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!!
I've had another full 2 hours this evening for Catathrenia. Well, its
save to say that the final game won't blow anyones mind, but it will run
solid and deliver some good mood and fun.
I also managed to get a good shader for my Weapons done. However, some firearms will get a different shader later on.
I made some images but I barely got myself around mapdesign. So yes! No
big fat imageblocks like in the Shavra-Dead Frequency thread on the TGC Forums.
I will get back on Shavra btw. big thanks to Bugsy! He has gotten some
gears going in my head that should allow me to get the thing working now
in 1.19
There are no more artifacts of the normalmapping or overshaded specular
highlights on that book anymore. I spiced up the texture aswell because
thats how I roll.
I bought outcry blindly from a bargain bin being attracted by its cover artwork. So basically, like in my Dear Esther Review, I had no idea what the game was and what I was getting myself into. I noticed however that even though the game had a very dark coverartwork with some dude having steampunk-like metal stuff on his pale, emotionless face and very grim, dimly lit, yet very pretty screenshots on the back of the boxart it had a german USK rating of 6. This just means that you can buy this game if your 6 years old. Somehow I was a bit disappointed by that as it basically means that there won't be any horrorelements or creepy stuff in this game even though coverartwork and presentation makes you think there would be. Outcry or "Sublustrum" (original title) is the first game release of the russian developer team "Phantomery". Sublustrum is russian for "twilight"... if only I could put my finger on why they renamed it for the english and german release... :P
Also notice that I'm no native english speaking person so if this review lags good grammar you know what the fuck is going on.
So lets get into Outcry, shall we?
In Outcry, you play a writer who has come at your scientist brother's bidding to check out something he discovered. This is explained to you in a filmeffect heavy intro sequence. Notice how this sequence is not only very cheap but also very artsy and explains everything you need to know without yelling exposition at you or blowing stuff up as it happens in most big-budget titles. I really like this sequence and will probably make something in its style sometime around this year.
You can take a look at it here:
You will probably notice the slightly awkward english dubbing... I have to say, believe it or not, the german dubbed version was farbetter done and way more athmospheric. Get used to the scientists voice as well...you'll hear it a lot... a whole fucking lot throughout this game.
The game starts in your brothers appartment and the first thing you'll notice (if you started as unprepared as I did) besides the"vignette filter" optics and bloomish-eeriee images is that it is not a realtime 3D game. This will be a real disappointment for the first couple of seconds as the visual style of the game is so damn awesome that if it would be a real 3D title, it would have been the best looking game ever. So yes! We are now playing a point and click adventure where you can move the camera around freely in a 360° ratio.
The first thing I did was randomly wandering around the house clicking at things and seeing whats happening. Later in the game you will notice that thats the entire gameplay of this thing. Yes! There is no real sense of progress unless you finally found out what the hell to do. You might now probably think that I do simply suck at point and click adventures but that is not the problem. the problem is simply that there is no journal nor any on screen messages telling you what the current objective is. I like that in general...but in those story heavy adventure games where you get a complex story and a whole lot of information thrown at you (mindaltering drugs and soundcombinations, strange machinery in the living room, ancient cultures, foreshadowing, a missing brother, objects you dont really know what to do with) This might be a bit too much for the modern gamer where the usual mission is more or less to go to point A, Kill Person B and return Object C. In outcry, you don't get any main "questline" to focus on, no obvious hints or idiot proof explanations.
Another issue with this game is the lag of feedback wether you have just done something right or wrong. If you are tampering around with objects you sometimes dont even know if your action has done anything or not so you find yourself wandering around looking for changes that didnt even happen. The game does also waste a lot of your time as finding objects is more a matter of luck and clicking on everything on the screen than logic and perception. This becomes a bigger issue later on in the game where logic (which is a very important part of point and click adventures) gets completely abandoned and you are finding yourself in more surreal, dreamstate like levels. I for one found those visually fantastic and from time to time a bit frustrating to play through.
I find it a bit wierd that the great visual design of the first couple of levels get abandoned later on and a lot of the athmosphere is lost. That however is a matter of taste and you can decide for yourself.To sum it up, in the first part of the game you screw around with a lot of machinery to get your brothers personal-interdimensional portal thing rolling again and...well, go after him. I dont want to spoiler too much thats why I use this simplified form of sentences.
The journal entrys and latters and notes you picked up throughout the game so far pretty much prepared you to what happens now. You wander around in your missing brothers psyche and subconciousness (and not, that is not the same thing). This is well executed and gives you a rather unique dreamlike feeling... especially since such a concept has rarely been done without horror elements.
Adventure veterans will find themselves rather assaulted by the dreamworld puzzles as they are... completely abstract. I can tell you, I have a 140 IQ and didn't figure these things out (or what the fuck I was actually doing...and why??). I more or less went through this game by randomly clicking around until something happened. I had fun doing it though as I am a very illogical, spontaneous person. If you are more the logical, calculating type of guy you will find yourself loosing interest in this title very fast.
Be warned: the english translation seems done poorly but I found the german translation to be very well executed.
I haven't found the ending to the story to be completely statisfying...I somehow expected a bit more from it but well, it explained most things and was well done.
So what can I say about outcry? Its an alright adventure game with a lot of substance and innovative ideas but also a lot of flaws that drag it from being something great to being an okay game for fans of the genre. Everybody else will probably like the game's style but wont play on more than 2 or 3 hours as it can be frustrating.
