As things have been winding up on The Director’s Cut, I’ve been able to do a certain amount of work on New Game+ finally! Over the last 9 months while I’ve been working on the PlayStation ports, I’ve literally only had the time and energy to work on New Game+’s soundtrack (which has a lot of tunes now) but none for the game itself.
But I’ve managed to do some work on it, including an art pass, quite recently as things have been quieter while Curve wrap up the ports. I converted all the art to a new, simpler 32 colour palette (to match the Amiga, the game machine which I grew up on). This means the look is more coherent, if less ‘detailed’, and another good thing is that it makes the rest of the art a lot quicker to do. There is a lot of art to do for this game, so that’s a good thing.
Here’s a comparison between the NEW EXTERIOR:
… and an OLD EXTERIOR:
(I was trying to get closer to the original mockup:)
Here’s a NEW INTERIOR:
… and an OLD INTERIOR:
So, although it’s a subtle change, it’s hopefully going to make things look better, while being quicker to produce! Let me know what you think of the new look!
(Also, this is a thing I bought recently…)
There is more news on the horizon about NG+… I can’t announce it quite yet, but something pretty wonderful is about to happen!
After months of back and forth, and what ended up being one of the largest internal discussions at Sony on a game’s requirements for such things in the history of such things, I am now allowed to reveal What I’m doing About Trophies.
Achievements. Love ’em or hate ’em, they’re here to stay. They don’t motivate me personally as a player – I prefer to play entirely within the ‘world’ of the game – but I completely respect and empathise with those who enjoy them.
For this reason, I wanted to ensure that Lone Survivor’s trophies were as unobtrusive as possible, but also a very deep additional challenge, free of grind, for those that wished to explore the game beyond the surface.
It is especially important in a game such as this where immersion is critical to the experience, that I don’t let them get in the way of that: the last thing you want is to be taken out of the adventure by a system message.
1. Trophies Will Be As Unobtrusive As Possible
For this reason, after many months of discussion, I have persuaded Sony to allow me to:
a) … not show any trophies during gameplay. They will be displayed only when the player goes to sleep, or on the completion of the game.
b) … display the following message at the start of the game (I’m very glad that Sony have recently allowed players to disable Trophy notifications via the System Settings in the latest firmwares, I also recommend disabling Friend Notifications, although I would still lobby for developers to be allowed to change this setting from in-game, on a per-game basis… hopefully Sony are listening and at least considering this in future as it isn’t currently possible.):
c) … let all but a few trophies remain secret to ensure the first playthrough of the game is not coloured by trophy hunting.
2. Yes, there will be a Platinum Trophy.
(… but it will be hidden, deep.)
I worked hard on the Trophy designs, so that it would be a rewarding additional layer to the game, if you choose to explore it. Particularly so that your repeat playthroughs are interesting and varied. The idea is that the player will be rewarded for exploring the light and dark corners of the game, not for simply making progress or for repeatedly doing the same thing. There is a huge amount to see in this game, especially in The Director’s Cut, and the Platinum Trophy takes you on the widest possible tour of that content.
Not only will Lone Survivor will have a Platinum Trophy, but this Trophy, if pursued, will be rewarding and open up new aspects of the game. It will not be an easy one, but it’ll hopefully be an interesting one!
However, I still hope that players who are new to Lone Survivor will disable trophy notifications on their first playthrough so that they experience the game as deeply as possible.
– Jasper
I contributed a chapter to EXPERIMENT 12, a collaboration with 11 other designers, started by good friend, Terry Cavanagh. We each made a single chapter in a specific time period over several weeks, my chapter is the final experiment, #12 in fact. May not be what you expect.
I hope you enjoy the game!
Get it: http://www.geocities.ws/experimenttwelve/
(Mac + PC.)
I’ve done so much work on it, constantly for the whole of this year. It’s bigger than I ever expected to be.
There are hundreds of tiny little changes and improvements. It has a lot of new hidden, dark corners. It even looks and sounds pretty different. It is playing great on the Playstation Vita and PlayStation 3, and Curve are doing a great job on the port.
It has become a new thing.
