"Forest Soup" is my short horror game. Releases real soon.

    

     Hello again everyone.
11 days ago I announced that I put  my horror game project "Almond-Hill : Silent Meow" on hold so that I can begin working on my new short horror game project for Halloween. Since that last post I have vanished from my blog and even the Unity forums. On that day I began working on my new short horror game project right away. 11 days later I have made amazing progress and have already done so much for my new short horror project. It was hard for me to stay away from my blog and not reveal anything about the game at all. So it feels like I have been working on this short horror game project in secret.

However, today is the day I finally reveal my short game project and discuss the details. I even already created a short teaser trailer for the game.

So lets just start with the trailer have a look for yourself.

My new short horror game is called "Forest Soup" as you can see by the above image. I plan on having it fully complete and released by the end of this month just in time for Halloween. It will be released for PC/Linux and Mac completely for free.

The storyline I came up with is simple and kind of silly but it works for me.

Story: "Forest Soup" is a game about this boy named Oliver OliveTree and his magical flying pet creature named Fogo. Oliver and Fogo become hungry as the day nears its end. The two characters decide to make forest soup for dinner, a legendary soup that has a taste that is out of this world. The two eventually realize that they do not have the ingredients to make this soup. Fogo tells Oliver that all the ingredients can be found at a place called "Black Cloud Island". Fogo takes Oliver to the entrance of the island where the game begins. Take the role of Oliver OliveTree and skydive down below to this mysterious place called "Black Cloud Island"  in search of the ingredients for the so called Forest Soup.

I know what your thinking but yes this game is a horror game despite its storyline. :)
I was somewhat inspired by The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword to create this game (A personal favorite wii game of mine and im sure a lot of other people to).


Characters:
Oliver OliveTree: The main character for the game. He can skydive and even poses a unique inflatable hat!

Fogo: Oliver's magical flying creature that lives above the clouds. Fogo is a unique creature that cannot travel below the clouds because his magic flying ability is powered by clouds. If he goes below the clouds he will crash down below.

Like my Almond-Hill Silent Meow project, I am developing this game with Unity Playmaker. And Like all my previous games I am working on this project solo.



My goal with this short game project is the same as my goal with my Almond-Hill project. That is, create a unique horror game that is not just another slenderman game. This game will be truly unique.

Feels good to finally show what I was working on since the first day of October. I can't wait until I finish it and have it out. Once again the game will be fully complete and released for free by the end of this month so stay tuned.

Thats all I have for now. More updates real soon.

Missing Cat? A New Almond Hill Game!

Hi everyone.

It is finally time to show you what I have been working on. In my last blog post I mentioned I was working on my next game project. I also mentioned that it would be a horror game. Other than that I did not say much.

Today I am very excited to share a lot of info on my next game project. Since it is E3 week, I guess right now is the best time to finally let this info out. It might be the time for all the big companies to show off their newest games but who says the indies can't also show their new games?

Anyway, getting to the main point.

Everyone, get ready for: "Almond-Hill : Silent Meow"

First of all, yes that is the title of my new horror game and you will understand why later on. Secondly, yes. It is also a new Almond-Hill game. My short "Silent Hill : Shattered Memories" inspired horror game that I originally released back in October for Halloween is back!

Now, for those of you who have heard about or played my original "Almond-Hill" game might be asking "Why are you making another Almond-Hill game?"

There is a lot of reasons why actually. First of all, out of all the other game projects I created, I had the most fun creating "Almond-Hill". I loved experimenting around and putting a horror game together. Also, I might of been goofing off back then, but I really like the simple plot I came up with for the horror title and I want to carry that plot on again in a much more polished game. And last, its because of you (the people who played the first Almond-Hill game). It might not have a huge fan base, but it turns out that the original Almond-Hill game is the most popular game I have released yet. I have noticed that a few people have made youtube videos playing through my game, and I can see the stats here on blogger and most of the blog hits I get is because people come for Almond-Hill or search it. Everyday in my stats the most viewed thing is my Almond-Hill game. Some people liked the game, some people thought it was the worse thing they ever played (can't really blame them since I rushed the project for a Halloween release). Despite that, I believe that this game does have a fan base out there and that is what truly inspired me to create another one.

Anyway, now getting to the good stuff!

I have been using Unity for 2 years now and have a lot of experience with the engine. I released many titles up until now but none of them have been quality, polished or serious attempts at creating a great game. All of that ends. Starting with this new project "Almond-Hill : Silent Meow" and all my future projects I will be working hard and taking serious attempts to create great quality and polished games.

