The above renders show the cast of my horror adaptation of a new and original Winnie-the-Pooh horror game.
Ever since learning about Winnie-the-Pooh becoming public domain, i've been secretly working on my own horror game adaptation. My game development career has been leading to this point and I feel like i'm the perfect fit and developer for re-imaging and re-creating the legacy of Winnie-the-Pooh.
Coming soon. Samer Khatib's Winnie-the-Pooh. Featuring original characters re-imagined and designs made from scratch. Join Christopher Robin, Piglet, Pooh, and more friends in this upcoming tale of terror.
Render of Winnie-the-Pooh by Samer Khatib
Render of Piglet by Samer Khatib
Render of Christopher Robin by Samer Khatib
More information on my new game project will be shown in the coming days and weeks. Be sure to follow me on Twitter for the latest news and keep an eye on the Snowconesolid Productions Steam and itch store pages as well. Links below.
Snowconeoslid Productions has been in limbo throughout most of 2021. Fast forward to the beginning of October and I finally started to post updates to my Twitter again. I've been busy throughout the year and have been away from the game dev scene for a while. But, that wasn't going to stop me from setting up to relaunch Snowconesolid Productions and return to game development full time. We are going to pick up where we last left off. Creating the Samer Hills game series. Today, I'm proud to announce that Snowconesolid Productions has successfully relaunched and is back in business.
With new branding, an all-new boot-up logo, a new slogan, and just all-around new. You can basically call this "Snowconesolid Productions V2." It's the start of a new chapter for the studio and this blog post will cover the relaunch and give a recap of the announcements from this month.
First, let's get right into the relaunch and check out the new boot logo for Snowconesolid Productions.
Snowconesolid Productions is a low-budget independent studio bringing you daily spooks, scares, & screams fresh from Samer Hills. Creating short novelty horror games & 3D artwork.
Samer Hills is an anthology series of one-off, spooky, self-contained, short, novelty horror-comedy games. Strange & creepy things happen here & you’re invited to experience them! Strange & creepy things happen here & you’re invited to experience them! Enter the ominous, enigmatic world of madness & explore this spooky anthology if you dare… Welcome to Samer Hills!
Warning - Some games/software/applications or other pieces of media from Snowconesolid Productions may contain loud noises, flashing lights, and content that may not be suitable for everyone.
And in case you missed it, leading up to the relaunch there were a few announcements regarding older games and other content from Snowconesolid Productions. Here's a full recap.
⭐️ First, The Samer Khatib Legacy Collection is now available for free and you can get it off itch here:
⭐️ Second, Potato Thriller is now available for free across all platforms it's available on. This includes every version of the game as well. (Steam, itch, Google Play Store)
⭐️ Lastly, my most recent game, "The DeBug". This game has always been free, but I thought I would just throw it in here anyway since it's the perfect game that transitions the studio's focus onto what's to come next and that would be the Samer Hills series.
⭐️ And finally, I'm very pleased to announce that all of my Unity game asset packages are now available for free. And yes, you can use these in your project commercially as well. So, get started on your Unity project today with these free-to-use original 3D assets from Snowconesolid Productions. Ranging from unique character models to silly props. You might find something useful for your project in these game-ready asset packages. Enjoy!
This concludes the recap and relaunch of the studio. Snowconesolid Productions is excited to be back and we look forward to bringing the Samer Hills series to life and creating some spooky new content! Thank you for your support.
If you have been reading this blog over the years or following me on Twitter for a long time you probably know by now how much of a 3D nerd I am and how much I love 3D modeling and computer graphics. You probably know by now that this is a topic I talk about often and how much I especially love to brag about my own 3D graphics, art style, and or other 3d/graphical-related work.
Well, the time has come once again as I write yet another blog post about my cool 3D art style. This blog post will serve as a little preview of what to expect from my upcoming Samer Hills games. One of my biggest goals as a game developer has always been to develop my own unique graphical art style. A graphical style that is a distinctive feature to my games. One that does not look like anyone else's or attempts to replicate the style of a console. A graphical art style that is recognizable and as soon as someone sees it, would be able to tell that it's "A Samer Khatib game". After what feels like forever of development, I eventually finally achieved this "unique" graphical style that I have been wanting to create and ended up calling it the "3D Signature Samer Style" or "3DSSS" for short. This is the style that I will consistently use in all my future and upcoming Samer Hills branded games. I even wrote a post about it not too long ago actually. You can check it out here if interested: Signature Samer Style
Today, I want to talk about and showcase how I can take my newly found art style and effectively blend it with other art styles and or aesthetics. And, the "3DSSS" is designed to be versatile in the sense that it does just work and can blend together really well when mixed with any other style. Moody, atmospheric, horror, retro, bright, colorful, cartoony, etc.