This is my mini-project following me through my six months of extreme working hours
Plot-Summary
Jacob Craven is trying to keep his frayed life from unraveling. His days
are increasingly being invaded by his nightmares which manifest into
the dark corners of his existence. Beings incarnating nothing but his
fears. Although he tried to escape for years, a strange outlandish being
finds and contacts him every night in his dreams showing him
uncomprehensible images and messages. Although a new clue about the
remains of his long-lost equally troubled sister allows him to hold on
to a last beacon of sanity, the line between reality and delusion is
steadily growing more and more uncertain.
Read this letter to get a grip of the games storyline and tone:
Quote: "
My dearest sister,
It has been too long since I ever saw you for me to remember your face...time left nothing more
than a ghostly shadow of your face on the only photograph I have... maybe I'm just too old now to remember.
I'snt that what being old is all about? Slowly fading out like your memories.
I used to deny it for years... run from it as it grew stronger. The dreams.
It is save to say that I saw every single part of the world. Russia, China, the states...
All of them drenched in the dark shadows of my nightmares. Our Nightmares.
You see... Samantha... typing down your name almost made be burst out in tears. Strange... I felt so empty for
so many years. You where strong enough to admit your nightmares...to talk about them as they started to slowly
manifest in your daily life...as they started to stare at you whenver you looked in a mirror or your reflection in
a puddle of water. Thats why they locked you up...they told me you where dead. Died in a carcrash on a schooltrip I later
found out never happened.
Nobody will ever read this letter... All hope is gone. The only reason for me to take this last step is the sheer fear to face
my dreams without waking up. To be trapped in them forever. I am too old
now for running. I ran 30 years. Odd! How the intensity of
my dreams just decreased depending on how much I moved.
I think it has troubles finding me, connecting with me whenever I keep
moving. It is getting impatient and more agressive...the dreams get more
intense, they start to show up as shadows in the corner, as reflections
in the buildings and I am not the only one sensing them. It is getting
worse. It keeps talking to me silently showing me these pitchblack
images of impossible geometry and I can feel its
terrible loneliness and I can see its eyes... I can see an eternity of waiting. If I only could understand its demands...
You see, my beloved sister, I don't think it wants to harm me... its
being is just too powerful for my weak soul... these dreams are just
becoming so real because... my head is so full I sometimes can barely
understand my own thoughts.
Mother died last year...that is how I found out about your past...your
real past. They locked you away in this 3rd class mental hospital.
Almost no documents where left, no adresses, no phone numbers. Only a
card where all relevant information has been burned away. New Hope
Mental Asylum. It took me a few months to find it. Almost no records
have been left of this asylum... the only somewhat relevant information
was on a hobbyphotographers website.. some clam who takes pictures of
abandoned places. He refers to his gallery as "in the mouth of sadness"
and claims the "air" in the hospital to be so dreadfully hostile... that
there is some unnatural presence there that he only took a few pictures
of the entrance hall and didn't dare to venture any further. Oddly
enough, the place closed down due to a fire shortly after you died.
Oddly enough, there are no traces of firedamage on the pictures on the
website.
The author claimed to return to the building at daytime...his webblog hasn't been updated since. At least I got a location now.
All I hope for is to find any sort of clue from you that might help me
end this nightmare... how I doubt it. Isn't this just the last resort of
a dying man? What is left in such an asylum after 30 years of decay? I
hope more than there is left of me.
"
Screenshots:
Current Budget:
(this includes no content I already had, only media strictly bought for catathrenia)
5€
Gameplay:
This isn't a horror game. More of a mystery adventure. I settle more for
a dence and dreadful mood than flatout scaring you like in former
titles. The gameplay revolves around finding clues about your sister
while wandering between dream and reality. I like to call this "bipolar"
gameplay as it has 2 completely different sides in the same game. Also
the puzzles will work that way later on in the game. 2 choices, you do
either get rewareded or badly punished for your action. No in-betweens.
This has slow adventure gameplay in the real world and more fastpaced "condemned" like gameplay in the dreamstates.
Trivia:
The focus of this project lies on how low I can keep the memory cap.
Most levels only use 1300 to 1500 Megabyte. I chose an abandoned asylum
as those abandoned buildings have little furniture left. So I can do
most athmosphere with the textures and the lightmapping instead of
cramming it up with stuff. It also features a lot of selfmade
models...but not that much, its a miniproject, lets keep it lazy.
Another interesting note is that you can choose between full
postprocessing, simplified postprocessing and black and white
postprocessing in the final game I think thats a nice touch.
This game has custom characters.
Also, if you ever wanted to see a running tub in FPSC:
There is also a lot of gruesome stuff in this game so don't let your
kids play it if they are under the age of 14 ... if you do you should
get your head examined.
I tell you right away before you notice it yourself. There isn't much new to show...again Why?
Well, I've gotten myself a fulltimejob. One of the more... engaging ones where you can never sit down.
I just don't have the force to work on my art at the evening so development goes very slow at the moment.
This however, won't be lasting so there will be more interesting stuff to see in the near future.
What is new? A lot has been scratched! I refined the game a little, grounding myself in reality seeing
what I can do within reasonable time and what would just take me forever and my nerves to the grave.
There will be no parcour. This will most likely disappoint some friends
of mine but hey! You can still do basic climbing. The game will also be
released in 3 builds/episodes. (yes, I know...gamedevelopers do rarely
make it to "episode 3". Lets just try it anyway)
I stretched the story a little. The original script was revolving only
around a prison, the monastery and the temple. I will however add some
outdoor exploration... for me, to play with the engine and for you to
enjoy some nice swamp athmosphere. I do also anticipate to get an
episode to last at least one to two hours of gameplay.
While I do still have no new/ relevant media to show, here are some different angles on things that I have already done. If you don't like it...bite me.
I think thats a nice touch.
