Catathrenia // June Update 2

 

 Bad news first: I had to delete 6 entire levels. Yeah! there is a lot of work going straight down the drain. Those maps where simply not working well, went too hard on the memory cap or wheren't fun to play. 

If you are working in a wierd setting like this where there isn't that much realism to hold on to, you still need to give the game some sort of grounding and sense of danger or you hit the player over the head and the game ends up being boring. You can also not string together 4 levels of pure puzzle solving and story elements or you lose the folks who are not that invested in the storyline, not yet really into the setting or just want some relieving action. You gotta get the player to get chased by something or the entire hostile athmosphere gets lost. There is a lot of work involved to get a game like this working in fpsc. 

 Bottomline, I had a hard cutback on progress but it made up for better flowing- and more coherent gameplay.

 I got to work on the health system which invites to explore the level (we'll get to that later). It strongly relies on the use of various chemicals and items you can find and you can carry 3 flasks (healthpotions) with you. In fact, there is a passive inventory (keys, puzzleitems and ingredients) and 2 active inventories: (Weapons and Potions). Things you carry and can consume are allocated as icons on the left side of the screen (very small and stylish icons...dont worry, I wont overload your HUD with crap) In Fact, the health-o-meter isn't visible at all and can only be triggered by pressing a button. You'll see what I did there once its finished. :) 

 I've been thinking about adding a few more weapons. It has 3 so far and since I clear the inventory of any tools and documents you dont need anmyore there is room for infinite guns. If you got a stellar idea that would suit the setting, feel free to air your mind. ...I've been concidering a crossbow btw. :)  

You will also get mechanical puzzles to solve...this is not part of one of them. In fact, thats just there to spice up the first chapter's scenery.  

I really like this room. There will be a lot going on in it aswell :)  

Don't worry, I won't overuse windows as much as the screenshot reals might make you think  

That thing is... I dont know what that is either  

Well, you get a lot of readingmaterial in here too...but hey, in other games you just get a screen full of text, here you can run around with it. ;) 

   

Thats from the "desperation" subchapter...its very minimalistic  

 I finally have a good setting for the dogman character...so in your face! He has new sounds too. 

Thanks for reading.

Catathrenia June Update 1

Quick update!

I made some progress with the game and felt like sharing a few thoughts. I aim at telling the story with strong visuals that should represent certain ideas which is why I will be most likely forced to model a lot of extra props for this title (which has been originaly designed to be as lazy as possible...but I guess thats just how creativity works). I already made like 30 entities including variations and I'm just getting started with the more abstract levels.I show you all of this later.

Lately I remade and reimported Benge's G3 from Modelpack 6 which is the most prominent weapon in this game. And yes! There will be weapons in this game for two reasons. 1: I always wanted to make a game featuring the Modelpack 6 Weapons which I never did. 2: Its a horrorthemed game, no survival horrorgame or similar. I don't aim only to scare you, I aim to do a lot of artwork and convey a story while making a fun game.
Besides the usual retexture, soundexchange and Airmod polishing I also mapped all textures on a single image and attached a customized shader to it which makes it look faboulus in motion. I made a screenshot to convey hot it behaves.

Weapon Shader Demo

Upper: facing lightsource
lower: not facing any lightsource

as you can see, the shader adapts to its environment and is gentle on the hands while a lot more intense on the gun itself. This is in itself not a big accomplishment, I just want to point it out, that even though my game has a strong overgrained and overbloomed style to it, the gun never shines like a christmastree while I see a lot of other FPSC titles where the shader effects are so overdone that it hurts the eyes. Most of the time they look like shiny plastic. Thats a major complaint I have about shaders, they are rarely used in a decent way. (to be fair, in FPSC they are a pain in the rectal area)

Thats enough of that

Don't worry, clocks will only be a big thing in the second interval.

A friendly music composer I met on Moddb made a bunch of neat ambientmusic for my game In fact, this will be a great contrast and addition to my ...slightly more insane musical pieces. You should definately check them out and his other stuff:

Catathrenia BG Soundtrack

I also wrote (yes! wrote...prepared and thought about and all that) a bunch of possible riddles and puzzles to build into the game. Most of them are hard work and I will certainly drop a lot of them as I simply don't have the time. I just hope I can get your interest in some of them as I don't want to bore you with "find the switch and drag the box over the platform" puzzles.

