Indie dev talks about horror, guns and Amnesia.

~~Googolplex~~ · 10-12-2012, 04:59 PM

Perhaps, someone of you also know the game "Tower22", programmed by only one man, Rick.

His game looks pretty good.
Actually I was reading his blog and found an interesting article about guns in horror games and he's also talking about Amnesia. I wanted to show the article, it's similar to Thomas blogs about this topic.
http://tower22.blogspot.de/2012/09/son-of-gun.html

**Gunslingerjh** · 10-15-2012, 07:55 PM

I'm following his blog for a long time now, and i must say it looks extremely good for such a small team!

**the dark side** · 10-15-2012, 08:52 PM

they seriously need to work on the collision detection! other than that, the game shows some promise. plenty of neat graphical details, fantastic sounds, and great atmosphere, i wish them luck!

just one thing. for the devs and the weapons, reloading mainly. Always smack the magazine on the bottom when loading or it will fall out of the hopper, always remove the finger off the trigger when changing mags or you will blow your face off when the round chambers (trigger discipline), and russian guns, like the ppsh have to be "racked" (bolt pull) underhanded or you will rip your hand open on the safety catch, that is all.

**Pl4ub** · 10-16-2012, 02:03 AM

Cryostasis anyone?! But cool stuff from one guy.

**Sexbad** · 10-17-2012, 06:11 AM

Just a clarification: Rick is the only programmer, but there's definitely a team behind this game.

I've been following the development blog for a while now, and I have to say that it's one of the most insightful sources of information and design philosophy about things I'd never thought I'd care about. I was going to post a thread about the blog a week or so ago, but I think I closed the tab and forgot. It's good to spread the word about Tower 22.

**Ghieri** · 10-17-2012, 08:02 AM

I really like the grungy, broken down atmosphere. Makes you wonder what that place is for?

**Robby** · 10-17-2012, 01:36 PM

(10-16-2012, 02:03 AM)Pl4ub Wrote: Cryostasis anyone?! But cool stuff from one guy.

I was kind of reminded of that game. Played it some time ago, and loved every minute.

**Bridge** · 10-17-2012, 04:17 PM

(10-17-2012, 01:36 PM)Nemet Robert Wrote:
(10-16-2012, 02:03 AM)Pl4ub Wrote: Cryostasis anyone?! But cool stuff from one guy.
I was kind of reminded of that game. Played it some time ago, and loved every minute.

In my opinion the game is incredibly boring (somewhat pretentious too) and there is a huge difficulty spike towards the end making it extremely unbalanced. The only thing I loved was the "mental echo" concept. These parts were very, very well done and are the only reason to play the game in my opinion. It has other redeeming factors like the graphics, the atmosphere and the sniper duels but this game would have been far better without combat. They needed more mental echo parts (especially interesting and challenging ones) and a more interesting story. Having pictures with a woman telling some fairy tale every now and then does not count as story (these parts were so pointless - I just don't understand why they are in the game). It was a good idea though.

**Sexbad** · 10-17-2012, 04:39 PM

(10-17-2012, 04:17 PM)Bridge Wrote:
(10-17-2012, 01:36 PM)Nemet Robert Wrote:
(10-16-2012, 02:03 AM)Pl4ub Wrote: Cryostasis anyone?! But cool stuff from one guy.
I was kind of reminded of that game. Played it some time ago, and loved every minute.
In my opinion the game is incredibly boring (somewhat pretentious too) and there is a huge difficulty spike towards the end making it extremely unbalanced. The only thing I loved was the "mental echo" concept. These parts were very, very well done and are the only reason to play the game in my opinion. It has other redeeming factors like the graphics, the atmosphere and the sniper duels but this game would have been far better without combat. They needed more mental echo parts (especially interesting and challenging ones) and a more interesting story. Having pictures with a woman telling some fairy tale every now and then does not count as story (these parts were so pointless - I just don't understand why they are in the game). It was a good idea though.

Cryostasis has one of the greatest stories and greatest storytelling methods in gaming. The fable was a narrative parallel to the story that the game told about the disaster, the captain's decisions, the mutiny and the crew's health. Every single thing you do has some symbolic significance to the plot--the enemies you fight, the heat you collect as health, the time travel sequences/puzzles and so on--and this exceedingly complex manner of expression for a story that's, as far as I'm concerned, second to one is what makes the game worth playing. Even though it's an extremely vanilla shooter as far as gameplay is concerned.

I don't think Tower22's going to be all that similar, though, apart from how Russian themed and mindblowingly gorgeous it is. It's shaping up to sound like an actual survival horror.

**Bridge** · 10-17-2012, 05:55 PM

(10-17-2012, 04:39 PM)Sexbad Wrote: Cryostasis has one of the greatest stories and greatest storytelling methods in gaming. The fable was a narrative parallel to the story that the game told about the disaster, the captain's decisions, the mutiny and the crew's health. Every single thing you do has some symbolic significance to the plot--the enemies you fight, the heat you collect as health, the time travel sequences/puzzles and so on--and this exceedingly complex manner of expression for a story that's, as far as I'm concerned, second to one is what makes the game worth playing. Even though it's an extremely vanilla shooter as far as gameplay is concerned.

I am aware of the parallels, I just did not find them compelling in the least. Good storytelling? I'll grant you that, for the most part, especially the "flashbacks" and mental echo sequences. But the game does not have one of the "greatest stories in gaming", it is boring and largely inconsequential. I enjoyed the disaster and mutiny subplots but there is so little character development that it lacks much of the impact it should, and the game's plot is extremely thin apart from vague themes. Also, it doesn't matter how much you talk about the symbolic significance of the actions you perform, they are still not exciting. Bookkeeping is symbolically significant to a game about the life of a bookkeeper, that does not make it interesting or worth putting in a game. Likewise, uninteresting jumpscares and boring combat did not need to be in this game at all. I liked the central theme of frost a lot but I did not like the way they implemented the health system. Optimally there should have been a separate health bar and the thermometer/ammo pouch HUD was distracting at best (but then again I hate HUDs with a passion).

But I still have very fond memories of Cryostasis. The mental echo sequences are some of the most memorable gaming moments I've had in a long time. If the game had been designed more like an adventure with more time spent on making memorable mental echo sequences (and if it had a better ending) I would have considered it an instant classic. It just falls short on too many scores. Of course, it's all a matter of opinion. If the story had an impact on you, I'm glad. It did not interest me in the slightest and I play games primarily for their stories.