Long Live the Ancient Essence

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Sam (Deleted User)

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Hey guys!

In this topic I will be making advertisements and announcements surrounding my first-ever serious project.

TEASER VIDEO


SCREENSHOTS

damnation small.jpg

courtyard small.jpg


ARTWORK - what am I using to produce visuals?

- Bryce 7.0 for rendering all scenes as well as some 3D modeling
- Blender and Sculptris for most 3D models
- pixlr.com/editor for most textures
- So far, only one texture I didn't make, (came with Bryce)
- current cursors are placeholders, (minus the cross-hair)

MUSIC AND SFX - who produced what using what?

- All music will be made by me, all music currently in use is made by me
- Used a generic MIDI editor and then converted it to sound more natural using online-convert.com
- Created and edited some of the music with Garage Band and Audacity
- partnersinrhyme.com and soundjay.com for (most) sound effects
- Voice acting will be done by me and people I know in real life

STORY - what is this game all about, anyway?

The current story idea is that you have discovered a planet that deeply below its surface has an eternal chamber of damnation, called the Abyss. The Abyss holds aliens of many species, all who are either prisoners of war or criminals. They are forced to stay and be bound up in places where they can feel ongoing pain.

In my first screenshot and the video at the top of this post, you see a small chamber in the Abyss, where several individuals of an ape-like species of alien, closely related to humans, are "bound" (a.k.a.) "damned", each tightly suspended in their own miniature volcano, and these volcanoes do erupt over time, causing immense pain to these beings.

As you can see, their brains are blown out of their heads, and most of their flesh is gone. They once had legs and wings - they have lost both as an additional punishment to being imprisoned in the Abyss. While the Abyss is an eternal place - the beings who stay there remain finite and their stay in the Abyss is finite.

When in the Abyss, your lifespan is expanded, and your age is preserved, so that you may experience pain up to even millions of years, in the same life-time. In the Abyss, much like the concept of hеll, you were punished according to what you have done. Depending on how severe what your crime was, it will determine how long your stay and how great and frequent your pain in the Abyss will be.

When you are "bound" or "damned" in the Abyss, (which is usually the first thing that happens once you are sentenced here), you can not move. You are confined to one place, where all you can do at best is complain about the pain or scream.

However, you can not speak like you normally would outside of the Abyss, you speak with not your physical mouth, as it is bound and damned as the rest of your body. You speak with your eternal "essence". In ancient cultures, an "essence" was once called your "spirit". It is the 4th dimension of every living being, and it goes on forever.

In this game, you discover from a mysterious alien that someone you know is being punished here, who they say is innocent, and your first goal is to find them. As soon as you find them, your goal is to find a way to set them free, and escape from the Abyss before the "Guards of the Abyss" find you.

Staying in the Abyss is said to be life-changing to evil beings. It purifies their ways by giving them a desire, once they leave their punishment, to not repeat their mistakes, so that they don't ever need to go to the Abyss again.

CONCLUSION

But anyway, that's all I have to share for now. This is my first "real and serious" project, that I will try my best to not be sloppy, lazy, or inconsistent with...

I hope to update this topic with more to show soon. I'm trying to find a balance between showing enough to keep your interest and not giving too much away.

Cheers.
Samuel
 
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FROGANUS

Guest
oh yeah color me teased- this looks sick!
i wonder, if you have that dead end room set up to flicker like that.. would it be tedious to have the bigger rooms animated as well? (imagining a couple or a few frames of swirly lava and/or just a subtle animated glowing pattern to the walls or something..)
sounds like a clever method for your workflow, could you mention what point-n-clicky software you're using?
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
@Morendral Thanks for your encouragement! I'm glad you like it.

@FROGANUS Thanks for your kind words and critiques. To answer your first question, yes, I do plan on adding animation to the rotating panoramic frames, since it is technically possible in both the current software and GameMaker Studio, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

sounds like a clever method for your workflow, could you mention what point-n-clicky software you're using?

Now this I can't answer on the GMC, because we aren't allowed to discuss any software that competes with GameMaker. However, I'll be glad to email you the name of it, or just send it by a PM, as IIRC they are ok with using the PM system for that, just not the public forums, (staff are free to correct me if I'm wrong).

I don't recommend doing my approach for any of your games however, it is a very expensive software and a pretty dead product. The only reason I'm doing this is because I already bought the software ages ago, before I knew about GameMaker, otherwise I wouldn't have purchased it at this point.
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
But thank goodness that we are allowed to post a project that isn't even made with Game Maker in the WiP section? haha
As I explained in my original post - (did you read it?) - the video is just the fast prototype version, and the "screenshot", (using that term very loosely), is just a Bryce render. In fact, everything you see in the video are Bryce renders - those same Bryce renders will be used in the version that I will actually release in this topic, which will both be made in GMStudio, and look identical to the prototype. Therefore, unless the staff have a problem with this topic and express that to me - I don't have a problem with this topic. Each panoramic "render" is essentially a 2048x2048 pixel image texture on a 3D cylinder.

