Snowconesolid Productions - September 2020 Recap

Here is a full recap of everything from Snowconesolid Productions for the month of September 2020.

🟢 [Game Release] - The Debug™ Available now on itch.

https://snowconesolid.itch.io/thedebug

🟢 [Event] - The First Samer Direct was held.

http://snowconesolidwho.blogspot.com/2020/09/samer-direct-1-full-recap-samer-hills.html

🟢 [Announcement] - Samer Hills™ series revealed.

(See more information in the Samer Direct link)

🟢 [Announcement] - Samer Hills Toxic Turtle game revealed.

(See more information in the Samer Direct link or check out The Debug to learn more)

🟢 [Branding Update] - Classic logo gets a new and improved HD makeover.

http://snowconesolidwho.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-iconic-samer-smiling-face-logo-gets.html

And now, it's time to welcome "Spooky" season! My favorite time of the year. I'm really looking forward to the next coming months and excited to be working on games again. What will October bring? Keep checking back for more news & updates to find out!

Virtual Snowconesolid Avatar Version 2!

Not too long ago I introduce one of my newest character models Virtual Samer Khatib as well as a complete "Making Of" blog post which covered the full process of how I created the character from start to finish. In my more recent blog posts such as this one and this one I have been talking about a new game project as well as sharing a ton of early screenshots from the games development. In the blog posts I talk about focusing on quality texturing and modeling this time around. I also mentioned that I want to use my new Samer Khatib character model for the new project.

After focusing a lot of time on the new game environment, I looked at my character model and began to notice how out of place and inconsistent he was with the rest of the scene. After all, I did originally just do a very basic texture job on the original character model which only included solid colors. So I decided to go back to the character model and re-work a lot of areas that could be better or improved. 

Before showing the new updated version of Virtual Samer Khatib here are some screenshots of what version 1 looked like:

Blender Render

In Unity Engine

Boxers model

Clothes model

So just simple basic clothing and regular solid colors. I liked it. It still looked good in my opinion. But for the purposes of my new project, I want to be as consistent as possible with the visual art style. I took some time and experimented around with a variety of image textures

until I was able to properly get down a good efficient texturing style that would work out for my model. 

Experimental texturing screenshots:

not final

Virtual Samer Khatib V2:

Originally I was planning on just re-working the textures, but I actually ended up re-reworking almost the entire model and then some. I fixed a lot of clunky areas in the model, added new geometry and adjusted verts to give the model's body a more defined shape, the hair has been adjusted and isn't as flat, I modeled new clothes with multiple materials for the model, the feet are better, I optimized the model to work better in game and made the entire thing more unified and easier to customize in the future.  Okay, time to stop bragging. Drum roll please....

Alright, here is V2 of Virtual Samer Khatib:

NOTE: This is without any lighting or post fx in Unity Engine

V2 Boxers outfit

V2 Striped pajamas outfit (also made color variants of this.)

V2 Badass leather jacket outfit (was originally suppose to be suit/tux. I might ditch the bow-tie. I guess it can be both a suit and a leather outfit really)

I spent waaay more time on re-working the new and improved model than I wanted to but it was very well worth it and i'm glad I did take the time to improve upon the original model. I am very happy with the results. This is a very nice update to the original character model and I might continue updating him even further in future projects as well.

More soon!

May Updates+ cool NEW game progress + New Screens

     At the end of April I mentioned that I was working on a new game project and showed some early screenshots. I have made a lot of progress since then and the project is shaping up very nicely. I am working on it each day, little by little, polygon by polygon. Haven't decided on a name for it yet and I don't have any gameplay or trailer to show at the moment but I am very proud of what I have so far. Mostly, I am very proud of the modeling and texturing, the overall quality and work I am putting in this project is a major step-up from my previous game Potato Thriller (which has been out for over a year now, originally released April 1st 2016) 

With that said, I have really changed over the last year as a game developer. I took a step back for a while, looked at the many design flaws Potato Thriller had as well as many of my older games. I sharpened my skills as a developer and 3d artist, learned new skills and am becoming more serious as a game developer. I love creating and putting my work out there but I want to get better and better each time I do it. I want to continue improving my skills so that I can create more well built games. I have said this many times, but I am very passionate about being a games developer and it is an art form that has consumed years of my life now. It is just something that I keep coming back to. Something that I want to master. 

Alright, that was kind of an out of place random rant that was kind of all over the place. I always seem to do that in a lot of my blog posts for some reason. (I feel like I have said almost the same things in older blog posts also.) Anyway, quality. Quality is my primary focus on this new game project (and is something I want to always achieve in my future titles as well as everything else I do). I really want to make this game perfect and fun. Every aspect of it needs to be good quality. The graphics, the gameplay, the atmosphere, the entire experience! I want to create a game that is unique and nothing like any of my previous work. 

Game Updates?

     Umm.. I don't really feel like typing anymore. Kinda wasted this post being all "I am so passionate about games! I respect the art form!" So, uh yeah.. i'm working really hard on my new game. Here is a bunch of screenshots from development. BAM!

Also, you can use a FREAKEN COAT HANGER as a weapon in game! I am the very first game developer to ever do this! (I think I am at least)

The game will be some kind of a bizarre/horror-ish experience or something like that. I don't know man. I'm still working on it. 

MORE UPDATES SOON!

