Announcing "Giraffe Town"

A NEW GAME!?! YES!

Check out the official Steam page here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/941480/Giraffe_Town/

     Hello everyone! I'm back! It's me! Your friendly neighborhood "Samer-Man" (nobody calls me that) aka snowconesolid aka the greatest indie game developer of all time and space! (Everybody calls me that.)

I know. I know. I have been away for a very long time. Away from the indie game dev scene, away from Twitter, away from this blog, away from existence and so on. I just suddenly vanished one day and I am sure many of you thought that I gave up on making games, or I died from a coffee overdose or I died from mountain climbing or I died from all the other possible ways of dying. And I am sure everyone missed me and people would say stuff like: "Man, I wonder whatever happened to that one game developer?" and then your friends would say: "Who are you talking about? What game developer?" and then you would say: "You know, that one awesome game developer. The one who makes all those awesome games." and then your friend would say: "I'm not sure I really follow. Who exactly are you talking about?" and then you would say: "I'm talking about Samer Khatib! Aka Snowconesolid! Aka the greatest game developer of all time and space!" And then your friend would say: "I still have no idea who that is. But I love that guy and his games so much!" and then you would all laugh and feel nostalgic and it would be a good time. I'm sure this has happened. I was missed. My presence was missed. Then out of nowhere... Wait! Who is that mysterious figure walking out from the shadows!? Could it be!? IT'S SAMER! HE'S BACK! I suddenly show up. And I say: "It's okay. No more tears. I have a new game!" Then, a burst of loud cheering of happiness and excitement begins to echo around the world as everyone anticipates the launch of a new Samer Khatib game!

This post is just supposed to be me briefly announcing my new game... I think I went a bit off the rails there. Anyway, yes. Today is a very special day. I am back and I am super excited to be announcing my newest game... *Drum roll*

Giraffe Town

"A giraffe born with slippery feet sets out to find love..."

Coming soon to Steam.

Please visit the official Steam page to see the trailer, screenshots, and more information about the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/941480/Giraffe_Town/

Don't forget to add the game to your wishlist, follow it and tell all your friends and family about it! More information about the game will follow later on in future posts. So be sure to check back here, or the official Steam page and follow me on Twitter here for more updates about my new game.

     Once again, I am extremely excited to finally reveal, share and announce my newest game today. It is a project that I have been working on in silence for nearly 2 years. It is also my next game release since Potato Thriller which, was also originally released about 2 years ago as of this writing. This project also marks my second ever game release on Steam which is a huge milestone and accomplishment for me personally. I am very proud of my work and I can't wait to see what you guys think of it. 

Thank you, everyone, so much for stopping by, checking out the Steam page and for your support which has kept me motivated throughout the years! 

I look forward to releasing Giraffe Town very soon as well as continue making games for many many years to come!

What I have been working on (Announcing my next game project!)

   

 Sorry for the lack of updates. I know it has been a couple weeks since my last post. Of course while I was away from the blog I have been working on something new. My next game project actually. If you follow my twitter you may have seen me post various screenshot over the past couple days.

I'm just going to get into it right away. I would like to announce "Escape Ocean Zero" 

Or at least that is what I call my new game project. Who knows I might change the name later down the road. Anyway the title is not important right now.

It is still very early in development so I won't get into too much details about the project right now (I don't have very much to show anyway) so I will save that for a later post.

I did however already create and animate the main character and even built a small simple prototype that you could play right now in your web browser (Its nothing fancy though.)

Play it here (Link)

So, in this game you run around and shoot stuff with your beach ball cannon. (A gun that shoots out beach balls) Off topic: I do believe that my game will be the first game ever to feature such a type of weapon.

The Beach Ball Cannon: A toy looking gun that fires beach balls...

You play as "Beach ball shooter", the main character of my next game. I actually created this guy a little over a week ago.

Anyway, going to leave off with this and keep the post short. I will have a lot more updates and info on my next project down the road. I am looking forward to showing off some of the actual levels and other characters, etc later on so stay tuned!

I do plan on rapidly developing this game and finishing it fast (maybe like a one month time frame or so). Of course I am also going to really polish it up as well. I already think this might be my best looking game so far (graphically)

Summer is coming up and I think my new project is perfect for it.

Almond-Hill on hold, new Halloween project announcement

     It feels like it has been a long time since I posted any updates here on the blog. Days just fly by. Anyway, as the title says, I am going to put the game project I have been working on since summer break "Almond-Hill : Silent Meow" on hold during the month of October. Do not worry, I am not canceling it and I did not loose interest in finishing it. It is nothing like that at all. This is something I have been planning on doing for some time now actually. I have been hard at work on that project working on it a little bit each day. I know I did not post much updates on my blog here but if you have been following my work in progress thread over at the unity forums you will see how much progress as well as new changes I have made since I last posted here.  So I have been making great progress on that project and I will not let all that work go to waste. I will resume working on Almond-Hill after October. Almond-Hill Silent Meow is a much larger project, it will need a lot more time to complete.

Why stop working on it during October you ask? Well, I love October. Everything about it. The weather, the colorful leaves, etc. Most importantly Halloween, my personal favorite holiday. Anyway, last year was the first time I created and released a quick short horror game for Halloween (The original Almond-Hill game I made). I had a lot of fun working on a project like that and ever since, I have decided to make it a personal tradition of mine to create a short horror game every year and have it finished and released around Halloween. So today, I am announcing a new short horror game project that I will work on and challenge myself to have complete by the end of the month. Since it is October 1st I will start working on it real soon. In other words I really do not have anything to show at the moment. However, be sure to check back often as I will start making progress and posting updates on the project. 