It is for this reason that it is now called “Lone Survivor – The Director’s Cut.” And I’m so excited and proud to share it with you guys.
(I’m sure this is a fairly common combination.)
Just a quick note to say, I’ll be in San Francisco from tomorrow, until the 4th of next month. I’ll be at GDC, hanging about, eating tasty foods, showing NG+ around (contact me if you’d like to play, as I’m going to try and arrange a 4p session, even if it’s in the hotel lobby! Also there to meet virtual friends ‘IRL’, some of whom for the first time, and cheer on Terry and Cactus and other friends at the IGF awards (best of luck to all nominees, of course!)
Be sure to leave me a message via email or twitter if you want to link up, due to the crunch I’ve not been able to make any plans except my flight and hotel so far.
Talking of crunch, I’ve barely slept this month while adding even more new things to Lone Survivor for the PlayStation consoles (and have even seen it running in a early state, yay!) As well as the stuff I mentioned before, there’s now another new piece of music, more new items (taking us up to 22 new ones, for bullet-point fans), new sound effects, another new ending (there are now five instead of the original three), another large and complex location, a new enemy type, lots more new dialogue, new lighting effects, even a new portrait of You (hopefully it’s not too much of a spoiler, I’m trying to keep all this stuff nice a surprising for you guys, but…):
(See if you can find out how to unlock it!)
Also note that Lone Survivor is currently 50% off in the spring sales on Steam! Go, tell your friends etc! (It would be much appreciated.)
Extra secret bonus stuff And stuff…
Making a “Soulsian” game is very enjoyable to me. I was thinking about this a lot the other night at the pub with Terry Cavanagh and another rabid DARK SOULS fan, during a five hour discussion about the game. Having spent four years fighting to get a narrative-heavy game to work well with its mechanics, and replaying the same bits of narrative again and again until they worked, it’s refreshing to do something more design-focussed. Of course, the theme is still really important to me (perhaps one of the things I value the most), but as with Lone Survivor I’ve decided not to share any details of the story until the game is released. The games I make tend to come from the theme, rather than the mechanics, even with NG+, but this time its focus is more a blend of the two aspects.
So, the nice thing is every game is different when you have this many mechanics and styles of play… It means I have to devote a lot more time to balancing and playing the game, but that’s turning out to be a lot of fun with four players anyway, and giving me a lot to take home after each event I take the game to (I’ve been starting to ‘hit the road’ with it recently, now I have four quite different characters and the stats and weapon systems fleshed out, as well as the coop and VS game modes implemented. You can switch modes at any time during the game now via the ‘+ Altars’.)
I’ve begun to build more of the world (which I’m trying not to show too much of because *spoilers*) but I can say that there are now multi-level areas working, like Dungeon Master, one of my all-time favourite RPG’s, you can fall down pits and the enemies can even follow you down there, or be found lurking when you reach the lower level because you lunged at them and sent them flying off a ledge.) I want to make a lot of use of the grid-based nature of the game, and have Dungeon Master-like traps, pressure pads, all those things that require you to be a little observant when moving forward. You can throw whatever you’re carrying, in either hand, not only to land in monsters’ faces stunning them temporarily while you make your escape, risking a valuable weapon or shield, but perhaps also to set off these fiendish traps before they find you instead?
As it stands, I’m planning to have no inventory except for the armour and helmet you wear, the two things you carry in your hands, and one support item. Designs can be subject to change of course! But I want to try and reduce and RPG to the fewest elements I can while still being able to feel like an RPG. That’s a key thing in what I’m going for mechanically, I think? And with up to four players on screen the GUI has to be as simple as possible, so my intended solution is to practically show all of it on the player, one of the reasons the animation takes so long, because the player must be able to use every item, in both hands, with four facing directions, in every suit and helmet!
So the game is still a long way from being finished in terms of content, but the gameplay is definitely getting to where I hoped it would be, and people seem to be having a lot of fun with it when I play with them. I really look forward to sharing it with you all! Just don’t expect it this year (unfortunately.)
