cannot move until the character (snake in this case) finishes placing down the item. But Like I said, the set trap feature is something that still needs work. For example, my character actually needs to set a trap instead of just playing the animation and it needs other work. So Ill be tweaking that as I go along with the rest of the gameplay.

and yes, that is my picture on the wall haha

 

already looks better then Slenderman

 

Well, i did not mean that the player should be able to move before the animation is finished, that would be strange. But you dont seem to read the input keys until the animation is finished, example:
You place the trap, and while the char places the trap you press the forward button, then when the char is done placing he wont move until you release the forward button and press it again.

 

@Cheburek, thanks! I agree.

@Virror, ah ok, I know what you are talking about, I must of misunderstood the first time. Yeah you are right, thats something I will be adjusting when I work more on the set trap feature. But I have worked on the controls a lot since I last posted the prototype and they are near completion now. They where pretty decent at first, but now they are really almost perfect after I fixed most of the issues.

controls changes/fixes:
+Now you can turn the flashlight on or off while walking and it smoothly blends the two transitions/animations together. This is an important fix. (In the prototype I uploaded you had to stop moving to turn your flashlight on or off)
+ Added sound effects to the character. The flashlight makes a light switch sound everytime you turn it on or off. The character has footsteps sound effects. And the characters animations have been adjusted to match the footsteps sound effects perfectly.
+Adjusted the animations, they are slightly faster now and look nicer (which is really probably the easiest thing to fix since unity lets you change the animation speed with ease, ha)

at the moment, the set trap action is still just an animation that plays and that is something I will start to work on later on in the games development because I need to set it up so it works properly with the rest of the gameplay. But I will be fixing a lot of the issues and making it work nicely like the rest of the character so far.

I might put up a new webplayer build later on. But I will do that when I have made a lot more progress.

I am working hard on the game and cant wait to show you more. For now, just enjoy some of Grams's freshly baked almond cookies!

 

another day another update!

explaining the set trap action
ok first, I have been thinking about characters.Originally I said there would only be 4 characters in the game, and I already revealed 3 of them. (leon, grams, and Almond) which leaves only one more character (the killer/villain). This was before I decided to give Leon a "Set trap" action. So heres what the set trap action is all about. I thought it would be really cool if you could capture ghosts in this game. So the set trap action allows you to place a trap down and if a ghost goes in it you capture them. There will be a currency in game and you will be able to buy different traps. Also, some ghosts will require a special trap to capture.

Ghost characters (More characters!)
I thought, the game wont be that fun if I only had one enemy (the main villain), I need some more enemies that can attack and kill the player to make it more of a challenge. So I decided to create these ghost characters that you will encounter. There will be at least three different ghosts(Types A,B,C), and each ghost is different and is unique in its own way.

here is Ghost Type-A, which I just finished creating today.

This ghost is refereed to as a "Type-A" ghost because its one of the first ghosts that appears. Type-A ghosts are common and appear often in the forest and cemetery. Type-A ghosts are easy to catch and don't require any special traps.

more updates on controls:
Ok, controls are pretty much 90% complete.
+Now you can set traps while the character is moving
+I fixed the input reading (Thank you Virror for point that out to me ) so now, you can set a trap, while the animation is playing you can hold the move key down, as soon as the character finishes setting the trap it will check if the player is holding any move keys, if they are it will blend right into the walk state otherwise it will go back to being idle. A very important bug that needed to be fixing and now its fixed.

more soon!

 

>I plan on releasing this for PC and Mac
Thank you!!! Not enough people make their games for Mac too.

 

haha well I dont see why not since its a free option in unity.

Just finished creating:

TYPE B Ghosts
Type-B ghost are more challenging and more complex than type A ghosts. They are common but not as common as type A. Type B ghost have a more human like appearance and carry a trick lantern. These ghosts use their lanterns as decoys. When the lantern is placed down it emits a deep fog around the surrounding area and the ghost begins to hunt you down as you get distracted and lost in the fog.

 

for a ghost he takes surprisingly care of his haircut, wish same applied to his teeth

 

haha you are right! Well actually, since this ghost has a more human appearance, he tries to blend in as best as he could. His hair is actually just a wig

 

Todays Daily Update:

Almond-Mail Truck


One of the vehicles in Almond Hill Silent Meow. The official mail delivery vehicle of the town.

 

Ghost Traps


These are the different kinds of ghosts traps you can get/use in the game. The image shows the stages of the trap (In game the trap will be animated of course). when its first set its just waiting, when a ghost enters it, a beam will come out to paralyze the ghost and then a metal fence will pop up trapping the ghost. Each trap does something different.