I could just as easily wait until the GM version is complete before I share any video, and it will look the same, so you wouldn't know any different anyway - and until then I can just share static Bryce renders - so staff before you lock this topic, if you indeed have a problem with it, just remove the video and I'll replace it with static renders. It won't be as interesting, but that will have to suffice until I produce an identical video with GMStudio.

@YellowAfterlife @chance what do you think about this?
 
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rIKmAN

Member
As I explained in my original post - (did you read it?) - the video is just the fast prototype version, and the "screenshot", (using that term very loosely), is just a Bryce render. In fact, everything you see in the video are Bryce renders - those same Bryce renders will be used in the version that I will actually release in this topic, which will both be made in GMStudio, and look identical to the prototype. Therefore, unless the staff have a problem with this topic and express that to me - I don't have a problem with this topic. Each panoramic "render" is essentially a 2048x2048 pixel image texture on a 3D cylinder.

I could just as easily wait until the GM version is complete before I share any video, and it will look the same, so you wouldn't know any different anyway - and until then I can just share static Bryce renders - so staff before you lock this topic, if you indeed have a problem with it, just remove the video and I'll replace it with static renders. It won't be as interesting, but that will have to suffice until I produce an identical video with GMStudio.

@Mike @rwkay what do you think about this?
Not that you should be tagging anyone, but Mike and Russell?
Tag a mod / admin, this is a petty forum issue not something for YYG staff to be tagged to take a look at - I'm sure they have better things to do than check whether your project qualifies for posting in the WIP forum.

Just get on with making it and post updates of the GM version for anyone who wants to keep up to date with it.
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
^I wanted an official word from someone, because if someone like a mod or Nocturne were tagged, there is always a chance they could be ok with it but someone of higher authority might not be. I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree.
 

rIKmAN

Member
^I wanted an official word from someone, because if someone like a mod or Nocturne were tagged, there is always a chance they could be ok with it but someone of higher authority might not be. I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree.
Noc works for YYG, his word would be official.

Of course you disagree, I'd expect nothing less.
Good luck with the project.
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
I would appreciate it if you wouldn't be sarcastic. His profile says admin, not YYG staff, and all he officially does for YYG outside of a forum admin is write the GMS docs. If he is YYG staff, wouldn't that mean he would have better things to do as well?

I'm getting the impression you're not in a good mood again, so I'll edit my post and tag someone else before another thread of mine gets off track.
 
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rIKmAN

Member
I'm getting the impression you're not in a good mood again, so I'll edit my post and tag someone else before another thread of mine gets off track.
I think we both know my mood had nothing to do with our last discussion, same as it doesn't here - so I'd practice what you preach with regards to sarcasm.

Like I said - good luck with your project.
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
I wasn't being sarcastic. I thought you were when you said "good luck with your project". But I think I misread you. My bad. :) Thank you!
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
Did a few touch-ups today on my underground castle's courtyard. Hope to have more gameplay footage available soon.

courtyard small.jpg
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
I don't know how other software works like Maya or Cinema 4D, but in Bryce this is how it works. lol okay so one of the most painful things about making a Myst-like genre of game like this one, is that the high quality renders individually take several hours to render. If the SLIGHTEST thing is wrong with your scene--whether poor lighting, poor materials, sloppy models, sloppy model placement--again if there is but ONE imperfection, you may have to restart your render from the beginning, but that is only AFTER fixing ALL of your mistakes. In some cases, you might even have to go back and do multiple or even ALL of your renders of a particular scene all the way back at square one. So what I usually do is make the scene or some tweaks to it, then hit render, and leave my computer for several hours until it is done so I can then save it and import the newly generated image into my project. There is no fool-proof solution for previewing my 3D scene at enough angles to foresee whether the scene is 100% flawless and ready to be rendered. So bear with me guys, because I just found out some major flaws with my most recent scene, (the courtyard), which you can easily observe and point out in my second screenshot I posted. I find this personally to be one of the most frustrating genre of games one can possibly make, but also one of the most rewarding if it can be done right and done well, as close to perfect visually as possible relative to your artistic ability.
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
@IngoLingo

Thanks! I'm not the greatest artist out there but I appreciate your words. As any artist, I definitely do a whole lot better when I don't rush myself, and do my best, like I am with this project. :D (If you look at my other games at http://www.timekillergames.tk/ you will see what my work looks like when it's rushed and settled-for as incomplete).
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
Would anyone who's talented with creating puzzles and 3D modeling be able to help with this project? It is now 100% made in GMStudio. I intend for this to be a commercial project. We'll split the profits according to who's doing how much. I'll be reasonable. :)
 
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