Armedchairs

 One of the features that me and Luke decided on very early on, is that we would like some furniture pieces to be able to grab and trap players. I did some research into mimics from DnD mostly and decided that I don't want to go the full route of having the furniture as a living creature, but at the same time I don't want them to be fully mechanical.. So I'm going to have a go at making some kind of weird hybrid between organic and mechanic.

One of my favourite features of making something "creepy" is to add human teeth to it. I think that typical spiky teeth on monsters is overrated, and it definitely adds some kind of confusing gross reaction when the creature has human teeth. I put human teeth in the leech creature that I created when I worked on the Home Invasion update of Drop Dead: The Cabin. One of teeth was also gold, suggesting that this creature had dental work at some point. So the suggestion is that this was either done after the creature was made, or that the creature was actually once human, which makes it even more horrific to think about!

I fired up Zbrush for the first time in a while and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't have to look up how to navigate around the program, like I have done many times in the past! I had already gone into Maya and removed the drawers and doors from one of the ornate cabinets I had in game, and also placed some teeth around, so I just wanted to sculpt some fleshy organic gum tissue inside of the cabinet. I was pretty happy with what I achieved. This will be one of the test pieces that I'll hand over to Luke to be turned into a grab trap. I think I would like to add an arm in the middle, either like a mannequin arm or a clockwork mechanical claw, but I haven't decided on this yet. I will also create a taller wardrobe version for testing, as I'm not sure how this will actually look and work with the player models.

Layers of Insanity

 I have been getting some more inspiration from horror games and one of my favourite horror games for atmospherics is Layers of Fear. I figured that a quick and easy scare that I could do is having alternate versions of the paintings. So as the game progresses, the environment will get creepier and creepier, to try and unnerve the players. I haven't done all of the paintings yet but I was particularly inspired to create creepy versions of these:

The creepy paintings were created in Photoshop by me, by the way. Using a mixture of photo bashing, digital painting and layer effects. I'm sure I could have thrown them into AI and said "make this creepy" but I refuse! Also some AI faces just have that "AI look" to them..which is creepy in itself, but not what I'm going for! 

When I was working on these, I was reminded of the paintings in the haunted house at Disney. I'm unsure if they're still there, as I haven't been to Disney since I was 7-8 but they had normal looking portraits that extended out to reveal a creepier bottom half. Just having a usually static image, like a painting, to suddenly change seems to be a staple in horror, so I felt like it was a must for my game, although it's just a small detail! I'm hoping that some players will appreciate the small details like this, and it will separate it a bit from the slop games.

Another game I've been looking at for inspiration has been Rise of Insanity, both this and Layers of Fear have a relatively similar setting to my game, but they both have some really clever creepy moments and jumpscares that I'd like to replicate in my own way.

Pitching the Project

 Now is the time of year that a few funding companies start accepting applications, particularly the UK games fund. We've been working hard to put a pitch deck and a short video together, explaining the game as a whole. It has meant that actual development has been a little slow, but we are only 2 people and there's a lot of other things going on. I think we have a very strong concept for our game, and so if we managed to get funding, we could focus more serious time on its completion. Currently Luke has been working a lot of freelance jobs, into the early hours of the morning and I've been focusing on retail positions, so that we're able to pay our mortgage and bills. 

There are little to no job listings for artists in the games industry at the moment, especially in England, it is the worst I've ever seen it. The very small handful of England based game art positions are either hundreds of miles up North (or on the Isle of Wight) and require in office work, as I live in Leamington Spa, it isn't really feasible. Companies outside of England don't seem very keen on hiring from outside of their countries, even for remote positions, which is fair as there's probably a load more paperwork and taxes to sort out, plus there is a huge wage difference in some cases. I don't believe I ask for a high wage, I have even been told that I'm asking for lower than the wage range for certain UK companies, but that still seems too expensive for some other countries. I do feel very let down, as Leamington Spa is supposed to be a tech/gaming hub, and that's a big reason why we bought our house here, but it seems like the companies have all locked up their doors and they're not letting anyone else in! If we got funding then this would free us both up to focus fully on the development of this game. By the time it's released, maybe the games industry will have sorted itself out, or we'll just focus on our next big idea!