The gold trap will drop coins for the player to pickup after a ghost has been captured.
The red trap will drop health for the player to pickup after a ghost has been trapped. In this case, hearts will come out.
The green trap is more of a mystery trap and it might do different things such as drop both coins and hearts or other stuff.

I might create different traps that do different things later on.

I am trying to keep things balanced. So things like heart/coin pickups, these traps etc will be much more low poly while more important things like main characters, vehicles are going to be a bit more detailed and better quality. Especially my characters, I want my characters to be really good quality characters and to stand out the most in this game but at the same time game ready, (which all the characters I posted already are game ready and prepared.)

more soon.

 

Two updates in one day. How Fun!

Pickup-Items in game



I know I know, its kinda zelda like with the heart pieces and potions. Yes I was inspired by zelda for these props but my potions do different things.

Red potion : gives you double health (six hearts, default is 3)
Green potion: tells you the location ghosts
Blue potion: is poison.

hearts are hearts, represent players health.

Almond Coins: the games currency. each coin has a value of 1. Use the coins you find to buy stuff in game

 

Looks good
I will be folowing this to see how it goes

 

Thank you RollyDude.

Daily Update:

Now I am using my assets to create a health system, GUI/HUD for health, coins, items, etc.

I just finished creating a health system in game. I am really digging playmaker.


After creating this I will start working on making the traps functional. Then I might work on some AI to test the traps.
And last, I need to create controls for vehicles.

After all of this I will have all the core gameplay elements done and I can start working on levels and plots. This project is coming along really smoothly and I created an organized efficient workflow. I should have the project done in no time.

About the potions I mentioned and showed yesterday, I might do something different with them, so, what I said they do in game is not final and I might end up making them do something else.

more soon

 

I never been this excited for a Unity game, but dude this game looks awesome! Finally not another slender game.

 

As always im really, really impressed in your ability to focus on a game and finishing it!
Also i really like following your projects because every new game is a huge step in quality.

 

I like the characters, and also there's nothing wrong with a bit of Zelda props

 

I like your approach to the art style, super original. It looks really promising, keep on working!

 

wow thank you everyone for the kind feedback!

@DarkArtsProdigy, thanks I am happy to hear you are looking forward to something non-slender based
@Virror, thank you man, I really appreciate you always following my projects. You have been posting in my WIP threads since I started here.
@ForgeVault and SilentDeveloper, Thanks for the encouragement!

Ok todays

DAILY UPDATE

I have been working on GUI and implementing various systems.

+finished implementing a fully functional health system (represented by the hearts), you have a max of three hearts.
+Finished implementing a fully functional currency system to keep track of all the coins you collect. The max amount you can carry is 300 coins.

Other systems I need to continue working on
-ghost Trap weapon system, there will be three different traps and you can carry a max of 2 of each type.
-potions system, which is about 70% complete because that is what I am currently working on.

Here is a preview of the finished GUI/HUD I created:


unlike my previous games, the GUI/HUD in this game is really well polished and much nicer to look at.
I created the GUI out of the low poly assets I created, for example, the hearts and coins on the GUI is a higher resolution render of my low poly coin and heart assets.Same goes for the potions and traps.

I will explain the potion system next once I complete it and then I will start working on the trap weapon system. After this, most of the difficult stuff will be complete.

EDIT: just ignore all of the text in the screenshot I posted. This wont be in the final game as you may have figured

 

Daily Update

This one is small. I mentioned the potions system yesterday. I worked on it somemore since and it is near complete. I should have the whole potions system finished today. I said the potions will do different things then what I originally said.

Ill explain the potion system more in my next post because I should be done with it by then, or maybe I will have a new video demonstration.

For now I will just say that the blue potion turns you invisible now, instead of being poison.


Leon after drinking blue potion, is completely invisible to enemy ghosts^^^^^

 

Cool, really like the style.

 

thank you dtg108

Hello everyone. Happy 4th of July.

I have my latest build up and ready for you all to test for yourself today. This is a build of the final player controls and also the final GUI/HUD.

And, you will be able to test out all the new features I added for in game use that make up some key elements for gameplay such as a health system (Player has a max health of three hearts), a currency system (collect coins and spend them to buy things in game, player can carry a max of 300 coins), items system (which is how you can select to use different ghost traps) and the finished potions system.

Play Here (Dropbox link)

Video Demonstration:

About potions System:
You can use potions with the 4 key from keyboard.There is three different potions in game. I announced potions earlier in the thread but later said that I was planning on giving them different functions than what I originally said. So this is what potions do now in game

Red potion: didnt change, its still just your normal potion that heals you.

