Blending Styles (Samer Hills, Art and, Aesthetics)

     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.

Not good at having an online presence

     As usual, here is another late overdue blog update. The last few posts I made have been art and game design/development related which is really the whole point of this blog I guess. I mean that's why I started this whole thing to begin with. To talk about game design and share my works of "art". This post is kind of different though. I've been doing this indie game developer thing for a while now. Years actually. And I don't know what it is, but I feel like I haven't been doing it right. The main thing especially is communicating. Sure, I have this blog that I post updates on every once in a while to share what i'm working on, or talk about video game design or just have some kind of presence online. But, it just doesn't seem to be really doing it. After releasing "Potato Thriller" (which was my first commercial game) I felt like I had to really go back and pursue this indie developer journey more seriously. Learn more, improve myself, build up my skills to produce better quality and more polished games and so on. And I have been doing that. It feels like I have been working on improving my game developing skills forever now.

     I haven't released anything at all since Potato Thriller as of this post because I have been spending so much time reinventing my skill set. But it isn't enough. Going back to the communication thing, I feel like I have been terrible at communicating. I have a YouTube channel, but I barely ever use it and when I do, I just post some random shitty weird animation I pieced together. 90% of the content on my YouTube channel makes absolutely no sense at all. I have two twitter accounts, my main one which I occasionally use and my "productions" account which I made to exclusively just self promote my work, my games, art and brand or whatever. You know, like those company/studio accounts that the big boys have to self promote their brand. I thought, "i'm a game developer, I make stuff, I should make an account to promote my own brand!" - I barely ever even look at that account.

     I don't know. I'm just not good at having an online presence. Not good at doing PR stuff or whatever. You know what I mean. And I see so many other people who are just so naturally good at having an online presence. It's like woah! These people are so much cooler than me. I don't know how people do it but, it's impressive for sure. I applaud those who can pull it off. It's hard to have an online presence and communicate with people. Like, it takes some real talent and skill to manage. Social media is hard! I'm not an old man or anything. Age 25 as of this post. But I am just so naturally bad at social media. But then again, maybe that's because I spend all of my time dedicated to working on my game projects. But sometimes it just makes you so out of touch man! Game developing. It's a lonely and cold thing.

      I'm not really sure where i'm going with this blog post. It's kind of all over the place. Just a rant about myself. But I do want to reinvent myself. Or at least try to be better at the whole online presence thing. I really need to reinvent how I communicate, use twitter, YouTube this blog. YouTube especially, that's a big one. It definitely is the best and most efficient way to share, get info out and communicate with your audience. I mean, I don't even have a freaking comments section on my blog. I get daily page views and visits but I don't know what people are saying. I can't interact with anyone on here. I mean I can. I can just add comments, but it's just different from a comments section on YouTube. So I really want to get into YouTube and start using that as my main platform of communicating, sharing updates and rants and whatever. And I know, I think I have said "I want to get into YouTube" like a hundred times on this blog throughout the years and never really follow through. I guess blogging is just easier and quicker than filming a video, editing and uploading. But I want to do it! I might go back and clean up my current YouTube channel or just start a new one entirely to have a fresh start. I would still post updates here on the blog as well of course.

     Anyway, sorry for the lengthy post that kept jumping around. Kind of confusing rant I suppose. It's different from what I normally talk about here on the blog. I'm not sure if this was even really worth posting. But I already typed it, so why not.

     As for new projects, as mentioned many times already in previous posts, I am working on multiple new game projects and I still believe that 2018 is going to be a great year. I have so much new content I want to get out there and my new games are a major step up from anything else I have ever developed. I'm excited to continue creating games and sharing them. My next game will probably be announced and have an official Steam store game page within the coming weeks. I'll definitely keep you guys posted!

My garden gnomes!

Today I created a small 3d scene and this garden gnome. The gnomes carried out their dark ritual...