Currently we have sent our pitch out and filled out all the necessary application forms to around 12 funding companies, including the UK games fund, so we're really hopeful that at least one will be interested.

Nailing Down the Details

So there's been a lot of behind the scenes discussions on gameplay, target audience and replay-ability, as we've decided that we're going apply for funding, so there's a lot of questions that need answering in order to present this project in a clear and concise way to potential investors. 

A big step for me was completely eradicating any AI in the project, I really have a personal distaste for it, I'm putting my foot down and I think we should start as we mean to go on. The only AI content in the game so far has been the placeholder paintings, so I have now replaced all of these for royalty free real-life paintings from Unsplash. I think they just have so much more character to them and I can confidently say that there is no AI in the game at all anymore, I literally rewrote over the texture files so they don't even exist in the project! I might still edit or replace these paintings in the future, but they are great placeholders. I have been studying horror games set in manor houses lately and I have been getting a lot of inspiration from Layers of Fear especially, so there might be a slight nod to that (with paintings changing horrifically during gameplay) as development progresses. 

AI vs Real Paintings

I carried out the repetitive task of swapping out all doors for the interactive blueprint versions, so now all doors work as expected, I have also hooked up the loot objects with the blueprint that Luke created, and I tested everything. It has created another task for me now though, which is deciding about UI and icon images. I've very briefly started looking into this and honestly I got bored! 😅 I'm not a UI artist and I really don't seem to have any sort of passion towards it, so I will be asking my UI friends for initial guidance and maybe this is where we may hire someone to do it properly later down the line. But I created a mock-up, which is maybe ok? I don't know, I will seek advice from more knowledgeable people!

Another big change has been that I found a girl model that I was actually happy with for the evil player. The Demon Doll Character from HelenNova on Render Hub just fit almost perfectly with the idea that I had in my head for this character. I would maybe like to change the hairstyle later down the line but it's set up in such a useful way that this doesn't seem like it will be an issue at all. I assigned some idle animations and attached a light underneath her face, and she just looks so menacing looming outside of the windows, it's great!  

A big decision we made was to add cards for modifiers for the evil player. I hadn't really put a whole lot of thought into what gameplay would be like for the evil player, other than it would be like a top down of the house and they'd activate traps etc. But now we've decided that there will be a deck of cards that enable different randomised abilities, which will make each playthrough a different experience. They would visually look like a sort of tarot deck, which could also tie into the lore of the game. Maybe the girl found this cursed card deck and that's where these magical abilities come from. We still need to decide on the full list of abilities, but for now it's probably best to decide on a handful, and we can add more as the project goes on. I spent an hour or two on my drawing tablet with a sleeping Pumpkin on my lap and created two mock-ups for how I imagine these cards would look. This is also something that could be a potential unlockable based on a levelling-up system or maybe future DLC.

The Manor Beckons Once More

I managed to complete my art test a day before the deadline and submitted it without issue. The company responded quickly with a thoughtful and encouraging email. While it didn’t lead to an offer this time, it was still a valuable experience. I’ve come away from it having finally learned Blender, which is a great new skill to add to my toolkit.

I also mentioned this project to them during the interview, and they showed genuine interest, suggesting that I set it up with source control if I plan to take it further. Taking that advice on board, I set things up using Diversion, which I’ve previously used for freelance work. I also have experience with Perforce and Git from larger studios, and so far Diversion feels like a solid, user-friendly free option for solo and indie development.

Since my break from this project, Luke worked on implementing some player models for me. I decided that I wanted to use the Puppet Creature models from Stigma Studios on the Fab store.

Puppet Creature 01 by Stigma Studios 

Eventually I think I would like the player to have the option of customising these puppets, maybe by drawing on the faces or having some pre-set faces that they could choose. Similar to Content Warning, or Roadside Research. The players could maybe also have colour variants for more customisation.

Luke added the puppet to the project and attached a flashlight. This was initially set up with the basic unreal engine styled walking and running animations. He blended the animations between the flashlight holding and the default walking and running animations.

I decided that I would like the puppets to move in an uneven "shamble" rather than a walk. So Luke replaced the default Unreal Engine movement animations with some Zombie animations from Yummy Games on Fab, still blending with the flashlight animations. He also reduced the fog intensity on the flashlight slightly to improve visibility. 

