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

Final week for "Hide-n-Seek Winter"

     Hey everyone. Just wanted to post a quick update for my upcoming game "Hide-n-Seek Winter". I just want to say that the game is almost finished and this is the final week of development for it. I mentioned a post or two back that this is a short game and I was planning on releasing it sometime early February.  So, the plan is to finish and release this game maybe around the end of this week. I'm looking forward to finishing it and sharing it with all you to play.

Frozen pond screenshot:

Sidenote: Check out the works in progress thread I have been posting on almost daily with small updates for this game on the unity forums here: Hide-n-Seek Winter WIP thread

"Hide-n-Seek Winter" Coming Soon!

 
So, here is what I have been working on since mid November 2013:

As you see by the above title and teaser trailer, I would like to announce "Hide-n-Seek Winter". A toon game project I have been creating for a good period of time. Also known as the "secret game" I kept posting screenshots of on the unity forums and on my twitter.

I have been wanting to reveal this project for a while now and today I finally will. So lets get into the details of "Hide-n-Seek Winter"!

Story: Choco and his little sister Frosty are playing outside in the snow when suddenly an approaching car looses control of its breaks and crashes into the two kids. After being run over by the speeding vehicle, Choco suddenly finds himself standing in front of his house. Choco then receives a letter from his little sister Frosty. The letter asks Choco to search for his little sister because they are now playing "Hide and Seek", Frosty's favorite game.

This will be a short game that tells the story about a brother and his sister. 

Genre: Action/Adventure/Puzzle/Platformer
(with a mystery)

Style: Toon/Cel-shaded

Characters:

Choco: Main character of the game. Frosty's big brother.

Frosty: Choco's younger sister. Hide and seek is her favorite game to play.

In-game Screenshots:

 

  

 

Platforms: Windows, Mac, and Linux. (I might consider porting it to Android down the road, probably sometime after I originally release it on the mentioned platforms above.)

Dev:
As always, I am working on this game solo. I am making it with the Unity game engine, Unity Playmaker, and Blender3d just like all my previous projects. (my favorite tools of course).

So there you go. "Hide-n-Seek Winter" is my next game release coming real soon. It will be my first release of 2014.  I'll admit I have been working on it on and off. However, I am very motivated to finish it. Im very close to finishing it. As you could tell, I worked on it a lot before even revealing it. I plan on finishing and releasing it sometime in early February (which is sometime during this coming month. We are already near the end of January!)

My goal when I first started this project was to create an appealing "toon" graphic styled game. So far I think I have done a great job (of course I am biased towards my own work but hey, what indie dev isn't? :). Also, I am trying to tell a unique story through this game with very little dialog from the beginning of the game to the end. So that is another goal I am trying to achieve with this project.

As always, this will be another major step up in my games compared to my previous projects. I am working hard on this project and definitely working on it with a more serious approach, a more planned out approach then my past projects. I am aiming to deliver a well polished and good quality game. I am really excited about this one and hope you are too. I look forward to finishing it and releasing it and adding it to my list of completed game projects.

Stay tuned because more updates are coming down the road!

SideNote: I will probably start my own dev thread in the work in progress section of the unity forums real soon where I will post smaller updates more frequently than here on my blog. So you will also be able to check out my progress over there.

Thanks for reading. 

Heres an update!

  
     Well everyone, I know its a bit late but here it is. My first blog post of 2014! This isn't going to be a really big blog post or anything but I just feel like I should post an update because it feels like I have been away for a while. So in case anyone was thinking that I abandoned this place, I am still here. I do apologize for the lack of updates though.

Anyway, in the last blog post I made in 2013 I was talking about my plans for this year (2014) and so on. I said that this year, I hope to release some of my greatest most polished games yet. It pretty much became my new years resolution and that is what I am sticking to doing. I mentioned that I planned on working on two different graphically styled games. A toon/cel shaded game and then a more realistic style game. I don't want to get into too much details and make this a really long winded blog post so for now I want to just give an update on the game project I have been working on since November 2013 and that is my toon game project.

I keep calling this my "secret game project" and I often post screenshots from development on the unity forums or on my twitter and that's pretty much it. I announced it in November and really did not give out much details or anything about it since other than a couple of screenshots and whatnot. I was actually planning on finally revealing details about the project sometime during last week but then somethings came up and I really haven't worked on it as much as I liked to.

However, I have been working on it little by little and its coming together really nicely. I do plan on finally revealing it sometime during this week and I will even try to get up a little short trailer or something. The reason I have been holding back so long to reveal the game is because I really wanted to complete working on a good portion of the game before showing anything, at least like half of it. And I am a solo developer so it's a lot of work but like I said, its coming together. In the end it just makes more sense to create a good portion of the game before officially announcing it because you never know your plans down the road. I say this from previous experiences.

So anyway, stay tuned because I do plan on finally revealing the game sometime this week. For now here is some development screenshots I posted earlier on my twitter and on the unity forums. You might have seen them already but here they are again in case you missed them. More soon!

Thanks for reading and see you later!