Developer Diaries suggestions

Developer diaries about creating Neverending Nightmares.
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matt
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by matt »

Yeah, I think Halo did a lot of things right. I'm not really big into FPSes, but I enjoyed Halo. They have a good balancing of guns vs. grenades such that when you reloading, you can throw grenades, and the vehicles were cool. I think Halo was one of the first FPSes to feature vehicles. (That may be because I think it started out more as an RTS)

That being said, they did a CRAP ton of copy and pasting for the art and the setups.... Talk about padding the playtime! Neverending Nightmares is going to be a fairly short game. Maybe I should make everyone play through it twice. hahah
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
Grabthehoopka
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by Grabthehoopka »

People speak fondly of halo, but most of my memories of that game involve running around in circles because every room and corridor looks the same. I'm not what you would call a fan, but still, the flood sticks out in my mind cause all the sudden it turned into a quasi-survival horror game 3/4s of the way through the campaign.
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

I wasn't huge into Halo, but I had a lot of fun doing co-op in the first one. It was the first game I'd seen where you could use the gun on a vehicle while your friend drives, or vice versa. We'd usually switch up between sniper type guy and close quarters shotgun guy.
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matt
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by matt »

It was very very confusing because of the copy and paste design, but I had a good time playing them co-op with my wife. I played the first one a year or two after it came out by myself, and I got bored with the campaign halfway through. Co-op is really a great feature, and I am sad more games don't support it.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
ranger_lennier
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by ranger_lennier »

I'm sure I'm thinking of them in part because I just finished Dark Souls II, but the Souls games definitely have some horror elements. In Dark Souls II, the opening cinematic lays out a pretty horrific scenario. You've fallen victim to a curse that makes you undead, but also slowly drains your humanity, until eventually you'll just be a monster. And the only way to avoid this fate is to travel to the land of Drangleic to take the souls of other creatures and fuse them into yourself.



While your character certainly isn't weak, he can easily be overwhelmed if you let your guard down. And you often fight huge and grotesque creatures. Check out The Rotten.

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matt
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by matt »

While your character certainly isn't weak, he can easily be overwhelmed if you let your guard down.
From what I understand, your character is very weak against the monsters you fight and you die A LOT! hahaha It is too hard for me to play. That opening video is cool! It seems like it definitely has horror elements. Good call!
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

How'd you like Dark Souls II compared to the first one, Ranger? I've been chipping away at Dark Souls I for something like a year now. It's always just there, looming.

It has some good horror elements too. One of the most horrifying things to me personally was the monsters that (I'm just going to spoiler tag this on the off chance someone reads this who hasn't played Dark Souls yet, and wants to keep it a... surprise... for themselves) disguise themselves as loot chests. You saunter on up to the chest "oh boy I wonder what goodies are in here!" and SURPRISE, the thing fucking LEAPS UP AND TRIES TO BITE YOUR HEAD OFF. The design of that creature just looks wrong all around, with the huge spindly limbs and massive teeth.

Also pretty much anything in Blighttown. Oh, Blighttown...
ranger_lennier
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by ranger_lennier »

I really like Dark Souls II. It's pretty similar to its predecessor, but I think anyone who enjoyed Dark Souls will like the sequel as well. And yes, those monsters make a return appearance, along with many other new ones. I'm looking forward to seeing what From Software does next. The director of Dark Souls, Hidetaka Miyazaki, was primarily working on another unannounced game during the development of Dark Souls II.

Dark Souls on the 360 has been announced as one of the free games for XBox Live Gold members in June, so that could be a good opportunity for some people to get introduced to the series.

One thing they have in common with Neverending Nightmares is incorporating death into the game mechanics. In Dark Souls, your character is undead, and whenever you die, you are actually dying within the game's fiction and being resurrected at the last bonfire you rested at. That's when you have to make it back to your bloodstain to recover any souls you were carrying. And of course in Neverending Nightmares, you just wake up into another nightmare.
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gagaplex
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by gagaplex »

RightClickSaveAs wrote:*snip*
Oh. I haven't played Dark Souls 2 and I'm still very, very early in Dark Souls 1 because I don't really get around to playing it, but...

Such things are generally called Mimics as they "mimic" a treasure chest. Those are actually pretty common in various, especially action-oriented RPGs. A lot of Mimic designs are more like chests with teeth or tentacles coming out of their interior, but some - like the ones you describe - also have more humanoid limbs. I think they stem from P&P RPGs and were translated into video games pretty early on. Heck, one appears in the first Simon the Sorcerer! :-)
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: Developer Diaries suggestions

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

gagaplex wrote:Monster info
Oh cool, I didn't know that! I haven't played a ton of RPGs, and this was the first monster like that I'd seen. It totally freaked me out, and I made sure to attack every single chest I came across after that.

I finally finished Dark Souls I last night, and I don't think I'm ready to dive into Dark Souls II anytime soon.

I think they did a great job at making death meaningful in Dark Souls, you have to constantly toe the line between wanting to progress through an area and being able to gather enough souls to spend on leveling and upgrades. If you push too far and mess up, you get one chance to recover your souls. It simple but implemented really well.
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