So about the new Almond-Hill?

This new Almond-Hill game is a complete reboot to my original game. Its not an Almond-Hill 2. The new Almond-Hill game will have a completely new town to explore, four new unique original characters, a slightly different story line (which I will get to), much more polished controls and graphics and animations. Everything about the new Almond-Hill game will be fresh and a hundred times better than the original. Also, (sorry to take a shot at Slenderman but) this is not a crappy slenderman game. I want to bring Slenderman up because whenever I see indie developers working on a new horror game, they always only want to make a Slenderman game. It has been done so many times, its just not original or fun. I am working on this project to also encourage developers to try and come up with something original and not Slenderman. If you are an indie developer and want to make horror games be as creative as you want and try something new. Don't get me wrong, if you want to make a Slenderman game that is perfectly fine, esp if its just an experimental project but I believe the indie scene is tired of Slenderman and wants to see something new.

Ok sorry for getting a bit off topic but I feel I had to bring that out for those of you reading.

"Almond-Hill : Silent Meow" Plot and Characters:

You play as Leon Coffeebean (character shown below)

Leon one day gets a phone call from his grandmother Grams Coffeebean (Character shown below)

Grams Coffeebean lives in a small town called "Almond-Hill". She calls her grandson Leon to come over to Almond-Hill so he can help her with a "special search". When Leon arrives at Almond-Hill, he learns that Grams's cat has gone missing. Grams then has Leon explore the town of Almond-Hill in search of her lost cat. Leon eventually finds out that the town of Almond-Hill is haunted and there is someone or something living in the Almond-Hills forest. Because Grams is an old woman, she never leaves her house and that is why she is unaware of the happenings of the town she is living in.

The name of Grams cat is Almond (character shown below)

Almond is the cat you are looking for. This cat is a very special cat as it can walk on two legs and is a loyal feline companion. It is unknown how, when or why Almond has gone missing.


Vehicles in Almond Hill Silent Meow:
The last thing I want to talk about in this project for today is vehicles. Almond-Hill is not going to be GTA or Red Dead Redemption huge obviously as I am a one man team and would never consider taking on a massive project like that, but it will be big enough to drive cars. So yeah you will be able to drive this time around.

For example, you will be able to drive at the very beginning of the game as Leon needs to travel to the town of Almond-Hill.

The first vehicle you will see in game is this "Snowconesolid Transport" Taxi.

And later on in the game you will be able to own your own car. Here is another one of the car models you can get in this new Almond hill game.

Although there wont be many, I am planning on having other vehicles in game as well as a car dealership where you can purchase different cars.

Driving will be a very important aspect of this new Almond-Hill game and I think it will be a really cool feature to make the game a much more unique experience.

Final thoughts: 
My goal for this project is to make a very unique horror game. Something that is different than your average horror game. I plan on creating a stylized horror game with a dark atmosphere and some comedy as well as a unique storyline.

That is all I have for now. I am excited about this project and cant wait to show more progress. Stay tuned to the blog as I post updates on how things are going. I will have more info soon!

Update: 6/12/ 2013
 I forgot to mention one very important thing. The platform this game will be on. I plan on releasing this for PC and Mac. After those releases I might consider going back and porting over to Android  for a mobile version. But for now the game will be for PC and Mac.

Expanding the blog, small welcome game and Unity Playmaker

Hello everyone.

Once again sorry for the lack of blog posts but I have some good news and hopefully starting soon I will  be more active here on the blog once again.

As many of you already know by now, the reason I have been barley posting on the blog is because ever since I released "Revolver Finger" for android I took a huge break from working on anymore of my game projects and started to focus on improving my skills. Mostly my 3d art skills because I want to deliver much better quality games from now on. I believe I have greatly improved in many areas since my last game release and think its almost time to get back to work. I have been planning on starting my next game project soon. I don't know when yet, but plan on getting back to developing games sometime in May. Anyway, wont say anything about my next game right now, that's kind of for a different post.

First, before I get back into developing more games, I think this blog needs a little change. So I have been planning on redesigning it a little bit and expanding it. I will be adding some new sections to it soon.One of the new sections that I am going to be adding to this blog is an all new "Welcome" page. This brings me to the next thing I was going to say.

