Hide-n-Seek winter changes + new character

Hey everyone.

So last week I posted an update here on the blog for my short upcoming toon game project "Hide-n-Seek Winter". I said that I was wrapping up the game and that was going to be the final week of development for it. Now here we are the week after and I am not finished like I planned I was going to be. Last week I was literally working on the final level of the game and I should of been done by now. So why it the game not finished you ask? Well, while working on the final level I had some new ideas pop up in my head for this game and I really liked them so I decided that I want to make changes to "Hide-n-Seek Winter". Im going with a different direction with the storyline, actually I have come up with an entirely new storyline for this project and I think it fits better with this game project and my game design style than the original storyline I had come up with. For my new storyline I needed to incorporate a third character. (Originally I only had two in the game)

My new original character that will be appearing in "Hide-n-Seek Winter", the "Hiding Demon"

Character info:
The hiding demon is a very toony, stylized demon type character with a lot of personality. He is known as the king of the game hide and seek because he cleverly hides in various areas when playing. He doesn't like fish because he had a bad childhood experience while on a fishing trip with his father. He can perform various tricks such as grow or shrink his body parts such as his head or hands.The hiding demon lives in the "Infinite snow world" (where the game takes place) and is the main villain of "Hide-n-Seek Winter".

As I was about to finish up developing the game there was something bothering me. I think it turned out great and everything and felt it was a major step up for me compared to my previous games but also I felt like the game was missing something. Something to make it feel more alive, something to give it personality. So I came up with the idea for this character "The hiding demon". I wanted to make a character that is a villain of the story but at the same time a villain that players will like and find enjoyable.To make this character feel really alive I wanted to make his face always have a very exaggerated silly expression on it. I also focused a lot on this characters body expressions and created a ton animations for him that express his personality which you will see in the final game.

I recently finished setting him up in the unity engine with playmaker. Here is how his FSM looks which acts like an animation graph for this character model.

I took a screenshot of this because of how crazy it looked when I finished it. Although it looks like a lot, messy and complex, this was actually very easy to set up with playmaker and is very organized. It is much simpler than it looks. All I am doing here is controlling his different animation states.

Storyline stuff:

I also felt like the original storyline I had come up with for this game project didn't really fit too well after I was about to finish up the game. Originally, Choco and Frosty (the characters of the game) where going to hit by a car. Choco then would wake up in this mysterious place and begin searching for his sister. That is what the storyline was going to be. Kind of dark with a little bit of mystery. Then I decided, since I am making a toon game, I want to make the storyline a little more light hearted and kind of more funny than serious. I wanted it to be kind of like how an episode of a cartoon show is like.

The new storyline of the game:
After playing a game of hide and seek, little sister Frosty compliments her big brother Choco by telling him that he is the greatest hide and seek player ever. After saying this, the "Hiding Demon" suddenly appears and refuses to believe that choco is the greatest hide and seek player ever. The hiding demon then kidnaps Choco's little sister and disappears. The hiding demon tells Choco to meet him at the frozen pond in the "Infinite Snow World", a strange alternate dimension world where it snows forever. In order for Choco to rescue his little sister, he must defeat the hiding demon in a game of hide and seek.

Its a silly game but I really like where I am going with it and the storyline and am having a lot of fun developing it. Although it needs a bit more time I am glad I decided to make changes to this game.

This is a short delay, I still plan on finishing and releasing this game before the end of Feburary (this month). I am looking forward to finishing it. Expect it to be out soon!

Thats all for now.
Be sure to also check out my work in progress thread over at the unity forums right here Unity community

Big changes being made to Almond-Hill Silent Meow, stealth gameplay

     Hey everyone. Just as the title suggests, I am making some major changes to my current horror game project. It's no surprise that I am making even more major changes to the game. I have been making "major changes" to the game ever since I started the project. But of course this is something completely normal to do during the development time of any game project. For me, I find it really interesting to look back at how the game was when it first started in its development phase to see how much has changed as more progress is made over time. At this point, I think I have made changes to almost everything in the game. I will admit, the game I am working on now is not even close to the original vision I had for it when I first started. But this is better, I like what I have planned for this project and I think all these changes I am making are for the better.

Anyway, enough rambling. Let me talk about the actual changes I have decided to make. If you are following my work in progress thread over at the unity forums right here  you might have already read my latest update on the game and know the changes I am making but if you did not, I am going to talk about them right here.

Remember that demo I released a couple weeks ago? (In the blog post below this one). Well, that part of the game never happened. I am completely removing that part of the game I released as a demo because it no longer fits in with the games new plot I have come up with. If you played the demo you know that the character Leon Coffeebean is killed by this mysterious masked villain who is after Almond the cat. This was suppose to be the opening that starts the game off and begins the main story. Now with the changes I have decided to make, none of that stuff ever happened. I am actually removing the main villain character completely from the game because there is no longer a main villain. (The masked man that kills Leon in the demo)

Leon Coffeebean is never murdered. As a matter of fact, Leon Coffeebean now has probably one of the most important roles in the game and its new plot.

The new plot:
Leon Coffeebean teams up with Detective Pekoe to search for his lost cat Almond. Leon Coffeebean guides Detective Pekoe (you the player) to various places around the town of Almond-Hill. The places Leon takes Detective Pekoe are places Leon believes his cat Almond may have went to. However, the reason Leon guides Detective Pekoe to check out these places instead of checking them out himself is because Leon is afraid to enter any of these places himself. This is the reason why he asks Detective Pekoe to help him out.

Ok, enough talk about game changes. Now I will discuss what you can expect from gameplay.

When making a game I realized almost nothing ever goes as planned. You come up with this idea and then you say I am going to put this in my game. That is not how it works. Well for me at least it does not work like that. I try putting in what I planned at first and then, while I am actually creating the level or putting it together I do other things. I come up with different ideas and change things. I will do this instead of what I originally thought of. Anyway, this is what happened to me when I was working on a level yesterday. I was doing something I was planning on doing then I don't know what happened and all of the the sudden I was trying to work out stealth game mechanics. And this is a good thing, I think because I like the new ideas I thought of.

Gameplay and Stealth
So with all that said, there is going to be this stealth element added into the game. It is a horror stealth game but at the same time unique where it doesn't feel like a full out stealth game because it has other things mixed in with it. Anyway, to add in this stealth type gameplay I am working on new characters/enemies. I will try and create different enemies with different abilities for each level to keep the game fresh throughout. Earlier today I revealed the first new character/enemy that you will encounter early on in the game.

This is Patrol Doll

She is this ghostly character that shoots out these yellow beams of light from her eyes. These yellow beams represent her line of sight and if you are in her line of sight during the game you will be sent to a room called "The Feeding Room". When in this room you have ten seconds to find an exit or else a mysterious beast will feast on you. There is usually more than one patrol doll scouting the area. There is no way to defeat this character so the best thing to do is avoid her by sneaking past.


That is all I have for today's post. I think Almond-Hill is turning out great despite all the changes I am making and I can't wait to show even more in the future.