Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411283 Posts in 69325 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 29, 2024, 12:29:40 AM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsParticipant Needed
Pages: [1]
Print
Author Topic: Participant Needed  (Read 3954 times)
ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« on: January 15, 2016, 02:53:43 PM »



Welcome to my devlog for Participant Needed!

Participant Needed is a first-person narrative-driven puzzle game, fitting somewhere into the set of games like Portal, The Stanley Parable and Gone Home. (Although more towards Gone Home and less Portal.)

The official website is at participantneeded.com

Also I have a Twitter account, @ryan_jacob_pn. I'll use it to post more frequent smaller updates and who knows what else.


Short clip of the first scene




Early screenshots
« Last Edit: February 11, 2016, 09:25:58 PM by ryan_jacob » Logged

cynicus
Level 0
***

hey


View Profile WWW
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2016, 02:57:50 PM »

This looks pretty neat! I like it Smiley
Logged

Sound is my kinda thing
Portfolio | Twitter
ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2016, 08:49:34 AM »

This looks pretty neat! I like it Smiley

Thank you very much!
Logged

El-Metallico
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2016, 07:34:12 AM »

I love this kind of games! Subscribed. Do you have twitter to follow?
Logged

Game music composer and pixelartist.
Music Portfolio 
Pixelart Portfolio
ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2016, 02:27:31 PM »

I love this kind of games! Subscribed. Do you have twitter to follow?

Thank you very much! No Twitter yet but I'm planning on having one by the end of the month.
Logged

DifferentName
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2016, 03:12:54 PM »

Cool art style on this one. I feel like the character doesn't fit very well with it though. I wonder what kind of puzzles you'll have.
Logged

ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #6 on: January 24, 2016, 07:56:28 AM »

Cool art style on this one. I feel like the character doesn't fit very well with it though. I wonder what kind of puzzles you'll have.

Thanks! And even I'm still unsure about the character's style. The mood of the game isn't as serious as the video and screenshots might make it seem, so I've been going with a cartoony style for the character in hopes that it falls into place, but we'll see.

As for puzzles, I'll have more on that later on!
Logged

Pixel Noise
Level 10
*****



View Profile WWW
« Reply #7 on: January 24, 2016, 08:11:54 AM »

I don't think the character is that out of place in the setting, though yeah, it definitely seems pretty somber and serious. So if that's not what you are going for...I'm not sure how to really change that, actually. Maybe once we see more, the setting will even itself out.
Logged

Pixel Noise - professional composition/sound design studio.
 https://soundcloud.com/pixel-noise
 https://twitter.com/PixelNoiseMusic
 https://pixelnoisemusic.bandcamp.com/

Recently completed the ReallyGoodBattle OST!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=vgf-4DjU5q
Bura Mathews
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #8 on: January 24, 2016, 09:15:44 AM »

This looks really interesting, I really like that purple shade and I love that sign with the "Do you love like tolerate puzzles", it's intriguing but not too spooky.
Best of luck with it!
Logged

Long Gone Days (DEMO) Devlog|Site|Twitter
ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #9 on: January 25, 2016, 07:12:24 PM »

I don't think the character is that out of place in the setting, though yeah, it definitely seems pretty somber and serious. So if that's not what you are going for...I'm not sure how to really change that, actually. Maybe once we see more, the setting will even itself out.

One thing I've noticed that makes a difference is music; I've messed around just playing different genres of music from YouTube to the scene and they all seem to change the vibe it gives off.

This looks really interesting, I really like that purple shade and I love that sign with the "Do you love like tolerate puzzles", it's intriguing but not too spooky.
Best of luck with it!

Thanks a lot!



Small status update:

I've been working on the inside of the building, but not ready to show anything off yet. I also need to do more work on the character's model. I want to have both of these things done before my next real update!

Logged

ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #10 on: February 05, 2016, 11:37:47 PM »

Update!

The past few weeks have been fairly productive. On the designing and modeling side of things I made good progress on the main entrance room. On the programming side, I added a debug command-line and did more shader work. There's fresnel glow on the experimenter now, and in general that dark shade of greyish-purple gets lighter depending on the distance from the camera (thanks to austinbreed on this forum who suggested this!)

Also I have a Twitter account now, @RyanIsRegaling. I'll use it to post more frequent smaller updates and who knows what else. I look forward to hearing from everyone!

Entering the building!


Showing off that new fresnel glow and some different expressions (and a new debug command line interface!)
   

And I thought that instead of posting boring old screenshots of the interior myself, it would be far more appropriate if the experimenter himself gave a tour. I handed him a camera and let him go!

The selfie tour!
 
