[superflat Log, Date: 9/10/08]

superflat Log, Date: 9/10/08

I'm starting to get to grips with XNA, but it's by no means a walk in the park.  3D-wise, I've only really used Ogre and Blitz3D, and only mildly dabbled in shaders in Ogre.  XNA is lower-level than Ogre in most ways, but then again C Sharp is higher level than C++, this means less stress with pointers and free garbage collection, but I have to learn shaders from the ground up, and re-write a lot of Ogre's functionality.

The good thing is that shaders use the industry standard .x format, none of Ogre's proprietary stuff to deal with, and I can test things out in RenderMonkey without having to re-code them.  Also, luckily, most of the stuff I want to do has been done already in XNA, shadows and cel-shading in particular, although skeletal animation support is non-existent out of the box and there seems to be little online knowledge about it (although I'm looking into XNAnimation...)

I've got the first model by my artist, Lord P.Duncan, and boy is it a beauty (you can see him in the background of the website image.  We call him The Bully.)  I've plugged him into the cel-shader and shadow system and he's looking fine, fine, fine.  The time is not right to post him yet though...

I have the odd cabinet projection working too (think Final Fight perspective), that wasn't a bit of a headache because I had to re-learn about projection matricies.

The next step is to get skeletal animation up and running, and the overlaying of shadows back onto a 2D image (should be one line in the shader with any luck.)

I've also written what may end up being the main musical theme, it's orchestral, kinda Zelda-ish but dark and foreboding, with only a thread of hope in it.  Look forward to playing it to you guys many moons from now! 

superflat out.

Hey Dock,

I absolutely love it, so polished and magical. The thing that really stood out for me was the emotional connection I felt with the pieces, because if felt sad to drop or remove any of the yellow guys, so I really wanted to do each level with as few moves as possible to see as many smiling faces as possible.  Surprisingly deep!

Great work man, I hope you win the Unity compo... Good luck!

Thanks guys, I've been making games since 1984 and this is the first time I've ever won anything!  Not that it really means anything, because there were some great games and these sorts of compos are so subjective.  Then again, it was nice to know something I really cared about touched a few people.

I will come back to SMII when I have the time.  I work full-time and I'm currently putting all my spare time into my 'Amnesia' game, but like I mentioned I've already made a start on the Apartment Buildings, and got handgun combat and Mannequin Demons in there.  So when the time comes and I need a break from Amnesia, I'll put the rest of the stuff in that I originally hoped to do. 

You know it's not over 'till Polygon Head sings!

Wow I'm totally shocked...  thanks for all the support fellow TIG-Sourcers!

I'm really never use this word (am I just too old for it? :D), but for once I'm just gonna add:

You're all AWESOME!

Hi Hideous, it was all made in BlitzMax with no special tricks...  Just a framework I've been using and changing over the last few years.

Trying to start a new framework in XNA now, it's a much bigger task!

I've just had me a nice bit of Smaze and I really liked it.  The level design was great and reminded me of Commando. Loved the control system, music and character portraits. 

If anything my only small gripe was not being able to see clearly when I was getting hit.  I enjoyed doing close-quarters combat but couldn't ever tell if the baddies were getting off their bullets.  Some kind of red flash to indicate being hit would be great!

Hi there, thanks for the encouragement TIGSource crew!  Lots more details to come, just waiting to finally get a desk in my new house tomorrow.  Then development officially begins...

Re: XNA, I know it's got a lot of issues, but by the time the game is out I think most of them will have been resolved, looking at MS's plans to allow the developer to include the necessary libs in the executable in XNA Game Studio 3.  I hope so, anyway!

The thing is, it's seems to be the framework that's closest to he middle ground between 3D and 2D.  It was a toss-up between that and Ogre, where I'd already written a fairly robust framework.  Ogre provides OSX / GL support, XNA provides the potential to play on a console.  XNA is definitely simpler, and easier to implement 2D elements in.

