The Ultimate SOMA Discussion Thread

[Gunslingerjh]

Somehow the picture reminded me of the indie game, primordia!

[bluel0bster]

Hmm... looking at the picture again it kind of reminds me out of something from the aliens franchise, technologically-wise. It also looks like some sort of abandoned facility, with what looks like overgrowth: hanging vines, roots growing out of cracks, mushroom-looking growths, and it also looks like there's water covering the floor if you follow the stairs down.

Def looks like FG is going for something completely different from the amnesia series.

[Gunslingerjh]

Hmm... looking at the picture again it kind of reminds me out of something from the aliens franchise, technologically-wise. It also looks like some sort of abandoned facility, with what looks like overgrowth: hanging vines, roots growing out of cracks, mushroom-looking growths, and it also looks like there's water covering the floor if you follow the stairs down.

Def looks like FG is going for something completely different from the amnesia series.

I'm glad that they change the setting with every new title!
I liked Penumbra's setting more than Amnesia's..

[Tesseract]

Anyone else notice those spider-looking things in the bottom right? We know FG always wanted to implement spiders in their games, with those assets in the TDD files that hint at spiders originally being in the game but were later dropped. Maybe they finally have the experience and proficiency to use them effectively.

I did notice them, it almost looks as though they're stuck to the walls and by stuck I mean that they're built into the walls.

[Gunslingerjh]

Anyone else notice those spider-looking things in the bottom right? We know FG always wanted to implement spiders in their games, with those assets in the TDD files that hint at spiders originally being in the game but were later dropped. Maybe they finally have the experience and proficiency to use them effectively.

I did notice them, it almost looks as though they're stuck to the walls and by stuck I mean that they're built into the walls.

I think it's because of the lighting used in the sketch that they look "etched" in the wall. Some of the legs of the spiders seem very shiny. Could those be robot spiders maybe?

[Deep One]

Some of the legs of the spiders seem very shiny. Could those be robot spiders maybe?

I don't think so. The whole place looks wet and the light causes the slimy spiders to look shiny.

[Thomas]

e know FG always wanted to implement spiders in their games, with those assets in the TDD files that hint at spiders originally being in the game but were later dropped.

A year or so into development of Amnesia we had spiders that could climb walls and ceiling and then jump on the player. I spent a lot of time with that code, but never got it really stable. We thought of using the spiders like a critter (like the fish, rats and cockroaches), but it was a bit too unstable for that too. So we just used in in a vision that you have like 30% of seeing when playing the game. Also worth noting is that the spider is the same the one in Penumbra, and I think it is the only resource from Penumbra that we used in Amnesia (apart from some sounds).

What I really wanted to do is something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1P_B65XW4I

I am kind of obsessed with the idea with just using a ridiculous amount of cpu resources just to do IK, AI, etc for that sort of thing. It just turns out that stuff is really, really hard and I have never time to dig into it enough to make it work nicely. There is also a problem of "domino complexity" here in that if one thing is highly dynamic, then that means other things also need that same complexity, and on it goes. So you often end up with a lot of small bugs, that often cascade and make everything not possible to use.

This is actually what happened with the really advanced character body, that were intended for Amnesia. I outlined it here:
http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-2141.html

In the end we just ended up using the same thing + tweaks that we used in Amnesia. So moral of the story is Keep It Simple Stupid.

What was I talking about again? Ah, spiders!

Fun thing about spiders is that in Penumbra: Overture we noticed how the mac and linux version had some problems a bit into the mines. Our porter, Edward, had played it so we could not understand how he had not missed it. Turns out he is really afraid of spiders and stopped playing when he saw signs of those and just hoped there were no more bugs to fix.

[plutomaniac]

I guess I was mistaken about the importance of spiders then. Oh well...

Fun thing about spiders is that in Penumbra: Overture we noticed how the mac and linux version had some problems a bit into the mines. Our porter, Edward, had played it so we could not understand how he had not missed it. Turns out he is really afraid of spiders and stopped playing when he saw signs of those and just hoped there were no more bugs to fix.

Poor Edward. So if you had implemented these complex spiders in Amnesia, I imagine there wouldn't be a MAC and Linux version.

[Kein]

roblems a bit into the mines. Our porter, Edward, had played it so we could not understand how he had not missed it. Turns out he is really afraid of spiders and stopped playing when he saw signs of those and just hoped there were no more bugs to fix.

Haha, this made my day.

[Tesseract]

A year or so into development of Amnesia we had spiders that could climb walls and ceiling and then jump on the player.

ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ

Our porter, Edward, had played it so we could not understand how he had not missed it. Turns out he is really afraid of spiders and stopped playing when he saw signs of those and just hoped there were no more bugs to fix.

I too am terrified of spiders so I can empathise with Edward. Having those damn things jumping on me while playing Penumbra was terrifying. -_-
In Amnesia they weren't violent so I wasn't too scared of them.