One of the initial design bits for Tormishire was that players will be able to alter the outcome of the games events, both short and long term, through minor decision making. I’d like to go through a couple just to give an idea of what this entails.
At a certain point in the game a fork appears in the path. The default direction is to head left and I’ve thrown a few design bits in there to encourage this route. On the left route the first enemy encounters are all static, low level monsters. By taking the shorter left route you encounter a village early and receive an item, you also face off against the first boss after a few minutes.
The right route has enemies that will attack, but rewards this with a more useful item, though it doesn’t deal any damage. This route skips out the first boss for quite some time allowing you to level up and find a key character and health packs. But because of the increased time the first boss will be stronger too. This route also lets the player fix a broken power station, fixing this will increase the strength of all electricity-related bosses, but rewards the player with a powerful weapon and a transport method (which couldn’t previously run because of the lack of power).
It’s in the first village that the player can play Cupid and is given the opportunity to befriend a villager who needs a way to help pay for his wedding. You can skip him out altogether but by helping him and choosing 1 of 3 options you can help him get married sooner. But this affects if the couple stay together and later have kids, who in turn will help the player out when they later return.
Just stuff like that. Innit.
After showing my grandad the iPod a few years ago he told me about a golf-ball sized radio he had back in the 50’s… And it’s been rediscovered. Meet the Space Radio!
Looks like one of the bad guys from Brawl’s supspace mode.
No idea how to use it though.
Uses no power so it should still work. Answers on a postcard.
Well it’s nearly Christmas, and in a couple of weeks it’ll be Tormishire’s 2nd birthday! Progress is going great now, up to the 5th boss and about 15% of content has been added at this point but we’re still looking at a early ‘09 release. At the moment I’m working on expanding the map with from a cynics POV as “needless tunnels”. Adding in extra tunnels and gaps to get a slightly realistic caving feel, and to give players something to hunt around for - most of these places will have minor items, collectables etc.
Also settled on a new waterfall style (something I’ve been trying to nail down for a while now) that I’ll be demoing in the new trailer… And speaking of it won’t be too long for that. After 2 or so years we’ve settled on a studio name that we’ll be announcing alongside the new trailer and website. We’ll hopefully be able to spill the beans on some publisher stuff too.
But aside from all that I’ve come to realise what a bloody nifty system the PSP is. My Rayquaza is inching on lv99. I’m rank 159 out of 16,000 with the Demoman on my fave TF2 server. Downloading HL1 from Steam for $1. My room needs tidying. Winter is approaching and it’s bloody freezing. Bravia are the best TV’s. Cereal bars are nicer than they let on. My DVI cable is melting or something. Even if you do, you don’t fully appreciate Totoro. My furthest traceable relative is called Edmund from 1620. Mini motorbikes are more crazyfun than you imagine.
Just a kind of all round update-
Off to Caroline’s first choir concert tomorrow, they’re doing Mozart’s Requiem which I’ve always been fond of. Then I’m off down to Stoke for a couple of days holiday as it were.
And the game? Currently finishing up another level/area place. It’s by far my favourite setting yet, located in the newly opened area after the 4th boss. It’s more of an acrobatic level than anything else with few moving enemies. Also adding some new routes and secret areas- all in all the game now has 160 rooms and 4 bosses, and according to the game completion calculator thingy it takes me an hour to get 11% completion (or rather 11% of the total items, ‘achievements’ and books).
(not a Tormi shot, of course! Just some art left in My Pictures… Best show something since I’m not showing anything of my real game!)
That very awesome chap Melcadrien has finished his epic “let’s play Satan Sam” video walkthrough, with an attempt at Echo World. But damn Sam and his buggy MMF1.5 environment it just crashes. Congrats anyways Melcadrien!
Along with finding a couple of hidden bugs and things to clean up on, I’ve also been tidying up the end-user experience in this game o’ mine.
Previously getting a level up was a little confusing. The screen displayed a swooping graphic (that was layered incorrectly), the game would briefly pause and it would say the usual “level up” text. This all happened in a second. But it was too quick and a kind of “blink and you missed it” moment.