Re: Japanese - my dream is to have it in Japanese with subtitles only.  I might be able to find seiyu through contacts in Japan.  It's still a long way off in the decision process though.

[Update:]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to use this as a sort of worklog for what could be quite a long project.  I've just registered www.superflatgames.com with lots of bandwidth, and I'll be adding a developer blog there soon.

Right now, all there is to see is this image (sorry, it's big - prob better to look on the site):



Anyway, here's the blurb:

Amnesia is a game I've wanted to make for ages... It's in a pre-production phase and has changed from being a classic point'n'click to more of a Survival Horror title, partly due to the fun we had making Soundless Mountain II, and the fact that I now have a great artist to work with, 'Lord' P. Duncan.  The story is essential the same as the point'n'click I imagined, though - it's about a Japanese man called Aruku re-discovering his identity through dreams and nightmares, in a recurring Groundhog day.  Solving puzzles 'positively' will give you a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that is white, solving them 'negatively' will give you a red puzzle piece.  When the puzzle is assembled you will regain your memory, although the ending depends on the makeup of your physical jigsaw puzzle. 

It deals with the theme of isolation from society so present in modern Japan (I lived in Tokyo until recently.)  In fact we hope to really tackle some issues about modem life with this game, the distance and loneliness people can feel even when surrounded by others.
 
Visually we're using what we call a 'Moving Mosaic'.  This is our tech term for chunky, grainy, dirty hand-drawn pixels with lots of noise and filtering.  As well as this we have dynamic 3D shadows, so the torchlight will be spectacular!  It still is very self-consciously low-res pixel art, but with a modern twist, scaled up 4 times as in SMII - although it is in a higher resolution than SMII and with no colour restrictions.  We're using 3D cel-shaded characters, with a slightly Prince of Persia feel to the moment.  There will be a lot of 'being chased' in the game, and you'll have to escape this unkillable antagonist time and again by any means necessary, pulling obstacles in his path, cutting rope bridges etc.  Dreams will range from flying to escaping a filthy prison, and that's all I can give away at the moment!

Update:

We're still debating what resolution to do the game, but the platform we've settled on is XNA, so make of that what you will!
 
Feel free to check back for occasional progress updates, and I'll let you know when we've sorted out the website.

Cheers,

superflat

Noyb I managed to sneak a cheeky amount of time at work to play, and let me just congratulate you on this amazing piece of work...  Didn't wanna post until I'd finished it, but I just had to show some love...  For a big point'n'click adventure fan, this is all my birthdays at once.

  I take my hat off to you sir.

Thanks, it may be quite a while because we really wanna make something special (or die trying!)  Right now it's in a sorta design / r&d phase, and I might end up doing the rest of SMII just to take breaks from it. 

I'm dying to share some of the great concept art being done by Lord P, but all in good time...

Hey there...

If I'd have know other people were gonna keep on updating their entries post-compo I'd have done the same, haha.  I just thought it wasn't allowed!

I've been working on it, although it's kind of on the backburner right now - if you take a look at the Destructoid interview you can see I've got another project on the go, something I've been wanting to make for years, but wasn't sure exactly how to present... but having learned a few things from doing SMII, I've got newfound momentum.

This game, 'Amnesia' is getting quite interesting.  It's a sort of 'magical survival adventure' - survival horror with some bits that aren't horror, a hopefully quite deep storyline and elements of point'n'click adventures... 

The pic on the interview is just a rough concept, done in SMII style - it's already looking much more interesting thanks to the amazing artist I have onboard, Lord P. Duncan!  (And there's another who I can't mention yet as it's still TBC, but he's a well-know UK mangaka and all-round great guy!)  Also there's gonna be realtime isometric shadows, cel-shaded 3D characters - a few things I don't think I've seen in a 2D game before! 

I won't go through all my votes but my favourite so far is Macarena of the Missing.

While I still have a lot of entries to play, I'm with you there, chutup - Noyb has outdone himself!