Green Potion: I decided that green potion will give the player a speed boost for a short period of time which will make them move faster. The main character (Leon Coffeebean) cannot run in this game and can only walk around because its the type of gameplay style I am going for. So, I decided that green potion will let the character move faster so people dont get frustrated that the character cannot run. Also, with the addition of vehicles, the game should play out nicely.

Blue Potion: Originally I said that blue potion will be poison. This is because I was planning on having the player use poison for a quest in one of the levels. But I then decided, if this will only be used one time, its not really worth it. So, I have changed blue potion and made it so its a bit more useful for the player and now its something that can be used more than once. Blue potion now turns you invisible for a short period of time. When you drink it, none of the enemies will be able to see you. This adds in some more fun to gameplay because now, it has some stealth gameplay. For example, you can drink blue potion so you will be able to set up a trap without being attacked by ghost.

Bottle: the character carries only one bottle around. This means, you can only carry one potion at a time. If you already have a potion and pick up or buy a different one, the new potion will take the place of the old one. So you will loose your old potion. Also, you cannot use more than one potion at a time. If you used a potion, you will have to wait until the effect of that potion finishes before you can use another one. If you do use another potion when one is already in effect, the new used potion will have no effect.

Items:
This is the final system I am working on. Its not finished so it wont do anything yet in this build. The items represent the three different ghost traps you can get. To select a different ghost trap, you select it from your items using the 1, 2, or 3 key from keyboard. Then you actually place it down with space. You will be able to carry a maximum of 2 of each kind of ghost trap. But as I said, this feature is still not complete and wont do anything for todays build.

Thats all for now. More updates soon.

 

Did a quick playthrough and here are some impressions:

-Movement is a lot better this time and not annoying at all, very fluent.
-GUI is nice but maybe have some kind of indicator for the potion durations, like a small bar at the potion icon or something?
-First trap should be selected as default at game start?
-Animations, are this your final animations? Does not match well with the walk speed : ) Are you using mecanim for the animations?

 

He does - it takes lots of Dr. Pepper to maintain the nice yellow color and cavities.

 

ha yeah its definitely the Dr. Pepper!

Daily Update:


Sorry for the lack of updates lately guys. I was updating this almost everyday or two, then had nothing for the past week. And thats because of the trap system I was working on.

I have decided to make some major changes to the project and I believe they are for the better.

First: I have decided to take out traps from the game. Yes thats right, you can no longer capture ghosts in game anymore. But trust me, I believe that this is for the better and will result in a much much better game in the end.

Why are you doing this!? I wanted to capture ghosts!
Well, I have good reason. I spent a week working on implementing the traps system. And I finally got them to work. Each trap did its own thing and it was actually pretty cool. But, I realized there was something very annoying about the traps system. I dont know what exactly it is but it just made the gameplay feel really cheap/ lame/ boring. Can't exactly come up with the word for it, but I knew that I hated it and I did not want my game to be ruined because of one feature.It just brought so many problems with it that kill the game design. I feel bad because I wasted all that time working on it and then in the end decided to completely take it out but like I said, it will result in a better game in the end.

New Vision:
I have a new vision for the gameplay now since I got rid of that burden of the ghost traps system. I cant really explain it to well at the moment and in the future I hope I can show you it in action, but now I want the gameplay to be more stealth-horror.

Ghosts:
ghosts are also a bit different now. I want my ghost characters to have more to them, I want them to have more character qualities. So I probably will not refer to my ghosts characters as "Type-A", "Type-B","Type-C". They will have names and some of these ghosts will have background storys/ plots of their own. I want these ghosts characters to have more of a purpose in game instead of just being some enemy you encounter.

Progress:
so I wasted a bunch of time on a system that I wont be using and that really made me less motivated to work on this anymore, but after deciding that it had to get pulled out of the game, I am back in the game again making good progress. It felt like that trap system was holding me back from doing anything until I perfected it. Now, I am just working on the next thing for the game and thats some of the driving mechanics, I just got some quick controls made for my taxi vehicle and its near complete and almost ready to be the first drivable vehicle in game. I will be modifying the GUI soon. There will be no items for ghost traps section or buttons anymore.

 

Just adding support - Game looks very interesting and I enjoy reading the detail you put in to the posts regarding your updates, changes etc.

I only recently checked this out (I will concede, the "Better than Slender" comment in the title turned me off for a bit) but glad I did!

Interesting (good!) choice with the stealth aspects! I think I understand your thoughts with the traps but there may be scope to use it in some form that will help gameplay. Maybe having a very limited number of them would remove the 'cheapness' of them and force people to use them strategically... eg. They may only have 3 traps for the whole level and different ones would bring different rewards/have risk associated etc.

Will keep an eye on this!

