Amontillado (v1.1) - RELEASE 5/10

[jmitchell]

Version 1.1 Fixes:
-Subtitles added for voice acting
-Better audio balancing with music/SFX and dialogue
-Significant revisions with Level 1 map (props, size, light issues)

Download links should now point to the new version. Please tell me if that isn't the case!

Amontillado
No One Insults Me


Download v1.1 here!

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Loosely adapted from the short story The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe, Amontillado follows a friend of the now-missing Fortunato investigating his disappearance. Rumors have surfaced that he was last seen with Montressor leaving Carnivale, and the player must sneak through Montressor's estate to find evidence backing these rumors.

Intent: This is a currently ongoing project for a college course. Specifically, I wanted to focus on level design in this project; there are three levels and I'm aiming for this to be a 30 to 45 minute chunk of gameplay.

What's Been Done: The documentation, design, blockouts of the spaces, scripted sequences and AI, and some lighting, props, writing, and sounds; basically, the majority of getting this thing functional. I've been hesitant to post this earlier, since I wasn't sure if I would need to reduce the scope or not. I didn't, by the way.

What's Yet to Be Done: Polish, mostly: sound and prop passes, writing, recording some dialogue, lighting revisions, bug fixes, and playtesting out the wazoo. I'm also planning on packaging this as a Full Conversion, so I'm going to start researching that in the next week or so.

Release Date: This as a final project is due May 1st in my class, so around then. I may spend more time tweaking it after it's presented, so I wouldn't call that a hard-set date.

Screenshots and Assorted Goodies: I've been keeping track of my progress on a page of my portfolio, which you can access here. There, you can find some screenshots, as well as my initial proposal and level documentation. Mind you, those documents are from the beginning of the project, and I've needed to change quite a bit about the project since then. Also, the documents are going to give a lot of the scares away, so be warned.

Lastly, I want to thank the people in the community who have previously helped answer my stupid, stupid questions while developing this thing. You make an outsider feel really welcome.

[Daemian]

Good luck. Don't get too lazy on those ceilings.
About the levels, just three sounds like you're making large maps, and I'd recommend using smaller levels, are easier to handle/work with.

[MrBehemoth]

I love this concept! I know the story well, so I can imagine you could get a lot of atmosphere out of it. Good luck.

[jmitchell]

Good luck. Don't get too lazy on those ceilings.
About the levels, just three sounds like you're making large maps, and I'd recommend using smaller levels, are easier to handle/work with.

But players don't look up!
Also, yes, they're pretty large. I forgot to mention that I'm going to be spending a lot of time optimizing as well. However, there's a bit of backtracking in these as well, which helps mitigate that.

I love this concept! I know the story well, so I can imagine you could get a lot of atmosphere out of it. Good luck.

Thanks! I've been looking at The Second Dimension, and it still amazes me what you've done there. My classmates were also impressed.

[jmitchell]

Update time!

So I just hit my fourth milestone as defined on my project proposal (...did anyone read that?), so here are the things I've updated since then:

-Sound Pass: DONE
-Prop Pass: Half-done. I was a bit behind, since my scripting ate into a lot of the time I had allotted for this. That's going to be complete soon.
-Dialogue: DONE
-Writing: Half-done. There are a couple of notes I wanted to add here and there. I also need to get a quest system implemented.
-Optimization: DONE. Global fog works wonders!
-Bug Fixes: VASTLY IMPROVED BUT NEVER DONE
-Full Conversion Process: Started, but some bugs are encountered; see below.

It looks like my planned release of May 1st is going to be achievable. I had my professor play over it again, and he really likes it so far.

I'll update my portfolio site soon to include this latest milestone, though I can't imagine anything different I would say from this post.

ALSO: While I have your attention, I could use some help with the Full Conversion process. I just migrated my files over and got everything launched with a .bat file, but I'm running into a couple of bugs. First, the game prompts me to create a profile, but I can't save it, or get past the profile creation screen. Second, when I quit, the program crashes. I imagine that these come from the same/similar issues, but does anyone know what's going on here?

Thanks a lot!

EDIT: Never mind, fixed the save data/crash on quit issue

[CarnivorousJelly]

Good luck. Don't get too lazy on those ceilings.
About the levels, just three sounds like you're making large maps, and I'd recommend using smaller levels, are easier to handle/work with.

But players don't look up!

Warning: Grumbling imminent

Yes they do look up.

A little bit of detail here-and-there on the ceiling can go a long way for building atmosphere. Can you imagine if Bioshock had left out these ceiling windows and just put in a few lights instead? Or if Outlast had left out the pipes that run along the ceiling?

Granted both examples would look -okay- without details, but that's it. They'd look empty at the top, which could draw the player's eye up (due to the change in detail amount), and end up with even more people looking up at an empty, blank ceiling.

Also, you don't have to be looking up to see part of the ceiling unless you're standing really close to a wall

Anyways, best of luck on the CS, looks like it could be interesting!

Just promise no cutting corners on the design unless it's due to time constraints, okie dokie?

Oh also, why are you making it a Full Conversion? That adds a lot more work - especially since you still need Amnesia to run the game anyways. So unless you have a lantern, crazy Palistov-style scripting, or really desperately need a custom menu background, you could probably just make it a regular Custom Story.

Hope that helps in some way/shape/form c:

OH AND ANOTHER THING!
Tiling on planes with designs on them - always always always 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 or something similar. 1 is really tiny and makes the bigger tiling patterns (like dirt stains) really damn obvious in larger rooms.

Okay I swear I'm done after this.
I noticed you made one of your other games in Unity (didn't bother checking how long ago that was). You know Unreal Engine 4 is FREE to use and gorgeous, yes?

[jmitchell]

I noticed you made one of your other games in Unity (didn't bother checking how long ago that was).

So you're the person who looked at my portfolio!

In short, that "players don't look up" thing was intended as a joke (sorry if I wasn't clear), and I'm trying to improve those areas before releasing the mod. Also, good comment about the texture scale, I'll make sure to implement that.

I'm making this project into a full conversion mainly to get a fuller understanding of HPL. Next year I'll be working in a team on our capstone game project, and I plan on pushing hard for using this engine, since most everyone else has been boring and decided on Unity. Also, the game ideas I want to pitch would absolutely require a full conversion, so I figured it'd be easier if I've already been through the process. (Also for this project I've already told my professor that it would be an FC, so I've backed myself into a corner here ).

As for the Unity project you've mentioned, that's currently underway. I'm working on it in a team, and it's a tool that we're all fairly familiar with (though as I mentioned, I'd like to break away from that). Also, there's networking involved, and there's NO WAY we could've gotten that working in time had it not been for some Unity add-ons.

Thanks for the feedback, and I really appreciate you looking at my site!

[jmitchell]

Hey guys, sorry I missed the May 1st release date.

I don't think anyone's been waiting on this with bated breath, but stuff after the end of the semester has been surprisingly busy. There are still a couple of things I want to fix before releasing this thing, so bear with me, please. I'm going to try for Monday, May 11. If not, feel free to chase me out of the forums with torches and pitchforks.

Oh, and I got an A- in the class!

[A.M Team]

Great job! I'm REALLY looking forward to playing this!

[jmitchell]

Turns out, setting a deadline is a good motivator! Amontillado can now be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6PSlQN...sp=sharing