And no-one cares….
Anyway, hi everyone! It's been a while since I've posted, but I've been online pretty much this entire time. I'm going to try and post a little more often since I've got tons of free time now.So, stuff I've been working on. I've released a few updates for Shader Sandwich, and had a big sale a month ago that Unity promoted for me, so that was pretty great :D. Other than that, I've been focusing more on visual effects, film making and making friends. I have literally had zero non-family friends for the past year or so, so I decided to change that and now have 3! And two of them, my sister and I made a short film:For the first time in about half a year I played a game (SOMA), so that was fun. Really great game, loved its look at consciousness and what it means to be alive (in a non biological sense, I shouldn't need to say this but I've seen many people comment "But there's a scientific definition blah blah blah"). The sound design was the most impressive part of the game for me, how perfectly every sound flowed from the clanking of metal to the oppressive sounds of ocean currents, they just nailed it. Voice acting was great, and the main character wasn't a complete moron like in most other games I've played. They really tried hard to make Simon ask whatever the player would be thinking at that point, which really helped with player-character immersion. Visually the game was fantastic as well, the ocean floor was absolutely incredible. My only complaint there might be when you walked through seaweed it wobbled too much, but that's basically it. Compared to Amnesia this game looked much better. And finally gameplay wise, it was an improvement in a few different ways. It had a few more mechanics, but that wasn't what was impressive. It was how smooth everything felt, nothing ever felt clunky or badly designed, the entire game was perfectly designed and you can really tell how much effort went into it. In their previous games the gameplay didn't feel as cohesive as this (particularly in Penumbra, but Amnesia was well).So, the story. Look, I can definitely poke holes in it, there are a few things that don't quite work and I think this is because of huge rewrites occurring write up until the final release (getting this idea from how different the Transmission video's story (filmed in 2013) is compared to the final game's), however how competently it was told more than made up for it. Every room in the game told it's own story, the characters were all fleshed out and Pathos-2 just felt like a real place. This is the first time a game has really pulled that off (in my extremely limited experience admittedly, but I've watched alot of games being played), so I was very impressed by that.So yeah, SOMA was great and you guys should go buy it because it's awesome Frictional give me mah monies.I have no idea what this post is about, but whatever. I really want to post more often, both here and on my website which you should totally check out by the way…., so yah. Thanks for reading!
"I care…." - Luke Skywalker
I've been thinking about getting SOMA. I loved the previous Amnesia games and figured I'd love this one too. Might wait for a sale before grabbing it though. Then I will poop myself from a lights-out playthrough.
Yeah, if you enjoyed Amnesia I'd definitely suggest you get it :). I don't think it's as scary as Amnesia (Edit: from what other people have said), nor do I think it was meant to be, however it still gets incredibly tense at times. There's also a wider variety of "enemies" that are scary in more subtle/psychological ways. Has anyone else here played it yet?
I have played Amnesia, but only about an hour. It got boring, I didn't like the gameplay. I wanted to get scared, not hunt some items and explore the same room a hundreth time. I might give the game another chance… some day.
About SOMA… well, no idea if I'm ever going to buy it.Yeah, I didn't find Amnesia that scary either (Similarly I only played the first 2 hours, then watched someone else play the rest. I've edited my post to clarify that I've seen lots of reviewers say that it's not as scary (am really tired XD)), and SOMA feels like a lot more of a tight experience. I don't think there were any padded areas, and everything you have to do makes sense. The locations are also quite varied, with underwater segments, Alien: Isolation styled bits and even normal 21st century buildings. There are still item hunts, but there aren't any key hunts (from memory at least), and they are plenty more interesting.
I played Penumbra first and liked it. If I forgot I ever played it and tried it again today I'm not sure I'd be patient enough to finish it, now that the rigid body physics puzzles are common things. I feel it's still pretty unique type of game though. I liked Amnesia initially but it got boring quickly. The pattern does not speak in favor of Soma, however… I know that if the game hits the right spots, I can immerse myself completely in a first person game of that type, so I'm going to try it.
Man, 10 minutes! That's much longer than anything I was able to make when I was your age. Much better quality too. I really liked the beginning shots of the lights being turned on, however I feel like you relied too much on the lens blur for transitions and the camera was pretty shaky at times throughout the film.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed.Thanks! Yeah, I think I overdid it with the shallow depth of field, I had just got a new lens that could pull off those effects really well and I got excited XD. We also had really tight filming schedules (we did the majority of filming within 5 hours) so we didn't have much time to get proper scene transitions and character reactions and such, hence why the pacing is pretty wonky. As for the shaky camera, I'm currently building a camera steadier so whatever I make next hopefully won't have that problem :). Thanks for the feedback :D.
Here's a quick VFX breakdown video :)
I've gotta say, I'm impressed too! I didn't fully understand what was going on, but it was fun to watch (the VFX breakdown video was cool to see as well) and makes me wish I'd taken the animation and visual effects module instead of mobile apps back in uni. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! ;_;
I'm also very impressed by Shader Sandwich! It looks really nifty!