Now, a few more images and I hope to see you all next update.

Feedback and questions are appreciated!

-Adrien

Review: // Wreckage

Welcome to another indie game review. This time its the crysis mod "Wreckage". I review stand-alone mods and total conversions aswell as I count them as Indie Games. (Just so you know)

"Wreckage offers an action-oriented presentation, professional execution, complete dubbing
and Crysis-level graphics. Developed by the four-man-team around Christopher Held, who
also already developed "The Harbour" and "Rainy Days".
It's the final chapter of the story, that began with the map "The Harbour" and was continued in the
modification "Rainy Days". It tells the story of three soldiers who try to survive a devastating war
between two worlds. The play time is somewhat longer than one hour."

Source: moddb

The game is visually impressive. Even compared to recent AAA releases

Its one of the rare times where a game description keeps its promises. The Mod is executed professional, despite its flaws which I will adress later on. It is completely dubbed and the visual effects and graphics are top-notch. However, the graphics aren't "exactly" on crysis-level as the developers of wreckage know how to map good looking indoor levels. ;)

So lets jump right in:

T H E   G O O D

The game drops you right into the action without a story narrative, a horribly paced cutscene, a text-intro or any of the other abominations mods like these often throw at you. This game puts you behind a minigun in a chopper after a short, wellmade character intro. You might notice that you will play the first part as "Nomad" (the protagonist from the original crysis). Thats actually an awesome design choice as you first experience the benefits of the nanosuit before the designers take it from you in part 2 and 3. Another noteworsy detail is that they really found a dubactor with a similar voice as the german "Nomad" (Which is an extremely similar or the same dubbing voice from the actor Nicolas Cage, one of my favorite actors.) This really shows how dedicated they where to deliver a great mod. You do however notice that this guy wasn't a professional voiceactor, but the campiness of the acting actually adds to the fun. Jacksoooon!!

 The first part is pretty good. It starts off with a wellmade "defend this position" task which has a nice warfare feel to it and then moves to "advance and shoot everyone in the face" gameplay. This is story driven, but its not my job to spoil everything :). I didn't like the first few levels that much. To this point it all feels like a solid crysis mod and not the blockbuster I was promised but after a while, in the shoes of Lambert, the game really starts to shine. Not only in terms of leveldesign, but also in terms of creativity, fun and presentation. There is a certain sence of dread in this game reflected from the ruined harbor, the lighting and the wreckage (pun intended) scattered around everywhere. The presentation feels a lot like a recent warmovie and everything appears perfectly grimy and in lowsaturated colors. You don't get realistic military behaviour but certainly a lot of combat-flair.

The game has a much stronger "army and crisis and stuff" feel to it than the actual crysis

The modders added a few custom weapons to the regular bunch which are actually well done. I adress a few problems with those later on but for now: The SMG comes with its own modkit. AWESOME! :)

Through the campaign, you see a bunch of cutscenes which are actually fantastic. I don't even want to know how many hours of scripting, remaking, practicing, testing and redoing everything went into these.
There is also a fun level where you, as Lambert, walk solo through a rainy level reciting semi-poetic lines. This level has a great campy feel to it. Especially since you show up with a sniper rifle behind that huge neonsign like in a stylish contract-killer flick. Lamberts voiceactor did a great job btw.

I noticed that the german gamesmag "Pc Games" concidered it necessary to point it out that you can use the nanosuit in this mod...I found it to be a superb design choice to drop it. :)

I can't say a lot more than already has been said everywhere else on the interwebs. Its a great mod with a damn nice presentation. So lets get into some criticism before I'm tired of this review:

T H E   B A D

While the voiceacting is cool and a lot of fun. Its occasionally horribly off. A noteworsy example would be the cutscene with Dr. Hendrikson where the sound and dubbing towards the end of the scene is totally out of touch. (Which is sad as it started pretty cool). there are also some other complaints I have with that scene which reflect problems in the entire mod. For instance, there is one moment where I think you are pulling Dr. Hendrikson by the hair (her hair is up in the air) but I don't see my arm (which I later on see when my protagonist stands up way more to the left)....so I guess that was some kind of Paranormal Activity 3 Moment? ;) This however is followed by a scene where I beat up somebody I don't really know. Seriously....who where those guys? Once again, I don't see my hands and I'm just guessing whats happening. My hands however are also disappearing from the gun a few times but thats no big deal. This is followed by another chopper sequence where I'm behind a machinegun. And boy! Am I tired of these goddamn chopper sequences in first person shooters. They are tiresome, too much effort for the development team for a mediocre result (seriously? all this time to design a level, add enemies and events for a sequence most players I know just want to get over with?)  and terribly overused. The game would have done much more for me if you would have just landed somewhere with the helicopter and left me walk and shoot in some good old fashioned shooter gameplay. Thats something that lags in this game. There could have been 2 or 3 more levels where its just a shooter. This awesome last level before I get into the jeep in this wonderfully dystopic building. More of that please!

Chopper-railshooters are annoying. Even if they look as cool as here

In that building I was using my UMP which appears out of nowhere. Lambert suddenly has it in that Dr. Hendrikson cutscene mentioned above. I was actually searching throughout the entire military base level which comes prior to the cutscene to find it without result. While the UMP is cool...I do have to say that its overpowered and handles a lot more like an assault rifle than a submachinegun. Its sound has a lot more punch as the SCAR or the korean rifle aswell. The SPR is pretty cool but its sad that you can't have ironsights.

The AI and pathfinding is alright, even though I had to redo the first level twice since cafferty always got stuck somewhere.

While the game has a ton more athmosphere than crysis (which feels really dry and lifeless in my opinion) its also as linear as a game from the call of duty franchise. If you do however take the time to explore a level, you will notice a lot of flaws and that the levels suddenly are either really empty or fall apart like you reached the end of reality in the movie "the 13th floor".

Which leads to:

T H E   U G L Y

The leveldesign in this mod is great and has a lot of concepts superior to crysis however, if you insist on examining them, you realise a lot of shading errors (I guess its the parallax mapping) where the terrain seems to melt in front of your eyes and a bunch of buildings and wooden structures (especially in level 1) sticking out or floating around in the map. Thats unfortunate for players like me that like to take an alternate approach to everything. These design flaws really take you out of the game and are a string contrast to the great visuals and artdirection.

Alright! I'm out of complaints that matter...lets get to the..

C O N C L U S I O N

Wreckage is a great mod every shooter enthusiast should have seen. I can savely recommend this game to most players as its content is not only great but also average-joe compatible. This mod certainly shows what a talented team of hobbyists can achieve with some effort and vision and despite my nitpicking. Its damn good!

Also: Sorry for the spelling mistakes you might find. -> Native german speaker ;)

Get WRECKAGE here

Für Menschen wie uns gibt es keine zweite Chance.

FPSC // CATATHRENIA New Story Update

I finally wipped out a new summary for the updated storyline. While I'm aware that some of you may not like the loss of such elements as reality - dream switches and the underlying insanity that comes with it as planned in the original concept. This game will also lag a lot of the logical puzzles to open doors and get machinery to work it had in the original level but therefore it will be a lot more creative. Puzzles will be solved in more interestin ways, locations are more artistic and the overall quality has been greatly approved. However, the dark and desperate tone of the original is lost and removed with a much more pleasant but still dark concept.

The characters are much more defined and there will be a few interesting fellows you meet along your journey into...well...the protagonists subconciousness.

Oh! I almost forgot to actually post the new storyline:

After the funeral of his recently deceased father, a young mechanic ends up being plagued by intense nightmares. Nightmares so vivid, he starts to suffer from severe sleep deprivation, depression, fear attacks and slight reality loss. Visiting numerous psychologists didn't help much. Even less traditional therapy such as wingwave coaching or hypnosis didn't reveal the cause of his troubles. He suffers until contacted by a less conventional psychologist who offers him a possible but dangerous solution. His theory suggests that the vibrant nightmares are a defense mechanism to hide a surpressed memory within his subconciousness under the disturbing images. An experimental machina should allow the protagonist to wander through his dreams in full awareness without waking up. Traveling inside his own mind. However, if he dies within this highly drug influenced trip...he might remain comatose for the rest of his life.

