Satan Sam.co.uk

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!

Onward to the shops!

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 -

Been working flat out on Tormi over the last week or so, prepping a little private demo of sorts. Which got me thinking about a public demo. There really needs to be one at some point but we’re not sure about how to go about it. Our probably best idea is to make a little prequel mini story which the outcome then plays out in the full game. Put an hour or so worth of gameplay into that using nothing but resources from the full game – job’s a goodun!

But that will be a long time since I’m still tidying up the engine here and there.

And gaze upon the (old) medal screen! Upped the medals from 32 to 48 and also got that pesky percentage bar (that’s what that upper blue thing is) working -

Boss 4 is complete, working on 1 new area, adding cutscenes and story nonsense to another area and creating more art stuff for backdrops. Busy busy busy.