Hey guys t... Big congrats on the top spot over at bytejacker!  Will sit down and give it a good play this weekend!

@Lim-Dul

Sorry you found my gameplay bad and boring, I guess it just wasn't your cup of tea.

Anyway still haven't got round to playing all these great games,  really looking forward to going through them this weekend when I get back online... Great job everyone!

[http://www.destructoid.com/destructoid-interview-soundless-mountain-ii-s-jasper-byrne-104274.phtml]

Oh, also the combat is incredible. I'm nto sure how you managed to do it, but you actually made it fun xD

My question is, are you going to de-make the whole game?
If so, then i cannot wait for the absolute nail-breaking scenes with Pyramid Head.

Thanks once again my friend.  I'm still working on it, and I've improved the combat - in fact you can see what I'm up to in my new Destructoid interview:

http://www.destructoid.com/destructoid-interview-soundless-mountain-ii-s-jasper-byrne-104274.phtml   

I love what I have been able to see of the game so far, but it crashes every time I attempt to save. Any suggestions?

I downloaded form the link but when I tried to unzip it, an error message came up that said "The system Cannot find the file specified".

Hey guys, the only thing I can think of is that the server for 'willhostforfood' might have been down.  I downloaded it on a friend's machine yesterday and it worked.  Have you tried again?

I your game is most likely going to be the winner. 
That is my bet anyway.

  Aww, shucks.  Don't know what to say, but... thanks!

This game is so damn rad.

Thanks so much, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

I actually signed up to this site just so i could leave a comment about your game.

...

I look forward to you winning this competition, then finishing off the game.

Good luck my friend,

Pitcairn.

Hehe, I highly doubt I've a chance of winning, but it was never about that...  In fact, it's comments like yours that make it worthwhile - thankyou so much!

@ Lurk,
Thanks for saying you enjoyed the combat - it seems to work better than expected in 2D...  Given me a few ideas for my next project, haha!

@ Melly,

You're quite right and there's not much I can do about it at this point.  I'm afraid if you can't get vsync on it's gonna run weird for you.  Luckily not too many people have this problem.

I'm so glad you liked it sir, your comments made me really happy.  I'm not sure I totally know what you mean about the red sqaures and dead body... if anything I tried to make the body more of an event (through music / tight corridor) than in the original.  What would you have changed?

@Terry,

I know it's frustratiung that it cuts short.  I've already done quite a lot more on it, and I wish I could have had another week to get it in the compo entry.

Anyway, here's some WIP shots of the new areas.  I have the handgun and Mannequin demons done now (with new scary sounds!)  The combat's really fun in those tight corridors now.  You can also see I've updated the flashlight mask.  It creates instant spookiness!

Hi guys I really want to give a proper response to your comments but I have no net at the moment. Thanks for playing, I'm still working on getting the apt done for a post compo treat.

Very quickly though, about the frame rate - try changing your frame rate to 60hz with vsync on if you can.. Think the vsync is the problem maybe.

Hey man as there's quite a big chance this will end up on my record label, I just can't let it out yet, so sorry!

Wow, thanks for your support everyone.  It's been a rollercoaster ride.  I'm so happy so many people enjoyed it.  I only hope if you didn't like it, you didn't like SH either, haha!

Deadeye, thanks for your kind comments, I'm glad I didn't let you down.

Smile, you're on destructoid!!
http://www.destructoid.com/silent-hill-goes-retro-introducing-soundless-mountain-ii-102836.phtml

Thanks for the heads-up... that made my day haha!

I was just linked here by Destructoid, wanted to congratulate you on what looks like an incredible game!

I was wondering if it was possible to acquire the song you used in the preview trailer, I went through the game's audio files but couldn't locate it.

The track is myself and DJ Makoto's (from Japan) remix of Akira Yamaoka's 'Laura Plays the Piano'.  As it's a remix and not original, I couldn't include it in the game.  Sorry!