Fight, solve puzzles and survive through abstract dreamscapes to uncover the true source of your nightmares burried within the depths of your subconciousness.

Adapt or perish.

Now, remember, if you are interested in the technical and theoretical aspect of the game, feel free to ask. I won't go into technobabble unrequested and I have no idea what to write about in my next tutorial... some input on that would be desired aswell as comments and criticism

I'm sorry if these images don't load correctly, I had to resign to an alternative imagehoster as mine didn't cooperate this evening. Now I am aware that none of these images show a lot of gameplay. I just don't feel like this aspect is yet polished enough to be shown already. Concidering all the high grade FPSC Projects out there...I have a bit of a name to keep

But I stay true to my wacky amateur flavor my projects have...for instance: I picked up drawing again.

Cyberpunk Pack Post²

 

 

 

 

 

It is time for a little update on this work in progress. A very optimised and lowpoly cyberpunk modelpack for FPSCreator...or anything else if you know how to import/export DirectX Meshes.





This lamp has a 256*256 texture.

FPSC // Catathrenia Mai Update

Evening!

I felt like doing a last reality grounded update on this. The leveldesign from this set on will be a lot more surreal

This is also the place where you receive the intro speech. I want to have an animated character here having a conversation with the protagonist..however, we all know what happens to naive ambitions a developer has at the start. I am very optimistic about this project though so you can expect a few extra goodies from me.

Thats pretty much it for this time.I won't blabber on about my project and bore everybody. He, who has a question shall feel free to ask whatever he wants.

The game has a budget of 85 € now. (I bought some videoeditting software and a few points for the GC store)

Future levels will be strongly inspired by one of my favorite painters: Salvador Dali!!

-Wolf

Review // Leviathan Crossfire : Revelation

Hey Internet!

Its time for another review. This time the Fpscreator title "Leviathan Crossfire - Revelation".

Revelation is actually a Alpha-Demo version of the game "Leviathan Crossfire" currently under development by DHK Games which you might now for the Indie title "Xarelok" which was in development for a long timespan but unfortunately got discontinued.

So lets look into this Alpha...promotional....techdemo...standalone. Whatever! Lets take a look at ...the Revelation.

Description
Revelation is a preview tech demo for Leviathan Crossfire. It can be treated as a game on its own, though.

Thats what I will do. I won't be too hard on some minor issues as I have to say I am very impressed by this title, however, lets take a look at the description:

 Story
In a distant future: The Rakan Empire is secretly constructing the most powerful space ship ever below the surface of their home planet. However, a secret too oftenly cannot be kept for too long, and the insurgent inhabitants of the planet Nuvebia are already sending their special forces to enter and investigate the Rakan underground dockyard.

In LC Revelation players will experience the battle from the perspective of a Rakan soldier, equipped with a high-tech future assault rifle, who has to stop the Nuvebian invasion. For the Empire.

There isn't much revelation in revelation. The Nuvebian rebels will discover this leviathan spaceship (which we never see) in this underground complex...thats it. However, for a techdemo: Thats more than enough. So I can't go deeper into the "Rakan Empire" and its relation to "Nuvebia"...nor do I know what planet this adventure takes place on. All I know is that I'm corporal Trask and I got some performers of the bluemangroup to shoot in the face. Thats all I need to enjoy this alpha.

The synopsis above however has a part that just...pisses me off. "Hightech future assault rifle?"
That gun is a piece of crap that no serious military force would ever hand out to their soldiers.
The rate of fire is far too low and the recoil is a joke. I feel a lot like I handle a B.A.R. from 1917. Not a spacegun.

Even though I don't like the style. I can see that the gun is well modeled and animated. I'm not talking about that: I'm speaking of gameplay and handling.

Two Rakan Soldiers ready for combat.

The game opens up with a very impressive menu screen. You must know that I review this title from the perspective of an FPSC user. I will give you a statment for the average video game player below though. The text slides in the screen after a slightly amateur'ish designed image of a planet shows up. Color and layout remind of the menu screen of "Crysis" but I call coincidence on that one.