For example, in my upcoming game "Samer Hills Toxic Turtle" (more info & Steam page for this game will be revealed later on) - We are going to go for a "Silent Hill" aesthetic and blend that in throughout that entire game. So, moody, foggy, kind of depressing and atmospheric kind of look. You know, the works. Here are some early example previews:
Toxic Turtle will go for this aesthetic to show that Samer Hills can pull off this moody look. However, this is an example of just one game. Not all Samer Hills games will be foggy, depressing Silent Hill wannabe-looking games. Here are some examples of completely different aesthetic blends that give off completely different tones and moods:
No two Samer Hills games will be the same and I hope to create a wide range of different experiences with each new release. By taking my "3DSSS" and mixing things up, a lot of different graphical styles can be achieved and the possibilities are endless. I can't wait to share more and really get the ball rolling with Samer Hills.
You may disagree but personally, I think it's safe to say that I really got graphics, the lighting, the atmosphere, and the style down. With all that said and done, none of this matters because, in the end, the gameplay is king.
Now, for the really important question. Can I design games that are actually fun and entertaining to play? That's up for you to decide. Thanks for reading and more updates coming soon.
🎇✨🎉 The Samer Khatib Legacy collection celebrates 10 years of Snowconesolid Productions Game Studio and features some of my oldest, earliest and rarest games ever made dating all the way back to 2012. The games featured in this collection were once thought to be forever lost and some have never been seen or played before. Before titles such as Samer Hills, Potato Thriller, and, Giraffe Town - A trail of janky, low quality, and amateur level games were left behind. Dive into the history of Snowconesolid Productions and see how it all started with this retro collection of games by Samer Khatib!
For people who have been following my dev blog since the start, you might be familiar with titles such as Almond Hill, Forest Soup or HideNSeek Winter. These are some of my first 3D games ever developed with the Unity game engine. Before websites like itch.io - I would upload my games to places like Kongregate or directly to my dropbox. Most of my games were only available in Unity's Webplayer format. A build format that created a web playable version of the game. I would do this as opposed to building windows executable versions of the games. Additionally, years ago, I often used dropbox as my main source for hosting my older games. Support for the Unity webplayer was discontinued a long time ago and dropbox was completely changed. I haven't used dropbox in ages. Basically, all my older games have been erased and wiped off the internet because of things like broken webplayers and broken download links. I have made over a dozen different games since starting but only managed to salvage a few older titles.
With The Samer Khatib Legacy Collection, I have restored some of my oldest, earliest and jankiest games ever created and packaged them up into one collection featuring Windows builds for each game.
This rare collection features 5 of the Snowconesolid Productions classics!
Collection Includes:
🔴 (2012) Almond Hill - Your cat Almond has gone missing in a creepy town!
🔴 (2012) Kokoh Gear Meal - Winter is coming. A bear must find food & prepare for hibernation!
🔴 (2012) Moonlight Mountains - Build a rocket ship and head to the moon to rescue the princess!
🔴 (2013) Forest Soup - Hunt for ingredients in an eerie place to make soup for a monster!
🔴 (2014) HideNSeek Winter - Adventure through the infinite snow world to rescue your sister from a demon!
In today's mini direct, we take you behind the scenes to show a glimpse of the secret tech that will be used in upcoming games from Snowconesolid Productions. "Advanced Samer 3D Imaging" or "AS3I" is a process that allows us to render the NEW 3D Signature Samer Style in real-time.
The "3D Signature Samer Style" or "3DSSS" refers to a unique 3D graphical art style that can only be found in works produced by Snowconesolid Productions studio This graphical look has been in development since Giraffe Town was in production & has taken nearly 2 years to perfect.
The goal from the get-go has always been to create a unique signature look that differentiates Snowconesolid Productions games from other games. A style that can't be easily replicated. Esp in real-time. Our secret weapon? The 3DSSS.
