Saturday, August 10, 2013

Silent Meow Demo released!


     Just as I promised yesterday, today I released the very first playable demo for "Almond-Hill : Silent Meow". My latest horror game project. This demo is actually the very beginning of the game which takes place in the Almond-Hill forest. You play as Leon Coffeebean who is equipped with only a flashlight and begin searching for your cat Almond. I do not want to say to much about the story because you will find out about it yourself as you play. The demo is pretty short but I hope you enjoy it and it keeps you wanting more after playing it. I created some pretty cool cinematics (I think they are cool at least) for this part of the game to tell the story in a much better way.

The menu screen you see below is just for the demo and the actual game menu will be much more polished for the final game which won't look anything like this.




Anyway, here is the first playable demo for Silent Meow. I hope you have fun. Also, any comments, thoughts/feedback about the game so far is welcome. Actually, your feedback can help me make it better.


Play Demo Here!


Keep in mind that this is only the opening of the game. After this part of the game, the gameplay will switch completely because the new main character Detective Pekoe will take lead role and the players will play as him from that point on. The Almond-Hill forest is only one location in the game so don't get the idea that the entire game will take place in a dark spooky foggy forest. There will be a variety of other locations in game.

Thats all for now. I can't wait to have more work done on the project and I look forward to posting more news and updates as I create it. So stay tuned!

Friday, August 9, 2013

New main character, First demo coming tomorrow

Hey there everyone!

For once here is an update that isn't weeks after the last one. As I said in my previous post and in my WIP thread on the unity forums, there is going to be a new main character for Almond-Hill Silent Meow. Today I was able to finish the new main character so its reveal time!

Here is the new main character for Almond-Hill : Silent Meow


This is Special detective Pekoe Tea Leaf. Detective Pekoe has been sent to the town of Almond-Hill to investigate a recent murder and the mysterious town itself. He might not be the best agent for this job but he has style and gets things done. The Agency did not give Detective pekoe a handgun because he has terrible aiming and failed the target shooting test. But all in all, he is a good at what he does. Also, he prefers tea over coffee.

And he has blue hair because I wanted to make a game where the main character has light blue cool blue hair.

I hope you are excited to play as detective Pekoe in the game.

Speaking of playing, I also want to say that I will be releasing the first demo of Almond-Hill : Silent Meow tomorrow. The demo I will be putting up is the beginning/opening of the game. In the beginning of the game you play as Leon Coffeebean so don't expect to play as detective Pekoe tomorrow. But don't worry, he comes into the game later on. He is the new main character after all.

Anyway, I am excited to have something playable out soon and hope to hear some feedback.
See ya tomorrow on the blog!

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Teaser Trailer, game changes, playable demo soon

     It has been a while since I posted here on the blog. As usual, sorry for the lack of updates. I did mention that I would be posting more about major updates about my Almond-Hill project here on the blog though and today I talk about some major changes I am making to the project and also reveal the first teaser trailer of the game.

I usually post updates about the game in my work in progress thread on the unity forums here and often they are smaller updates about the game. If you have seen my posts on the unity forums then you might have already seen the trailer I put up a little earlier.  Also, if you have been following my WIP thread on the unity forums you may have noticed that I am constantly changing the game and keep adding and removing from it whatever I see fits the game better. If you haven't checked out my recent posts on my WIP thread that's alright because I will be talking about all these changes and what not in this blog entry.

Lets start off with the first trailer for the game for those who have not seen it yet.
It is a very short trailer and it does not show anything at all really. I would love to show some more later on and I will have other trailers up as soon as I get more done in the project. I hope for now that this trailer gets you excited.

Today, what I really want to discuss is the changes I have been making to the game. After creating so many different things for the game like characters, systems such as traps and what not I ended up deciding not including them in the actual game at all.

Removing unnecessary systems from gameplay
Those of you who have seen my updates in my WIP thread are familiar with the various systems I came up with. I have made a traps system for capturing ghosts, a potions systems for using different abilities, a coin system for buying things in game and other things. I even have some videos up demonstrating these systems and they work great. Having all these cool systems would of greatly contributed to the gameplay and made this a very unique horror game. So why have I decided to remove all of them? Its because I think that in the long run, the final game would be much better without them. That is exactly my goal with this project. I want to have a great game at the end. I said this many times before but this game project is different from all my previous ones. This one is serious. I am considering this my first "professional" game project (even though I am still no professional)

Removing and replacing characters
Ok this next one is important. When I first started this project I revealed the character Leon Coffeebean. I said he would be the main character for this new Almond Hill game. After doing a lot of thinking and planning I decided that Leon is no longer going to be the main character. There is going to be a new main character and I will be revealing and talking more about him soon once I finish him. If you watched the trailer I just put up you saw some gameplay with Leon Coffeebean. I am not taking Leon Coffeebean out of the game. As a matter of fact he is a very important part of the game and its storyline. You do get to play as Leon in the game but not the entire game. Leon still serves as the same character, the grandson of Grams Coffeebean. Sent out to search for their missing cat named Almond. Aside from replacing Leon with a new main character, I also decided to take out those ghost characters I revealed. They will no longer be in the game because they serve no purpose to the storyline.

Changed Storyline:
I will admit, when I first started this project I had a vision for what I was going to do with it but it was not very clear. I did not fully know how I wanted this game to play out. I just started making all of these things like systems, characters, etc and said that they were going to be part of the game somehow. As I began to actually develop the game I started realizing more and more how I wanted the game to play out. So I started changing everything I was going to do with my original vision for the game. Now I know exactly how the entire game will play out and what I want it to be. I have greatly modified the storyline to fit the changes I have made. It is still about searching for your missing cat named Almond but, it is also about other things. There is a lot more to the plot of the game now. If its one thing I want this game to be great for it would be for its storyline and characters (ok thats two things). The storyline is pretty crazy now and it has many twists. I think it will truly separate this game from other horror games making it very unique.

Gameplay:
I said many things about gameplay. I know how the levels will play out like and I can't really explain the gameplay to well because gameplay might change throughout the game often. I think having a variety of different gameplay will make this a much more unique experience. So I can't really say much but I hope to soon show you what I mean in the future.




Playable demo coming soon
Finally, I just want to say that I will be putting up the very beginning of Almond Hill Silent Meow real soon as a playable demo. I don't have an exact date for when I will be putting it up, but definitely sometime soon. I hope you look forward to it.

I am having a great time creating this game and am very excited about it.
Please check out my WIP thread on the unity forums here and my blog for more news and updates.