What follows is an awesome rendered intro sequence. The sequence shows a bunch of techno stuff and a rendered underground facility with some voice over. Music and dubbing is appropriate  but can be wonderfully campy at some points. Some of the voiceactors have a german (?) accent and are hearable younger people (I guess 16 to 20 years old). Their linedelivery however is better than in ...Twilight or your average B-Movie. I'm only bringing this up because some of the voiceacting shows some genuine talent and effort while some voices are just slightly out of place. This adds a lot to the "indie" charme of the game.

The introduction is also one of the better ones I've seen in an FPSC Game. I also enjoyed how it was visually coherent with the games visual style.

The visual style didn't connect with me. I see how it was crafted to work well in FPSC while still keeping a general good look... I just don't enjoy this bland grey/orange corridor scenery. It feels a lot like a set of star trek TNG. A bit soulless.

This however isn't my mainproblem with the visuals. My major issue with this is the spacesuit. The uniform thing... it looks utterly pathetic. Where other scifi games like Halo or Warhammer 40K also have some pretty unrealistic designs...their uniforms are usually full of scratchmarks and are colored different...the ones in Leviathan just look like action figurines from the 80's. I don't know...powerrangers or something. It also doesn't help that the Nurvebian's color theirs blue. (Wouldnt they color them orange if they would infiltrate a secret undergound base...how did they get in there anyway?)
I have to add to this segment that I have been asked to design the spacesuits...and my designs where far less fitting for the setting! I'm stating a personal oppinion here...I do KNOW about the sheer amount of work to get these custom characters working like this.
If you like the design, you still have the major issue of proportions at your hands. Apparently, in the future everyone has short legs and large hands...in general: we are evolving to be midgets.


Well, maybe this will get me a role in the future remake of "the sinful dwarf".

  I think I've benn very negative on this little gem so far...so lets dive into some of the good stuff.
Leviathan Crossfire flows very well. Following your commander through these hallways feels a lot more like in a studio-title than an indie game. It also takes you 2 playthroughs to notice minor flaws as everything is set-up very well and convincing.

I, however, am just glad to finally see an FPSC title where there is a real interaction between the protagonist and his officer in command. Your seargent follows you around and even supports you in firefights. Now there is a lot of "shooting the wall" involved..but screw it!! In fact: My AI companion even killed a hostile character (even though I have to add that he didnt react in the first conflict but this didn't annoy me at all.) It is noteworthy that the AI never seems to be in the way or stuck somewhere. It follows its path flawlessly...even though faster than its walking animation. ;)

3D Models of the environment are splendid. You can detect minor unwrapping flaws but hey! Who gives a fuck? :) While I have to point out that environment feels rather sterile and I don't really know the purpose of these huge empty hallways. It seems like a waste of space for an underground complex to have these large rooms without anything in them but thats just nitpicking. Pipes, lightobjects and boxes are well put into place and while it is very empty, it allows the creators to do large levels in fpsc. And THAT is quiet an undertaking. I really liked the computers and projectors in this game. They are my favorite part in this game. Especially the interactive computer is something I haven't seen in FPSC like this.


Now, since this is an Alpha version, I would concentrate on the actual firefights most as they feel too "FPSC'ish" Everything else is so well developed and crafted to be custommade...why having these jarring combats. The "shielded" enemies where already a good and interesting start so is the allies system. But you really have to work on the sound of the guns and enemies, impact of bullets and a so on. There is already a fairly natural response of characters to situations. Yelling "incoming" etc. makes everything feel a lot more intense.

In conclusion: Leviathan Crossfire is already winning in this techdemo. I will definately get it once its released and I recommend this to every single FPSC user out there.
Feel free to download this game if you are a lover of indie games...you will have a few minutes of slightly campy but overall well executed fun. The average gamer will most likely not find a lot of joy in this game but since its free...download it anyway!

Visit the developers website

Now if the developers aren't too pissed of my criticism...maybe I can get them to do a little interview with me

"THEY ARE SHIELDED!!"

-Adrien