Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!

This week's blog post is a postmortem on one of my older games, The Society.

The Society was designed to be a 3D third person horror game that put focus on building a mystery and atmosphere rather than rely on more jump scare type horror.

The Society being a third person game is an interesting point as it's only the second third person horror I made after previously working on Tales from Dunwich, which was a 3D point and click horror game. The Society reflected a lot of my influences from games I played growing up. The most noticed influence was that it felt very much like one of the first Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark games.

What Went Right

1. Achieved Atmosphere
The original design was to have a game that felt mysterious and created a sense of atmosphere without relying on the typical jump scare formula. The game succeeded in creating that sense of fear and tension with purely atmosphere.

2.Improved Camera
The camera design in Tales from Dunwich was inspired by the original Silent Hill game but the downside to that was that at times it felt clunky and could prove frustrating during gameplay. The Society favored a set camera perspective that made it easier for the player to navigate the level.

What Went Wrong

1. Controls
The design was to make it feel like a PS1 game but the downside to those controls were that it felt clunky to move the character around and the character didn't always move where you wanted her to.

​2. Multiple Endings
The Society did have multiple endings but they didn't vary very much so replayability wasn't high. 

In Conclusion
The Society did a lot of things well in terms of the overall mystery, lore and atmosphere. What it would benefit from is an overhaul of the mechanics such as controls and interactions. All in all the game was received quite well and is a game with lore I would like to come back to at some point.

​Until next time!

Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!

This week's blog is just a quick little post to wish everyone a happy holiday. The blog will resume next week as normal with more content and news but for this week, I'm taking a little bit of a break for the holidays.
So, I wish you all a very happy holiday and hope it's a good one for all.

​Until next time!

Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!

In this week's blog, I'm going to do a postmortem post on my 2D point and click adventure horror, The Concierge. 

The Concierge is an interesting game for me as I don't normally do 2D games and while it's not my first 2D game, it's the first where I wanted to create a real sense of atmosphere using very minimal art.

Before Imade The Concierge, I made a short 2D horror game called The Restless. This in many ways was the inspiration for crating The Concierge as The feedback on The Restless was so good, it gave me the confidence to go ahead and make another 2D game and try to up the bar somewhat with it.

What Went Right

1. Improved Art Style
The most noticeable difference between The Restless and The Concierge was that The Concierge had a much improved visual style. While it was still a pixel art game, The Concierge had more detail than The Restless did. This made both the characters and environment more visually pleasing. Having the extra detail also made animation more easy as trying to animate an good walk cycle is rather difficult when dealing with very few pixels.

2. Better Lighting
The Concierge also made better use of lighting. The Game made use of backed lighting from the engine as well as some predefined lighting and shadows added to the art in Photoshop. This gave a much better look to the game that added a little extra pop to the overall atmosphere of the game.

3. Better World Building
While The Concierge is a short game with focus on one particular story, it does create a better impression of an overall world outside the current events of the game. It creates a lore that feels like there are more stories that exist outside of the hotel and this is something that I hope to build on in a future game based on the same world.

4. Creative Control
The major upside to creating all your own art for a project is the creative control to make it look just how you want it to with your own style to it.

What Went Wrong

1. Limitations
While every game has its limitations, working in 2D rather than 3D means you have to account for things you normally don't have to in a 3D game. Because the game was in 2D, that meant scenes could only be viewed in 2D space which meant I couldn't add as much as I would have liked to in some scenes but rather had o decide on what layout made the most sense.

2. Lighting
While improved lighting was a major plus to the game, I didn't quite hit the mark I would have liked for the game. The shadows seen in the game are static and rendered in photoshop. While this is perfectly normal for most 2D games, I would have liked to have fully dynamic shadows in the game.

3. Animations
While character animation improved greatly in this game, I still wish I had the time to do more animation on it. Even for little things like a door open and close transition for switching scenes. I would have loved to add more environmental animation to make the hotel feel more real. Stuff like smoke from a left cigar at the bar or water dropping from a pipe. These are things I hope to carry across to my next 2D game and improve upon.

In Conclusion
While there are some things I wish I had added to the game, The Concierge is still a game I'm very proud of as one of my few 2D games and having received such great feedback on the style, atmosphere and world building, it's left me with the desire to return to the world I've created here and see what other stories are to be told from it.

​Until next time!

Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!

This week's blog is a quick update to let you know what I'm planning for the blog after the new year. 

I want to put more of a focus on my creative and technical process. So, with that in mind, I'll be doing longer tutorial posts ranging from pixel art, low poly modeling, writing, game design, programming and more. I'll also be posting more game post mortem blogs on games that I've made. The idea is to give a more detailed and better structured look at how I make games. I'm also considering creating an interview style series where I'll speak with other creatives and have that as part of the blog and Youtube channel.

As for news on my current game, I hope to keep to schedule and have an announcement post just before or after Christmas. It's coming along nicely and while it still has a long way to go, it's proving to be a very fun project to work on and one I'm very excited to announce.

Until next time!