December 2012. In a warm classroom; festive beverages in hand, we plotted and planned. Ideas for a sweeping first person puzzle adventure game set on a sinking, post apocalyptic island emerged from our collected ideas. Head Lecturer Phil Beards agreed to act as our client. We were excited – we were champing at the bit. We went our separate ways for Christmas, ready to hit the ground running upon our return.
January 2013. Tired and suffering from post-Christmas malaise, we assembled again in a cold classroom and realised, to our horror, that we had no idea what we wanted to do, and worse, if we even wanted to. Jonti left us to work on a kinetic-typography music video, and in a moment of inactivity between trying to salvage ideas, I fell back on the only thing I wanted to do at the time: make something. Seeing as we needed a setting for our game, as the island idea had quite literally sunk, I built a room.
It wasn’t anything special; four walls, five large windows, a staircase and a balcony. Dissatisfied with the unrealistic quality of the renders I was producing, I discovered a particular render setting, unobtrusively named “Physical Sun and Sky.” The results, as seen below, gave my model an almost photorealistic quality, far superior to even the black & white “occlusion layer” I had come to depend upon. I was blown away, as was Dan. Even Jonti came back to the project, feeling there might be a chance that we could pull it off. Rolling of the accidental inspiration of a manor house’s grand entrance hall, we worked on the premise of a haunted house game.
As soon as we started idea-generating, we couldn’t stop. Being a fan of 19th Century Architecture, fashion and setting, I proposed setting the game in Pre-Victorian era Europe. Jonti, being a fan of Puzzle-Platformers and Nintendo games, proposed including a series of puzzles stagger the progression of the game. Gradually we began to combine our influences and generate new ideas, but even then it was obvious we were dreaming far too big, far too quickly. In the weeks and months that followed, our idea changed many times, ideas were put forth and shot down, tempers frayed, hope mingled with despair, but at least it’s all character building…right?
pneumatictuna 