Anyway, that is all the news I have for now. I hope you look forward to see what Halloween short I have planned out and once again I will continue working on Almond-Hill after this month. In the meantime check out my more recent updates for that project over here on unity's forums Almond-Hill Development thread

and enjoy this final in game screenshot I took from Almond-Hill before I stopped working on it.

Missing Cat? A New Almond Hill Game!

Hi everyone.

It is finally time to show you what I have been working on. In my last blog post I mentioned I was working on my next game project. I also mentioned that it would be a horror game. Other than that I did not say much.

Today I am very excited to share a lot of info on my next game project. Since it is E3 week, I guess right now is the best time to finally let this info out. It might be the time for all the big companies to show off their newest games but who says the indies can't also show their new games?

Anyway, getting to the main point.

Everyone, get ready for: "Almond-Hill : Silent Meow"

First of all, yes that is the title of my new horror game and you will understand why later on. Secondly, yes. It is also a new Almond-Hill game. My short "Silent Hill : Shattered Memories" inspired horror game that I originally released back in October for Halloween is back!

Now, for those of you who have heard about or played my original "Almond-Hill" game might be asking "Why are you making another Almond-Hill game?"

There is a lot of reasons why actually. First of all, out of all the other game projects I created, I had the most fun creating "Almond-Hill". I loved experimenting around and putting a horror game together. Also, I might of been goofing off back then, but I really like the simple plot I came up with for the horror title and I want to carry that plot on again in a much more polished game. And last, its because of you (the people who played the first Almond-Hill game). It might not have a huge fan base, but it turns out that the original Almond-Hill game is the most popular game I have released yet. I have noticed that a few people have made youtube videos playing through my game, and I can see the stats here on blogger and most of the blog hits I get is because people come for Almond-Hill or search it. Everyday in my stats the most viewed thing is my Almond-Hill game. Some people liked the game, some people thought it was the worse thing they ever played (can't really blame them since I rushed the project for a Halloween release). Despite that, I believe that this game does have a fan base out there and that is what truly inspired me to create another one.

Anyway, now getting to the good stuff!

I have been using Unity for 2 years now and have a lot of experience with the engine. I released many titles up until now but none of them have been quality, polished or serious attempts at creating a great game. All of that ends. Starting with this new project "Almond-Hill : Silent Meow" and all my future projects I will be working hard and taking serious attempts to create great quality and polished games.

So about the new Almond-Hill?

This new Almond-Hill game is a complete reboot to my original game. Its not an Almond-Hill 2. The new Almond-Hill game will have a completely new town to explore, four new unique original characters, a slightly different story line (which I will get to), much more polished controls and graphics and animations. Everything about the new Almond-Hill game will be fresh and a hundred times better than the original. Also, (sorry to take a shot at Slenderman but) this is not a crappy slenderman game. I want to bring Slenderman up because whenever I see indie developers working on a new horror game, they always only want to make a Slenderman game. It has been done so many times, its just not original or fun. I am working on this project to also encourage developers to try and come up with something original and not Slenderman. If you are an indie developer and want to make horror games be as creative as you want and try something new. Don't get me wrong, if you want to make a Slenderman game that is perfectly fine, esp if its just an experimental project but I believe the indie scene is tired of Slenderman and wants to see something new.

Ok sorry for getting a bit off topic but I feel I had to bring that out for those of you reading.

"Almond-Hill : Silent Meow" Plot and Characters:

You play as Leon Coffeebean (character shown below)

Leon one day gets a phone call from his grandmother Grams Coffeebean (Character shown below)

Grams Coffeebean lives in a small town called "Almond-Hill". She calls her grandson Leon to come over to Almond-Hill so he can help her with a "special search". When Leon arrives at Almond-Hill, he learns that Grams's cat has gone missing. Grams then has Leon explore the town of Almond-Hill in search of her lost cat. Leon eventually finds out that the town of Almond-Hill is haunted and there is someone or something living in the Almond-Hills forest. Because Grams is an old woman, she never leaves her house and that is why she is unaware of the happenings of the town she is living in.

The name of Grams cat is Almond (character shown below)

Almond is the cat you are looking for. This cat is a very special cat as it can walk on two legs and is a loyal feline companion. It is unknown how, when or why Almond has gone missing.


Vehicles in Almond Hill Silent Meow:
The last thing I want to talk about in this project for today is vehicles. Almond-Hill is not going to be GTA or Red Dead Redemption huge obviously as I am a one man team and would never consider taking on a massive project like that, but it will be big enough to drive cars. So yeah you will be able to drive this time around.

For example, you will be able to drive at the very beginning of the game as Leon needs to travel to the town of Almond-Hill.

The first vehicle you will see in game is this "Snowconesolid Transport" Taxi.

And later on in the game you will be able to own your own car. Here is another one of the car models you can get in this new Almond hill game.

Although there wont be many, I am planning on having other vehicles in game as well as a car dealership where you can purchase different cars.

Driving will be a very important aspect of this new Almond-Hill game and I think it will be a really cool feature to make the game a much more unique experience.

Final thoughts: 
My goal for this project is to make a very unique horror game. Something that is different than your average horror game. I plan on creating a stylized horror game with a dark atmosphere and some comedy as well as a unique storyline.

That is all I have for now. I am excited about this project and cant wait to show more progress. Stay tuned to the blog as I post updates on how things are going. I will have more info soon!

Update: 6/12/ 2013
 I forgot to mention one very important thing. The platform this game will be on. I plan on releasing this for PC and Mac. After those releases I might consider going back and porting over to Android  for a mobile version. But for now the game will be for PC and Mac.