I think that just having the player characters set up in engine really helps to sell the idea that they are dolls in a dollhouse. 

In other personal news, I got invited to carry out another art test for a different company that I had a successful interview with. This one was a lot bigger scope and I felt a bit like they were asking for too much in the timeframe, but you have to be professional about these things. I managed to complete the fully textured, fully lit environment that they asked for, with all of their specifications, in a week and it still resulted in another rejection..soo we move on. 

The cats are definitely picking up on the stress, as they have fallen out with each other again, this seems to happen every couple of months since being kittens. Now we have to keep them separate and slowly try to reintroduce them, like we have done before. It is a very tiring process and is taking a toll on both of us. So I will update when I can, but it's very difficult to concentrate when babysitting a screaming cat that needs constant attention, and only being able to leave a room when the other cat isn't around. Life is not great at the moment..

Placing on the Backburner

 I have to take a short break from this project as I have been invited to carry out an art test for a company that I applied to. I'm using this opportunity to learn Blender, as this is the company's 3D program of choice. They said that I could use Maya if I wanted to, but they wanted to challenge me and see how I got on with Blender. In my previous role a lot of the other artists preferred Blender but I was still allowed to use Maya, so I never learnt. The longer I'm in the industry, the more common it seems to be that people are switching to Blender, so it's about time I have a look too! 

So far I've been learning it for 3 days and it's slowly getting less daunting. I like the modifiers, but navigating around the program is challenging. I have post-it notes stuck to my monitor with lists of hotkeys and I have to Google how to do specific things, but I'm getting there, slowly.

It is weird to feel uneasy and slow with 3D modelling, as I've been in the industry since 2016. It takes me back to my university days, feeling embarrassed and awkward. Google and YouTube are my friends at the moment though, there's a lot more information available now than when I was at university!

In other news, I just got a new super cute mouse and keyboard, which of course will help me with productivity.. but I mostly got it because they both connect to the same Bluetooth USB adapter. I have limited USB slots in my PC and also there's no wires for Pumpkin the Destroyer to sink her fangs into! Her current record is 3 gaming mice and 2 wired Xbox controllers, she has expensive tastes.

General Housekeeping

 One of the biggest annoyances I've had when working professionally for a company is lack of organisation. Each developer seems to have their own ideas of the best way to keep files and levels organised and it is never consistent, even if there's discussions and guides to follow about naming conventions, folder structures and level hierarchies, the final product is often a jumbled mess behind the scenes. I think this is a huge advantage to being the main developer on this project. Although I have and will have additional help from other developers, I am in charge of this game so I will make sure it is organised in a way that makes sense to me. 

Now that I'm generally happy with the room layouts, I decided to group all of the wall assets per room into folders in the outliner. This will make my job a lot easier when I get to the optimisation stage, as I can easily hide and view each room individually. I am currently undecided on whether it will be more performant to merge all of the walls together per room, or stick with the modular assets, as I've mostly worked on optimisation within the VR space, so PC might be different and this is something I'm going to have to do some research on. But if I want to merge them, then having them in these folders will also be a big help for that stage. 

Another general clean-up pass I've done is collision. Many of the assets from the packs that I used were either using complex collision meshes or multiple 10-24 DOP Collision meshes generated from Unreal, when they could very easily use a simple box or cylinder collision mesh. I don't think it is necessary to have perfect collision for every single asset, especially if they're just background props that can't be interacted with. Also some assets like the rugs and paintings didn't really need collision. I've done a big collision pass on most of the assets that I've placed and play tested all of the areas.

I'm starting to fill out the rest of the house now, and I think I've only got maybe one or two rooms left to block out. I'm thinking a lot about what features I want to add to each room, like possible areas to scare the players and where to put the pickups. It's starting to shape up to be a game, (in my head anyway!) and I can't wait to start getting some of these ideas in the actual level. I think my main concern at the moment is players learning exactly what is going to happen where, so they will expect certain things and not get scared by them. I know that I can't avoid this completely, as my target audience is streamers but I'm trying to think of ways to have more variety with the traps and "secrets".