The Genesis of a Survival Horror

2004

On my hard drive as ‘mygame.app’, for Mac OS Classic.  The beginnings of a point’n’click adventure around the concept of dream-logic.  Learning to code after 10 years out.

2005-6

Began to develop the editor I use for Lone Survivor (at least, the point’n’click side of it.)  At this time I was re-doing the art in 3D, and the game had a name: Amnesia.  Which as you can guess was never released (although another one was!)

2008

Made Soundless Mountain II for a one-month competition, using my ‘platform engine’, a separate framework.  Getting much more interested in survival horror as a new direction for Amnesia.  Or maybe a hybrid approach…

Began building Amnesia engine 2.0 – a hybrid of platformer and point’n’click engines, all powered by the scripting language.  Initially in XNA, then I reverted to my original plan of using BlitzMax. Began to develop complex lighting treatments, a simpler implementation of which still exists in LS.

It initially looked like this…

Then this…

Then this…

2009

And finally this…

The bedroom has been part of the plan since the start.  I spent a lot of time getting it right, then ended up with something much plainer in the end.

But it was getting too ambitious.  Each treatment more elaborate than the first.  I abandoned Amnesia at that point, and to contain my disappointment, I decided to work on something that was small, silly, manageable*.

Thus was born LONE SURVIVOR.

It was to be one level, one weapon, one enemy, simple survival mechanics.  Everything Amnesia wasn’t.

First three mockups I recently found, probably done on the first day of development.

I’ll share the development images in the next post hopefully.

*SPOILER It didn’t turn out small, silly or manageable.  It turned into Amnesia, but at least I’ve finally made it now.

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  • Comments (4)
  1. avatar
    • alphavin
    • June 18th, 2012

    好游戏,我喜欢!

  2. avatar

    Snap, I wanted to play Amnesia =/ Heard about it somewhere and found your website. I couldn’t play Soundless Mountain II properly cos it is too slow here =/ And this Amnesia looks so good… If my words are enough, I think you should keep going with it, it really seems very different from games I use to see now days, cos it’d probably be long and catching. Most indie games I find are quiet good, but too short. If you’re about to come back with it, be sure I’ll keep an eye on it, and if you need help with texts, illustrations or just disclosure, I’d help with pleasure (not that you need any of this, but you know, any help is useful). Anyways, wish you the best with “Lone Survivor” =D

  3. avatar

    There’s some really interesting stuff going on here. I really dig the artwork and color scheme in the 2008-2009 images. I’ve only been to Japan once on my honeymoon but I feel like you’ve captured the essence of it quite well.

  4. avatar

    This is fascinating. Your skills are impressive: some good art here, you make music and code it as well. Hats off!
    The “It’s a family shrine…” screenshot particulary struck me. It’s so nonliteral, blurry that my imagination goes wild.
    More please!

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