Now I’ve enhanced that slightly to make it more obvious at what just happened. During the level-up sequence now the UI in the corner quickly fades out as the swooping graphic is displayed, the screen goes dark and the text appears above it as the action is paused. It still takes the same amount of time but it’s much more illegible. It’s the same for level-downs and Tsol level-ups.
The Menu has also been updated, it’s still incomplete but has been redesigned to show as many of the important details on the first window. Newly added bits include the overall percentage and representive bar and total playtime. All stats have had their text replaced with easier to understand bars. Other screens in the menu now have new graphics to separate.
Also enhanced some controller options, if the game detects a controller has been disconnect (such as a battery going or faulty connection) it will automatically jump to the menu screen with a warning that control has shifted to the keyboard.
A few days ago ol Jimmi boy went up to Dovestones for the kajillionth time. Only this time he headed up to the cliffs overlooking the lower 2 reservoirs. Jimmi took a lot of pictures, many near-duplicates (and a smug shot of yours truly) but it doesn’t matter since it’s a stunning location. It’s a major inspiration to my work this place.
Been crackin away at this for a week now, was actually the reason why I did this image to start with! Got some new shirts up on a new shop… Gone is cafepress, in is Zazzle!
Been working on this for a few nights now, probably not 100% finished either but I’d rather not make it too crowded.
Thought I might do this since it’s been a fun ride so far… I’ve said as much in interviews but meh, also: found pictures.
During the tail end of The New Satan Sam I wanted to make a Metroidy game (as in having upgradeable skills and items to limit progress). Or rather make Sam into a slightly less linear world, featuring a map world similar to Mario 64 in that the player can jump from world to world within a series of limited ‘zones’. Mostly to make use of the weapon system. But that never happened…
Instead I planned Sam 2 right there and then. A non-linear world but without much need for backtracking, something that retained an arcade level based structure but with the option to explore for weapons and tools to make later areas easier.
Around this time Gamesare contacted me and asked if I had any projects. Sam 2 was the obvious choice and this site was born!
Infact one of the biggest inspirations, oddly enough, was the new Robin Hood series by the BBC which is why Sam has become a bit of an archer up there! Figured that the game needed a powerful and precise weapon which used a long-sight feature.
The level structure in this was thrown right back to the basics but with a little twist. Each World would have around 15 levels, and by doing well in a level (by achieving whatever goal that level had before reaching the exit) the player would be elevated up a ‘level’. They had a linear progression and each step featured an easy, medium and hard level, all completely independent of each other (save for graphics used). By doing badly the player would be relegated to the easy levels until their performance got better. Prior to the boss battle the difficulty level would follow a set path. So by constantly playing on the hard level - the player would reach the boss faster, the easy route would have 2 extra levels.
But this plan was scrapped again.
A couple of months later I had to create an engine from scratch for a university project (the plan was to make a foundation for a later project, so making an engine for a full game seemed like a good idea). So I took Sam and placed him into a new, non-linear based engine. Took the name from a rock in our back garden (Tormishire) without knowing anything about it - the final version of the game had begun! Though it was to take much longer than my time left at Salford University.
The result was a project that I intended to finish within 3 weeks, HAH. The aim was to produce a little adventure game with no enemies, no puzzles, no goals, nothing to collect. Just a giant sprawling world showing off the engine using various graphics from older projects.
But that was me being daft. And it soon became a ‘normal game’. I took bits from the Sam 2 story (yet another invasion) and shaped them into a different environment. Though the original plan was to have this as a completely separate game from Sam… Now I feel I’d be doing my fans a disservice by not linking stories somehow.
The project grew. I stole a musician (who is ace, BTW. What he’s done for Tormishire is nothing short of amazing and really fits the game well) and grew it into something I could be happy with - the game grew a personality. It now had form. Though the game still has its experimental routes - there are a couple of 4th wall breaking puzzles and some alternative methods to combat (if the player chooses). After all that change I’ve still kept the core concept of the game in tow; to create a very non-linear platform adventure.
And that’s it! From Sam 2 to Tormishire. From old to new -
And some random images from My Pictures foldaaa -
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