Quality. Presentation. The 2 most important principles at Snowconesolid Productions. More than just a graphical look. 3DSSS is a technical marvel. Using AS3I, we are able to render thousands of objects in real-time. The gif below is inaccurate due to compression and having to be optimized in gif format. The scene showcased below runs at a stable 60+fps in real-time.
All upcoming games use AS3I & 3DSSS with the exception of Samer Hills: Toxic Turtle. This game began development in the middle of all this and uses 2.5 Gen Samer Tech (which is a mix of giraffe town style & 3DSSS).
Pre Potato Thriller games: Gen 0
Potato Thriller: Gen 1
Giraffe Town: Gen 2
The Debug: Gen 2.5
Samer Hills Toxic Turtle: Gen 2.5
All other upcoming and new Samer Hills titles & Samer Khatib's labeled games: Gen 3
Did you enjoy this behind the scenes look at the top-secret tech & a tiny glimpse into the future of games from Snowconesolid Productions? Thanks for tuning into today's Samer Mini Direct. Check back soon for more. Lot's of cool things to come!
Some of the information in this blog post is no longer valid or relevant. The "Samer Khatib's" brand has been canceled. Instead, all games published by Snowconesolid Productions going forward will be labeled and or branded as Samer Hills games. For more information on this decision and on the Samer Hills brand, please visit the Samer Hills post here:
//SAMER HILLS URL - COMING SOON
Original post below.
As someone who has been a small-time independent video game developer since 2010 trying to build a brand name, operate a game studio and make a name for myself in the video games industry - there has always been a lack of consistency with my works, how they present themselves, and how I represent myself and my brand. Branding is an interesting topic and it's important for any company or creative individual. It's something that I personally feel like I have overlooked over time or rather, something that took a lot of figuring out over time.
Over the years and especially in recent weeks ever since returning to the indie game dev scene with "The Debug" - I have tossed many new names and labels around. I even announced a new type of branding/label earlier today on Twitter. The "Samer Khatib's" label. And, in typical Samer Khatib fashion, I have taken something that should be simple and turned it into something that is unnecessarily over convoluted. All these different names/labels paired with older names or brands/labels and icons that I came up with from earlier Samer Khatib game development years have made me a developer with more confusing naming and labeling than all of Microsoft's Xbox consoles.
My name is literally everywhere. I always believed that there is no better way to own your own work than to simply just put your name on it. You see a lot of "Samer Khatib" plastered all over the place in all of my works. I know it's obnoxious and you're probably thinking "wow, this guy is really full of himself". It's annoying I know but I swear I'm not trying to be funny and I honestly do have an explanation and reasoning as to why I label everything and overuse my own name.
So, in this blog post, I'm going to explain all the naming, branding, icons, and labels I use as a game developer/studio and explain what everything means.
Brands & Label names:
* "Snowconesolid Productions" - This is the name of the studio. Additionally, sometimes you might see "Samer Khatib (Snowconesolid Productions) LLC". This is also the name of the studio. These names are interchangeable.
Examples of where you would see these appear in my works: At the very start of any of my games, the very first splash screen that will pop up will be the first label. It will just say "Snowconesolid Productions". As for the second label, which is much longer, this is for other things such as copyright of the game or whatever product is.
How it's typically represented in games. Half Snowconesolid Mascot in the center followed by the text Snowconesolid Productions below. You may also see different variations of this logo, but the same design and format.
Here is a recap of the October mini Samer direct event that I originally posted on Twitter.
A new Samer Hills game was announced - Samer Hills Hollow Jack
It will be a night of trick-or-terror as Hollow Jack roams the streets in search of his next victim in this upcoming Halloween special! Introducing "Samer Hills Hollow Jack" - Coming Soon
Coming Soon???
Originally, my plan was to have this new game out by today just in time for Halloween. Unfortunately, the game still needs a little more time. I may have missed my October deadline but, I'm not going to let that get in the way of this project. Not to worry, we WILL celebrate Halloween again.
I can also confirm that this will be the first available game entry in the Samer Hills series. I am excited about this one and can't wait to show more.
What happened to Toxic Turtle, the first Samer Hills announced title? Not to worry, still being developed. In "The Debug" at the end, I've stated that other SH titles may release prior. It was all planned from the start. In the Samer Hills game series, the order does not matter.
Lots of great content is being made at Snowconesolid Productions and I can't wait to reveal more down the road as well as finally release some new games! Keep checking back for more news, updates, and spooky content and have a happy Halloween!