Here's the plan... (Next Steam Greenlight campaign)

     I have been making excellent progress on my next game project and I gotta say, I have never been so excited about anything I have ever made as much as I am for this new game. Anyway, I don't want to start rambling on about how much of a good job I did on my new project. That doesn't mean anything at all. Instead of going on and on about how great I think my game is - I need to actually focus more on completing it and getting it out there. Gotta tone down that ego. Sheesh!

     Anyway, in all seriousness, yes I have been making excellent progress on the game however, it is no where near complete. It's not even close to where I want it to be yet. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I am taking my time with this one and polishing it up in every area as much as I can. Polish and quality is something I have been talking a lot about lately here on the blog and it is something that I am really stressing and pushing into the next game. I want the game to be as good as I possibly can make it.

      As much as I am proud of my first Steam release Potato Thriller. This game will be nothing like Potato Thriller in anyway. Not even close. And I don't want it to be like Potato Thriller actually. As I said in an older blog post, I have grown and matured a lot since the release of Potato Thriller and really have learned and become more skilled as a game developer. I want this next project to show that. I am capable of more Potato Thriller type games. 

I know I often say this, but I will try to say this in the least braggiest way as possible - This is going to be the most polished thing I have ever worked on. Damn! that still came across as egotistical... Honestly though, I am just really excited about the work I have put into this project and I keep trying to show that in the blog updates but it comes across as some looser indie developer who is really full of himself. But it really is not my intention to come across like that. 

Next game has dev's name in the title... Say's he doesn't want to 

come off as egotistical...

     The reason I want to share this next game so bad is because when I originally released Potato Thriller, sure it had some fans but, it also had a lot of other people who criticized it harshly. 

And I have said this before, but I always accept all forms of criticism. I have nothing against negative criticism at all. I actually even agree with most of the criticism I got over Potato Thriller and this is really one of the main reasons as to why I am trying to improve and show that with my next game. I feel like I kind of got this image as some kind of "hack dev" or some cheap indie dev who doesn't care about the quality of their games and just puts stuff out to make a quick buck. That is not me at all. I care so much about the quality that goes into my games. Hopefully I can do that with my next game. And I am really excited to get it out there and share it with the world. I love video games so much and respect them as the wonderful art form that they are. I'm very passionate about games. It's cheesy I know.

WOOOOW character has different uniforms built in!

     This game will definitely be a 2017 release. But hopefully early 2017. I had originally planned on launching the Greenlight campaign on Steam for this game by the middle of the month if I reached a certain point in the games development. Unfortunately that won't be happening. So here's the plan (for now) - I am not that far off from hitting that "certain point" in the games development. What I want to do is get more done. My goal is to try launching the Steam Greenlight campaign by the end of this month and then hopefully finish and release the game early 2017. No promises just yet. Might not happen. But that is what I am aiming for and working hard to stay on my schedule. In the meantime there will probably be less blog post and updates but I will come back on here and share more whenever I get a chance to do so! If I launch my Greenlight campaign before the end of this month then I will definitely post an update here on the blog.

Until then, this might be the final post of 2016. If it is, I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday break. Spend time with your families, play some video games! See you in 2017!

Things are gonna get weird...

"Hide-n-Seek Winter" is finally finished, Releases tomorrow!

      Wow, I can't believe we are already in March! Sorry for the lack of updates here. There was nothing really else for me to show, or I guess I didn't really want to show any more screens or anything because I have been spending the rest of time since my last post finishing up the game, adding a little extra polish, working out some features I forgot to add like a save system, etc.

So I haven't updated in a couple days but I have been working on it non-stop. Or whenever I had a chance to.

As you might know from my previous updates, I originally planned on releasing this game early February and then that eventually led to releasing it at the end of February, and I promised to release it before the end of February. But as usual, things never go as planned. I had run into some issues, I needed to add some extra features and I needed to work on the final game. Also, I haven't had as much free time to work on this project for the past couple days because of life and other non game dev stuff. So I decided I needed a little extra time, just a little, to really finalize my game because there is no point in releasing a broken or unfinished game right?

Anyway, I have good news. Finally, after taking the extra time I needed, I finally finished the game. It feels great! This has been probably my biggest and most serious game project yet and I ran into a lot of frustration while building it, for the most part it was smooth though. But finally, its done and I feel really good about it.

you see? Preparing the final builds as we speak. :)

So its done, when are you going to release it?

Actually in a couple of hours. I will release the game March 6th (Tomorrow) sometime in the afternoon or so. Like my previous projects, I am releasing this 100% free. It will be available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Why don't you just release it now if its done?

I'm going to do some final test to make sure everything is working right, (even though I know it is since I tested so many times in frustration) but I have to double check. Also, the main reason I decided to release it tomorrow is because tomorrow is also my birthday (going to be 21, starting to feel old mold). So I want to give you guys a present on my birthday. :)

Ok thats all I have for now. I am really excited and looking forward to finally releasing my new toon game. I will probably post a couple of updates frequently with other stuff up until I release it tomorrow. So stay tuned!

(In case you are wondering, yes this is the update I just posted in my works in progress thread on the unity forums here: Link) So I copied and pasted my own update. But this is an important update for my game so I decided to post here on the blog as well.

I am really looking forward to releasing my game tomorrow! see you soon!

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.

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.