One two a few more thing(s)…I’m off today for a couple of weeks to work on a secret project. So if I’m fairly quiet on email or twitter, that’s why! I’m basically going to be internet-less for this time while I buckle down and get it done, but suffice to say it’s something exciting that I can hopefully announce soon!
– There’s no comments available at the moment just because I couldn’t hold back the spam any more. Planning a website overhaul soon, I promise!
– I’ve also been doing some exciting music projects too, at least two new games will feature some of my guest tunes. Hope to get into this more after NG+, if such a time ever exists.
– I’m finally going to my first IGF / GDC this year! I’ll be in San Francisco for the whole week and a few days either side. Hope to catch some of you there…
– Hope you’re all having a wicked 2013!
It’s back.
I am going to finish this, after all. It may just take a while.
Happy new year, everyone!
Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I last wrote, mainly because I’ve had to be absolutely sure I was going to post what I’m about to post.
There are two things I’d like to share with you… Some good news and some not so good news. If you’d prefer the good news first, skip to the later section!
NEW GAME+, the dungeon crawler I’ve been working away on for the last six months (I realise I never officially announced the name), is no more.
I have decided to abandon the project. It’s been a very tough decision to make, quite heartbreaking really, but it IS the right thing to do. It was too big for a single person to make. This is the root of the problem. It wasn’t that I fell out of love with the idea, just that I can’t physically do it.
The good thing about being a self-funded, one-man team is that I can drop a project without hurting any co-workers, without feeling pressure to complete something that isn’t working, and without being somehow responsible to investors. It’s one of the reasons I prefer to remain a solo game creator, so that I feel less pressure to try and force something that doesn’t want to be forced, to remain agile so that I don’t need to flog an already dead horse.
I reached a point where it was getting very frustrating: the game demanded a lot of animation, very detailed level design, and a huge amount of gameplay code, all of which were taking so long that it felt excruciating.
I’d like to say sorry to any fans who were looking forward to it – it’s still a game I’d love to play, and should I ever have a team to work with in future, it’s definitely an idea I’d like to come back to. I had an incredibly detailed story worked out (it’s not what it appeared!), which I won’t share in case the idea ever resurfaces.
For now, let’s take a minute’s silence and look through the work in progress shots, leading up to the first build that I shared with a few friends a week ago…
Initial mockup
First engine tests
First bits of level creation, writing the editor, figuring out the perspective etc…
Working out what sprites might look like…
Adding gameplay, weapons and AI…
So this is as far as I got with it. It still had a long way to go before it was going to be fully playable, and yet it had taken so many months to reach this point. I realised, not for the first time, that I’d been too ambitious. If you’ve followed Lone Survivor’s creation, you’ll see that there were quite a few failed versions of it in its wake.
So that is the story of NEW GAME+. When considering my decision, I received this excellent piece advice from Stephen ‘The Catamites’, something it really helped to hear…
“there’s no such thing as a trashed project, it always just gets subsumed into something else where you least expect it, so i won’t mourn new game +, even though it looked really cool. i am eagerly anticipating when the idea / images behind it suddenly appear in an unrelated dating sim or something some months hence…”… and I think he’s absolutely right.
That’s right, something wonderful has also happened in this time period. I have something I’m very excited to announce:
LONE SURVIVOR is coming to PS3 and PS Vita!
It’ll be re-coded from scratch by Curve Studios in London, creators of a number of great PS3 games like Fluidity, Hydroventure and Explodemon. It’ll be super-smooth running, and better yet (for my European cousins, at least) the plan is to include translations into French and German.
I’m greatly looking forward to this, as it’s been a dream of mine since childhood to release a game on console, and especially the Sony ones as I love what they do most of all. Anyone who follows my twitter will know that I don’t tend to play games on PC, I really am a couch gamer, most happy on my PS3! Lone Survivor was designed as a console game (in my head, anwyay.) In fact, all the games I work on I really imagine being on console, or fantasise about, anyway!
So there is is… With one door closing, another opens.
I’ll be sure to let you guys know when I figure out what my own next project will be. Who knows, it might end up being the dating sim The Catamites suggests…
… For now there’s just a glorious blank sheet of white paper in front of me.
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