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

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.