 

Traps can be anything really - set up, thrown, crafted, even a puzzle could be disguised as a trap.. I do agree with what you said - they are usually universally boring and lame... Unless perhaps it's simple in mechanic like throwing a (Zelda)bomb - that could be fun if the trap is right.

 

@MickM, thanks! yeah, I tried everything and limted to even one trap per level but no matter what I tried I didnt like it and it brought a lot of lameness in I think. Its because I kinda have a new vision for gameplay and just want to ditch the traps.

@Forge Vault. thanks I agree that throwable traps would be much funner. But for this project traps are no more.

Update:

Speaking of changes, I actually have a lot more major changes to talk about. New ones I recently decided. I will talk about that in a future update. For now heres a mini one.

I created this low poly nature scenery set for use with my game project. Its something I might even use in other projects as well and maybe even continue building off it in the future. So I just created a variety of different flowers, bushes, trees, foliage, etc to use to bring my scenes a little bit more to life and make them less empty.



Thats all for now. I will have more updates soon and will speak about the other changes.

 

This game looks very cool. i need to check out that playmaker, im really a programmer so i dnt know if it will do for me.

My Current Battle Field Chopper Project with demos
Helo

 

I have had two years programming experience and coded all of my previous projects before using playmaker. After I got playmaker I fell in love with it. Trust me you will like it and probably never want to code again after using it. Also, its a plus if you know how to code because that makes playmaker even more powerful

Tiny Update:

just to keep the thread alive, here is a preview of the opening scene/starting point of the game.


Ill talk about those other major changes later on when I am ready to show more.

 

Update:

Hey everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates. I have not been on for a while and I have been planning out the changes I am making to the game. I recently scrapped a couple more systems such as coins and potions (I might bring potions back in later though). Also, I scrapped two levels I recently built because I believe they where not proper. What I want this game to be great for is mainly its story, characters and atmosphere. I am inspired by many titles while working on this such as Deadly premonition and Silent hill.
I still will be announcing more major changes to the game in the coming updates. But I am still making good progress while building at the same time. Here I have some of the first in game early screenies to show you.

ScreenShots:





Its dark, foggy, green, foresty. But dont think this is how the atmosphere and setting of the entire game will be. This is just the beginning

 

Progress:
Made a lot of great new progress recently.

Dialog/Text:
So I created about three new systems in game. They are all for text and dialog. I am very proud of them because they work great.
Since storyline is a major part of this game project I needed to create a good way to tell the story. I didnt want to have to make this dialog system in every scene because that would be a pain and real time consuming. So I created this universal dialog system in game that can be used throughout the entire game by any character. Its kind of like the dialog system you see in zelda games. Its easy to work with and efficient.

Just like the my dialog system, I also created a universal location dialog system. This is not really a big or major feature but more for style and polish and I think the game looks more professional. All it does is simply do this nice little fade in that tells the player where they are at

Cinimatics/Animations:
The cinematics of this game are really important so I am trying my best to make them as polished as possible. I have already created one of the first in game cinematic (its not some high res cinematic, its cinematic using what the engine renders) and it turned out much better then any other in game cut scene I have done in my previous projects.

I might be rambling on for now but soon I will show you what I am talking about, like with the dialog and cinimatics when I put up a demo sometime in the future. Again, I am using playmaker for this games development and I owe a big thanks to the people behind playmaker because this tool is allowing me to create a much more professional put together game.

Side:

(Animating Almond the cat)

more updates soon

 

Looking Nice!

 

Thanks!

Update:

Again sorry for the lack of updates. Been busy lately.

Today, I reveal the main villain/killer/enemy for Almond hill
I was debating if I should reveal this character or not but then I thought what the heck. Besides he wears a mask anyway.

The Almond Strangler:


I know, he is very stylized and some might not think he is all that scary but I really like how it turned out.
I was not exactly going for gross scary, but more of a sly/cool enemy kind of look. Like if you see him, hes not that scary but if you encounter him he can definitely beat/ overpower you. He is dangerous. And style is something I am aiming for so its more of a unique horror game.

The almond strangler wears a green hat and robe. He keeps his face covered with a wooden mask that has sharp teeth. Can be psychotic. He forces his victims to stare directly into his mask as he strangles them.

Eat that slenderman. You dont even have a face.

 

haha is white thing his hair? :grin:

 

yup. He has white hair because I thought it would look cool haha.

I have major news coming up in the next post or so.

Without revealing to much, I thought I would post this image of the current level I am working on. You can see how the killer looks rendered in unity from the side standing in T post with the normals applied.

 

VERY SCARY!

 

The character villain himself is actually pretty scary once you see him in action in game. haha.

I know many do not think I can pull off a scary game with my characters style but you just wait until I release something playable real soon.
I need to prove that this is a unique horror game with a scary feel to it.

youll see