I am going to create a welcome page in a very different way than most welcome pages. I am putting together a very small game project that will be on this welcome page. This will not be a game that is meant to be played for the purposes of playing a game or a game with replay-ability, it is going to be an extremely small game (a single short level, maybe about 1 - 2 mins long) that welcomes users to my blog and introduces me the developer. So its more of a game for promoting my blog. It is an interactive way for welcoming site visitors. So this small game will be on the welcome page and once the user reaches the end of that very short level it will open up my actual blog. Off course users will have the option to skip the whole welcome thing entirely and just go straight to my blog. I understand it would be annoying to have to play that welcome game over each time. But yeah, you may have seen similar ideas like this on sites where they have maybe a short video play or some interactive thing before it takes you to their website.

It will be just a very small, basic super mario inspired platform level. But don't expect too much from it because once again, this is not really a game project, it is just a short single level game for introducing the blog on the welcome page. Its just a small little feature I am adding that is part of the blogs "expansion". So at the moment that is what I am working on. It does not really count as a game project but more of a nice small practice project and also promotional project. Thats how I see it.

Here is some WIP screen shots: This is just a quick prototype version I put together, I created some real simple assets that are very super mario 3d land inspired as you can tell. :)
But yeah, these are not screens from the final build.

Also, here is my most recent original character I created. This will be the character you play as in the very small welcome project.

So what about actually making the next true "Samer Khatib" aka Snowconesolid game?
Ok, so after I change up the blog a bit, redesign/ tweek it a little to look better and create that welcome project I will probably then be ready to once again start working on my next true big game project. So as I said a little earlier, I plan on going back to developing games sometime in May, most likely near the end or half way through May. Well see. Maybe I might start earlier. Depends on how things go for me.

One final piece of news I want to put out there is from now on for all my future game projects I will most likely be using the popular Unity add-on/tool "PlayMaker" for developing all of my games. I just recently bought it from Unity's asset store and think its great. I am still new to it and learning how to use it but have already played around with it and so far I am impressed. For those of you who use unity you may have heard of or also use playmaker for your development. It is actually one of the most popular add-ons for unity and a lot of unity developers use it. For those of you who have never heard of it let me tell you about it. Pretty much it is a visual scripting tool. It allows you to build a game using these nodes. So pretty much you don't need you write a single line of code. I think this is a very good alternative way for developing games. If you have ever used blender's game engine, it is similar to playmaker. Blender's game engine uses logic blocks.

So why use playmaker for development?
There is a whole bunch of advantages of developing a game with playmaker instead of coding up the entire project.

First of all you save a lot more time on developing the actual game. I like coding and all but at times it is extremely time consuming and can be tedious to type lines and lines of code. I know first hand because I have three years of programming experience and coded all of my previous projects.  Playmaker allows you to rapidly develop your games saving a lot more time. This is actually the most important benefit of using playmaker over coding and is a major reasons as to why I decided to make it part of my workflow for developing games. Now, I can spend all that extra time focusing more on the art side of the game.
As a solo indie game developer, time is the most important thing because you do not have a team. You don't have some one to work on the art or the animations, the programming, etc. You need to create everything yourself and that takes up an extremely great amount of time. With Playmaker however, you can now save a ton of time you would of spent on typing lines of code and use it for something else.

Don't get the wrong idea now, I am making it sound like playmaker just magically makes the game for you. Its still programming in some way, but just visual node based programming. But yes, it does make things a lot easier and quicker.

You would think that people who buy playmaker are people who do not know how to code at all. This is not true. Actually a lot of programmers like using playmaker. If you have playmaker and know how to actually code than playmaker is a hundred times more of a powerful tool because you can code in your own custom actions for use with playmaker. I definitely plan on coding in my own custom playmaker actions for my future projects. So say for example I needed to create some kind of vehicle movement for a simulator of some sorts but playmaker's library does not have such an action. Since I know how to code, I can just write my own custom action and then add it to playmakers library so I can use it as a node whenever I want. I believe that visual programming is the future of coding. Have to keep up with the times. Although I know a lot of programmers will disagree with me.

If you are a solo dev or with a team and use unity I highly recommend using playmaker for your development. Whether you don't know how to code or are an programming pro, playmaker is an excellent tool for any skill level and is extremely effective for rapid development.

Anyway, thats all I have for now. Sorry for the huge blog post but I had a lot of things to share this time since I am not posting here as often. I look forward to getting back to developing games again real soon and hope to have some great releases this year.