(left) Figuring out how to use the camera. (right) Got it! Smiling with his favorite plant and bookshelf.

 
(left) Showing off some of his cool psychology art. (right) This picture is pretty deep when you think about it.

 
(left) Standing on his furniture, what a goofball! (right) Making a silly face in front of the coat rack, unbelievable!

(Sorry if this was extremely stupid, I couldn't really resist.)
Logged

TopherPirkl
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #11 on: February 06, 2016, 12:30:10 AM »

Really interesting art style. I'm curious to see more!
Logged

Sound Designer | @phantomfreq | Demo reel
Cranktrain
Level 4
****


making gams


View Profile WWW
« Reply #12 on: February 06, 2016, 01:59:33 AM »

I always appreciate when a game project is trying to do something interesting with visuals, so congratulations for trying something new.

I think I'd need to see some high-resolution video where the player is walking around to see whether this particular approach is workable, however.

For example, this screenshot:



The shader being used is 'noisy' in the details. The big difficulty with flattening a 3D scene out into two colours really shows here, you have a repetitive brick-like texture that is effectively indistinguishable from the tree/bush/whatever-that-is in the corner. Perhaps this clears up nicely when the player moves around, and it's high-resolution, but from a few of the screenshots I worry that the visuals might end up looking busy in a way that is a bit painful to the eyes.

Again, I can't say if this is a big problem right now, it may depend on the scene, but introducing a few more colours may clear things up tremendously. You could keep these colours in a subdued, low-saturation, (perhaps pastel) range and the blending of 3D geometry would be sorted out nicely. A bonus is that then you'd also sort out another potential problem, which is that after 10 minutes the game visuals wouldn't start to seem tired/monochrome, and help you establish more of a variety in the environments.

Certainly an interesting direction being taken though.
Logged

ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #13 on: February 06, 2016, 09:50:21 PM »

Really interesting art style. I'm curious to see more!

Thanks, I hope to continue sharing!

I always appreciate when a game project is trying to do something interesting with visuals, so congratulations for trying something new.

I think I'd need to see some high-resolution video where the player is walking around to see whether this particular approach is workable, however.

For example, this screenshot:



The shader being used is 'noisy' in the details. The big difficulty with flattening a 3D scene out into two colours really shows here, you have a repetitive brick-like texture that is effectively indistinguishable from the tree/bush/whatever-that-is in the corner. Perhaps this clears up nicely when the player moves around, and it's high-resolution, but from a few of the screenshots I worry that the visuals might end up looking busy in a way that is a bit painful to the eyes.

Again, I can't say if this is a big problem right now, it may depend on the scene, but introducing a few more colours may clear things up tremendously. You could keep these colours in a subdued, low-saturation, (perhaps pastel) range and the blending of 3D geometry would be sorted out nicely. A bonus is that then you'd also sort out another potential problem, which is that after 10 minutes the game visuals wouldn't start to seem tired/monochrome, and help you establish more of a variety in the environments.

Certainly an interesting direction being taken though.

Thanks a lot for the thoughtful feedback, it's appreciated. I agree with you that it's difficult to distinguish the trees and brick. In motion, with the wind blowing and the player moving, they do separate more noticeably but maybe not perfectly. Even so, I have considered increasing the color palette for all the reasons you've mentioned, and I'm not opposed to it if it works. So I'll probably do some more experimenting in this regard.

Logged

Poya
Level 1
*



View Profile WWW
« Reply #14 on: February 07, 2016, 04:20:06 AM »

I admit, for a second when I started the video I thought I was looking at some processed video. I think the movement of the sign more than anything was life-like. Good effort!
Logged

ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #15 on: February 08, 2016, 09:51:57 PM »

I admit, for a second when I started the video I thought I was looking at some processed video. I think the movement of the sign more than anything was life-like. Good effort!

Haha, I'm glad to hear it! It's always nice to know someone is paying attention to the small details.
Logged

ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #16 on: February 11, 2016, 09:30:37 PM »

Media update!



I have a new website at www.participantneeded.com, check it out!

Because of my time spent on the site, I don't have as much to talk about with respect to the game's content, but I have finished up a solid system for displaying subtitles (you can find it in action on my Twitter feed, and I'm currently working on a new room.
Logged

ryan_jacob
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #17 on: February 27, 2016, 09:29:42 PM »

Haven't updated in a while, been busy with some other things, but I've posted a few gifs on Twitter of some work in progress. I suppose I can share them here!

I've got a simple title screen:



And I have a decent foundation for a subtitle system (this gif is pretty boring.. but this is a devlog right?):

Logged

Pages: [1]
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic