INSANITY 2 pics

A few work-in-progress screenies for the new installment of the series.





Still require a bit of touching-up (ooh matron!) before they can be used for the game.

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THE INSANITY 2

Frickin' Tekken 6 online is sucking up a loooot of my time. EVILKRIS_1977 if you see me on there. Playing as Eddy I'm currently 126th (W 906 L 503) in the world online battle rankings, not bad for a dude some might say is past his best gaming years! Come on all ye challengers!

Er.. and for anyone interested in my work:
'THE INSANITY II' is in the works, I'll have some snapshots up on the blog sometime later in the week. I've examined a lot of feedback from players of the original and decided to make a few altercations to the in-game mechanics. The battle system is kaput- some folks said it was 'original' but not very enjoyable and *shockingly* actually killed the games suspense.
Replacing that will be more action QTE-esque cutscenes and subgames, though none as tricky as 'The Machine'- which seemed overly challenging and clearly pissed off a lot of players.
Picture a mouse-mashing scene that will require you to crawl through a vent with one of the vivisects in hot pursuit, get caught and there will be a nasty, delectable death to come. The protagonist in this one is much more apparent- I've already designed the 3d mesh and you will see his appearance throughout the game.

The game will continue the tradition of ambushing any quiet moments where the player thinks it's safe to have a break. Also, in some cases you'll die by walking into the wrong place, using the wrong item or lingering too long, you'll need to think carefully and keep your wits about you at all times. Also, the puzzles will be trickier and more 'intellectual'. The blood and gore are all there but the story is the main chiller.
Originally I entertained that the game would take place in a lighthouse. This seemed like a good idea but I realised it would be impractical for storytelling purposes.
So, where is it being set now? An abandoned asylum..


More later...

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-THE INSANITY- RELEASED!

Here-
THE INSANITY

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"THE INSANITY" DEVELOPMENT POST

GAME INSPIRATION
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There's no direct inspiration for 'THE INSANITY' but it definitely had a wide range of influences. My first purpose was to recreate something similar to what we used to read in the Fighting Fantasy Ian Livingstone&Steve Jackson books as kids. Are you old enough to remember?
What a great idea it would be, I thought, to have a game like that. Not really much more than an excuse for a straightforward picture-book story. Interactivity is limited- there are battles and sub games to raise the pulse a little, but the real involvement comes from the characters and being astray in this mysterious world that is part directed by the author and part by your own imagination.
In a sense the game is a hybrid because it's not actually aimed at the crowd who prefer slow, passive puzzle games, but rather the Silent Hill/Resident Evil fans who like a decent story and medium pace action+the chance of a grizzly death.


CHARACTERS
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EDGAR FRIENDLY
One of the differences between Friendly and other horror genre antagonists is that he doesn't have any provocative background tale, his history is straightforward and nondescript, he is a highly-educated man from a good Christian non-abusive family. He's brain damaged. There's more to be learned about this in the second game, but he gets involved in a horrendous accident that triggers it all off a few years later. He loses the mental faculties that appropriate what is moral and sane in our society. With normal thought patterns destabilised he goes on to believe what he is doing, the experiments, the kidnapping, the vicious murdering, is for the benefit and advancement of humanity and medical science. He doesn't view himself as an outright serial killer (as do many in real life btw) - it's 'progress'- mankind will comprehend his objectives and one day thank him, the end DID defy the means, and all was not for naught. In the Insanity 1- which is taking place sometime after the second game- his beliefs have manifested themselves to such an extent that he literally puts himself under the knife with a little help from T.Takaki, in the vain hope that it will educate the world and prove his level of commitment. All goes awry at the last minute however, and he ends up potentially 'curing' his condition and being as horrified at his surroundings as a normal human being would be. His awakening prior to discovering the horrible truth is the event consequentially to the games beginning.

TRACY TAKAKI
Tracy is nothing more than a frail-minded girl who's love for Friendly runs so deep that she allows him to sculpt her into one of his Pigmalion-esque 'experiments' to be with him. She lies to herself that all that is happening is just a game. She is the one who deep-down is completely aware of the terrible irregularity of it all, and yet her love obscures her righteous beliefs and she foolishly expects he will somehow revert back to his once normal mentality once the Doctor is done playing around. Her physical appearance is largely based on the 'Kuchisake Onna' of Japanese mythology and the actual model herself (counting out the face) is none other than my own wife- who after seeing her lovely photo's zombied up is convinced she married a Edgar Friendly nut job herself. She will be making a further appearance in the second game.

"THEY'LL BE NO ESCAPE FOR YOU GUY"- TUNNEL MONSTER - STATUE
Past captives and surgically altered victims.

ALEXANDER
Another captive although he- like yourself- manages to escape and is in the process of looking for a way out when you encounter him.

CHAINSAW GUY
He's a character from another game I never did quite finish (yet) "THE DAMNED". Just out of silly affection for the 3d model and it's animations I decided to write him into the game. His history is under wraps as if I do make a second game-demand depending, he will be one of the leading characters. As inspiration goes, obviously you can tell clearly he's all Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

What about a -"THE INSANITY 2"?

As far as a story goes I've already a pretty decent one fleshed out using many of the characters in the original game plus 'The Doctor' naturally.. Don't expect a happy ending!
It is certainly a possibility, depending on the reception of the original and the plausibility of making some better $$$ this time.

Under Construction
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Update..another one.

Here's a trailer:



Not sponsored yet, sorry!

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"THE INSANITY"

Well stick a fork in me because I am DONE. Yes, the latest game "THE INSANITY" is green to go!
Indeed it's been a GRUELING 3-4 months since I started it, and what was only supposed to become a bit of a distraction from work on "THE DAMNED" rewrite turned into 3 months of late, late nights and an abundance of sweaty Japanese summer mental exhaustion. Yes it's been a killer but I'm awfully proud of this little beauty, she's a real diamond- possibly one of the freakiest horror titles ever developed in Flash. Certainly scared the living turd out of me uncovering all the research needed to enrich the story, anyhow.

Unfortunately you chaps won't be able to take a peek at the finished version until I've done the rounds looking for sponsorship, or throw on the MochiAds or whatever business I can get my grubby hands on. Obviously I can assure you whatever happens the blog is where all the links will surface first. Shouldn't be more than a couple of weeks at the most. Sorry! In the meantime I will be working on a YouTube vid for it so that should be appearing on here within a couple of days.

Gonna have to make a few simple games in the meantime because this one sucked all the 'big project' mojo out of me for at least a couple of months! Man, time to hit the beach!

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Updates on the game now entitled 'INSANITY'

SEE IT HERE!

UPDATE 08/05/2007

Inventory system is up and running. Some simple puzzles have been thrown in, also included is a simple battle system. See if you can make it through the Belloc Room door. No bugs as far as I know now, so if you come across something please let me know.

UPDATE 01/05/2007
Coming along..coming along..there are a couple of bugs still in there though.
Now has inventory and a battle scene. Look out for the hammer that appears as you leave the wardrobe, you'll need it to fight the Statue.--01/05/2007 AGAIN. -oops completely forgot instructions for the inventory. You can drag items and try to use them on objects on the screen, when you're done with the object DOUBLE-C*LICK and it will return back and you'll leave ITEM mode. There will also be an EXAMINE for objects if you c*lick once on them (without dragging). It's all been coded I simply haven't gotten around to adding the ingame instructions.

UPDATE 22/04/2007
Thanks to those who have favourited the game. I'll keep posting updates every couple of weeks or so for a little while longer, and then the next update will be the finished product.
NEW EDITS:
*Text speed has been slowed down.
*Descriptions now embolded
*2 extra rooms explorable.
BUGS
* Not sure about this one but there is a strange Event bug that sometimes creeps up, I've got some theories but no solid idea exactly what it is yet so bear with me. If you leave the closet and the screen goes blank, refresh your browser. Should work second time round.
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This is a sample of a point+c*lick adventure I'm hoping to finish before July. It has no name as of yet so I'm using the title "House of Hell" for the time being- the same name as one of my favourite Fighting Fantasy books. Suggestions?
The story revolves around you waking up in a dark room. You're covered in bandages and don't remember how you got there. As you make your escape you find out that the house is the den of a man only named THE DOCTOR, an ex-chief of surgery who lost his sanity quite some time ago, and now dwells deep within the house working on crazed experiments involving the surgical creation of vivisects- humans with animal body parts. Going further into the game you realise that all is not what it seems, and that there are secrets to be discovered that will shock you to the core.
Although this is only a demo of the basic engine with some graphics, the story has been fully fleshed out and personally I think it's a great little tale not so different in vein to Saw.
As for the game itself, without wanting to sound over ambitious I'm aiming it to be the scariest Flash game out there. It's made in a kind of similar mould to such games as Exmortis yet differs in that there is more user interaction- certain scenes will require the player to make quick decisions before a timer countdown or hammer the mouse button to escape being prey to some creature.
This demo is seriously limited in what you can do but 3 rooms are available for exploration.

I'm just looking for some early feedback, hoping people can tell me if there's any obvious errors. Let me know what you like or don't like. You know the drill.

Updates can be found here on my blog.
http://ydjapan.blogspot.c om/

walkthrough:
-strike the lock to open it
-unsheath the beast within the cage
-talk to THE PRISONER
-you can DIE here if you don't do anything and let the counter rundown, the RETRY button
does nothing though so you'll have to refresh your browser
-ELSE hide in the wardrobe
-listen to the dialogue between the monster and THE PRISONER
-go through the door into the corridor
-only the BELLOC room can be entered so go through
-talk to the CLINICIAN about the Doctor and ways to escape the house
-examine the fishtank.

That's about it!More to come

Please check in for regular posts regarding the progress of the game.

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Feedback?

Just to let you know I've posted an (very early) alpha of the new point+c*lick game over at Newgrounds.com, in order to see what folks out there think so follow.
Follow the link to see it for yourself.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/491610

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Just to let you know I've had so many requests for AS3 tutorials that I began to compile a little conversion page for those of you who are starting to dip their toes in the AS3 pool. Check it out on the right in the Tutorial links. You'll find a few tricks for converting AS2 code to AS3, and the tutorial also breaks into overcoming some of the common AS3 issues you might encounter as you start to code (such as pesky MouseEvents).
--
Yeah, yeah, "When are some beat-em up tutes for AS3 coming out?". Well, sooner or later I'll definitely write some, so keep the encouragement coming and be patient. I really would like to finish "The Damned" series and also this new game I've been toying with first. After that I promise it will happen.
--
Seems like I've now recieved most of the collaborated animation I needed to get is in, so I'll be back on 'The Damned'. In the meantime however the new point+c*lick (still no name, ideas?) is going well. I'll be honest with you, from a coding perspective point+c*lick is frickin' easy. Iit's a lot more code than other games since you basically have to write nasty unique functions for every room/section.

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Had a bit of an epiphany the other night. Why am I bothering making The Damned a single game? If I could split it into 3 parts for each level I could not only stretch the levels out longer, maximise my advertising $$$, I could also get some positive/negative feedback from kiddies and generate some interest for the sequels. Smaller file size, hence a shorter loading time.

I'll rework the levels into say, a 10 level survival challenges with a boss at the end. It'll fit much more into the category of a Flash game that way. Short and addictive. I think seeing responses to the game will help inspire the other team members too, motivation is a sneaky devil; always hard to keep a hold of.

Just waiting on some work from a couple of peeps, after which things will really get moving.

Other news:
The point+c*lick adventure I'm working on in the sidelines is coming along well, I've kind of 'invented' a neat way to get extra detail within each image, well I say invented but really all it is is fiddling around with the layer blends. Does wonders for adding creepy little shadows and other particulars. I've been having some horrific dreams from my mind constantly brewing up nasty imagery of decapitated heads and such- you can't work on something like that day and night without it entering your head when you close your eyes. To be expected I guess.

If this point+click thing kicks off some interest I could quite happily continue with this medium. I actually used to be something of a writer (books and writing them being my second love next to video-games). It would be great to flesh-out some of my old horror stories within the Flash medium.
The synopsis for particular story goes something like this;
You wake up in a makeshift operating theater in an old Edwardian mansion with complete memory loss. After discovering another 'prisoner' in the same room you are told that you are to become victim of someone simply called 'The Doctor'- a lunatic ex-surgeon killer who spends all his time with his own sick and twisted form of butchery, vivisecting captured humans with the body parts of animals. During your attempt to escape you meet several characters, including 'The Doctor' himself. Within the arcane house lies a terrible and dark secret that will shake you to the very core of your sanity.

It's a juicy story, I'm sure you're gonna like it.....:-) Watch this space, I will continue to post the ingame shots as they are produced.

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pics

few pics of a little project I'm conjuring up whilst recoding The Damned.
point+c*lick adventure with a slight rpg twist. Graphics are being done with Google Sketchup for the scene reference plus a Photoshop touch-up.

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Few screenies and a bit of a demo..

Ok time for you chaps to have a quick peek under the hood of the upcoming rewrite. A tiny demo of a couple of enemies and not much else.


CHECK IT OUT HERE!

As you can see, it has a few bugs. Gun/Hand models are in the works, but the reload and gunChange functions are active. As for graphics- custom CS models with original animations to come. No death-scenes in yet. Planning to fix some of the lag when it becomes particle-intensive.



p.s. (shoot his trail, that's the weak point)

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It's back in the works..AGAIN!!

OK, so I finally got my ass in gear and have recovered enough from the pain and antagonism related to the development history of the game to come and finish it off. Yes, I'm talking about "The Damned".
Got myself a good sound guy this time, too early to anticipate anything miraculous and God knows I've let people down/been let down in the past many a time, but fingers crossed he seems to know his stuff.

I had MAJOR issues trying to get my head around Mouse events- which I'm pretty sure a lot of other coders also have- but thanks to Senocular and some of the guys over at FlashKit I'm pretty sure I've earned my Cub Scout badge for it all by now. Yup, the AS3 rewrite has been in session for a little while in fact and I'm not tooting my own horn but it's looking mighty fine so far- you might even say it's unlike anything else out there done is AS3.

So why have I not posted a demo? Just to keep everyone (all 2 of you) in suspense I suppose. Members of the development team and the kiddies who were really keen to see the game done have been sent links- hey ask nicely and you might get on the list!

Sneak Peek;

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