Meet S.O.N., a soulless monster-killing automaton from the 19th century, and F.A.T.H.R., a robo-pope from the future !
The horrors of Dracula's basement ! Ghastly spectres and filthy slimes bring peril at each step !
The mysteries of the Wolfman's hedge-maze ! The very bushes crave your (metal) flesh !
The terrors of Dracula's keep ! Battle against Dracula's many brides and Gypsy henchmen (in authentic traditional Gypsy-style clothes according to some website I read for research) !
Three terrifying bosses provide an undetermined amount of time's worth of fun for you and a friend in a way that only hotseat PC gaming can !
Nine levels give you thousands of chances to make the halls of Dracula's castle run red !
Seven different types of enemies to slaughter by the thousands !
Two badass robots created by the Catholic church to teach Dracula about God's divine grace and forgiveness by taking him
straight to hell !-----------------------------------------
Hey there guys
After the disaster that was my first game, I took everything I've learned and am finally working on a game that I'd actually WANT to play.
F.A.T.H.R. & S.O.N. is currently about 65% complete. 90% of the levels are complete, I just need to finish those up, draw the comic panels for the cut-scenes and I'd REALLY like to put in voice work, but I only have an Xbox 360 microphone so I'm going to have to wait until I see how well that records voice before I make any commitments.
In case your wondering what their names stand for; "Faith-Augmented Trans-Human Robot" and "Steam-Operated Neutralizer".
The game is a top-down shooter where every level is a maze. FATHR is controlled with the WASD keys and SPACE bar and SON is controlled with the numpad and "insert" keys.
The story goes thus;
In the year 22xx Dracula has conquered the world. The Pope, with no other good options left, of course has his soul transferred into a robotic shell (codenamed F.A.T.H.R.) and sent back in time to the year 18xx, before Dracula was able to truly amass his forces.
Once there he meets up with a ye olde prototype robot that the Vatican had sent to try to stop Dracula way back in the 19th century, S.O.N.
Together the cold, emotionless monster-killing machine S.O.N. and the desperate future-pope F.A.T.H.R., armed with only their guns and nerves of steel, must make the very walls of Dracula's unholy castle run red with the blood of his minions.
I'm really excited about how well this game is going. I was inspired by a desire to have something fun and campy with two-player hotseat action to play with my kids. We love to play the Left 4 Dead games together on my 360 and, even though I realize this in no way compares to L4D quality-wise, it was certainly an inspiration.
Given my deep lack of knowing what the hell I'm doing when it comes to making a game, I'm using Game Maker 8 again, but I've learned so much since my last game that this time has been much smoother.
I've had some unique problems making a two-player game that I wasn't wholly prepared for when I first set out on this adventure. How would I handle the issue of the game camera ? What happens if a character gets left behind ? DOES Wolfman have nards ?
When it came to the camera issue, I decided that whoever the last person alive was has the camera, being a coop game you can of course revive your fallen comrade (FATHR can revive SON using just his high-tech laser beam, whereas SON has to physically go up to a fallen FATHR to fix him. To compensate for this, SON shoots and moves faster) so as a reward for keeping your wits about you, you get to set the pace of progress.
I wanted the team to always be together as long as they were alive, but I didn't want them to just "appear" wherever the camera went.
After much thought, I decided that like many things, I should let the characters' differences guide me.
How would a highly advanced robot from the year 22XX dissapear in one place and reappear in another ? The only possible answer is Star-Trek style teleportation beams. 'Natch.
So that brings us to what I thought was a bit more of a pickle. How would S.O.N., with his steam-powered body and cannon-based black powder weaponry from the year 18XX dissapear and then reappear somewhere else ?
Well,let me tell you. It seems that in the year 1848 a certain Robert Yale improved upon older, 17th century Chinese technology and perfected the modern "smoke bomb".
As we all know, 1848 is WAY before 18XX, so I was in the clear. So F.A.T.H.R.= teleportation laser, S.O.N.= Darkwing Duck-style smoke bombs to reappear within camera range.
I've still got quite a bit to do before I'm done, but I'm thinking I should be wrapped up by late May/ early June at the latest depending on real life's intrusions into my nightly schedule.
Sadly, I find the more time I spend MAKING games the less I actually have to play them
I'll post updates as warranted and thanks for reading !.
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