Honest post. I don't know what i'm doing... learning, progress...

     Happy 4th of July everyone! I'm a day late I know. Anyway, I always try to at least get 2-3 blog posts out a month (sometimes I only get one) so the blog doesn't have that abandoned feeling to it. There is nothing new with me. As usual, I am still working on my next game. Just grinding day by day. Some days I make really good progress and other days I make no progress at all or get stuck on something for a couple of days.

I mentioned this before but, "Potato Thriller" was the last game I published and then I started working on my next title (which is my current project). So it has been over a full year since I put anything new out there. Part of me is disappointed with myself because I am taking so long to make something new and at the same time I feel like this is better because I am making an overall better quality game with more polish. I have been doing a lot of research and learning over the year and improving myself as a game developer to deliver the best content I could because I really don't want to rush a project and put out something just for the sake of putting something out.

I have had ups and downs with the current project I am working on and throughout this year. It has been kind of a confusing journey so far because one second I would say I am working on a certain project and then the next second I would lose motivation and say I am working on a smaller project or something completely different then switch back to the other project and so on and just cause a bunch of confusion for myself and on the blog. It can be hard to stay motivated and attempt to be creative or create something everyday as a game developer and I am sure many other developers, artist, content creators, etc can relate. But, I always find myself eventually coming back and putting in the hours because of my passion for creation.

As I have been doing a lot of learning and improving over the year I have also been working on this very abstract game project originally named "Samer Hills" at the same time. This is the project that I was referring to that has been giving me ups and downs and causing me headaches. I feel like I have been saying something different about this project whenever I talk about it on the blog. I constantly change its name and say it's going to be this or that. So just to be completely honest, I sometimes have no idea what I am doing or what I want to do. Often I can't make up my mind about something and I lose motivation (I know I already said that) but it's such a common thing and I think we all have those days sometimes. Personally, something that I want to stop doing is coming up with release dates or setting deadlines for my own projects. I feel like this is something that contributes to making me lose motivation to finish something and it would just add in stress because I feel like I would need to keep my promise and meet that deadline. I know many people actually use this method of setting deadlines for themselves and it actually keeps them on track, but for me it just doesn't work. I hate when I say something like "I'm working on a new game and I will release it in a month from now" or "My new game comes out July 17th" and then I end up missing my deadline so I come back on here and say that I will have it out by [insert new promised date here]. It just doesn't work out for me. I've learned my lesson. And i'm not just specifically talking about my game projects but everything. YouTube for example, I make a "developer video update" after months of no activity and say that I will do daily video updates each week or each month and then I just kind of disappear from my YouTube channel for a long period of time. From now on I won't set dates or promise to have something out at a certain time. Whenever I finish something i'll simply just put it out. Or if i'm super close to finishing something and am really confident that I will have it out by a certain time then I will definitely set a deadline for myself because I know for sure that I would be able to reach it in time. Other than that, I just don't want to specify certain dates or make promises.

Anyway, sorry to get off topic. I know I am rambling on now but I just wanted to make an honest blog post and talk about some things I have had on my mind. As for the actual game project (formerly known as Samer Hills) I am still working on it. Slowly making progress. Constantly making changes and trying to decide how the game will play out in the end. I still have a lot to do but pretty much this next game will be my biggest game. I want to put in all my ideas into it and just make something really unique to put out there in the indie gaming scene. This next project will be my ultimate masterpiece! ...that is if I ever finish it of course.

I don't really have anything to show at the moment but for the past couple weeks I have mainly been working on building mechanics for the game such as Enemy ai's and weapons. I can confirm 2 things that will be in my next game. First, Nosey Nose enemies (from Potato Thriller) will be back and second, the toilet plunger will also be back as a usable weapon. Not only that, it will be the strongest weapon in the game and deals the most damage.

Here are a bunch of screenshots from prototype levels and development.

I'm going to end the blog post here for now. Thanks for reading. Bye!