Incline CYCLOPEAN CHASMS Development Updates (Lovecraft inspired Walking Simulator)

[luj1]

the ashtray is a cute detail

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Your creative choice of font for the title reminds me of the classic Infocom text adventure The Lurking Horror.

How? It's not even remotely close. Cyclopean Chasms has a victorian/vaudevillian font, while The Lurking Horror has just... some completely different stylized font.

Try zooming in to see the details.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

No point in having a Lovecraft game without quality rat herding. Spent two nights coding and tweaking rat herds with appropriate swarming behavior, squeaks, fleeing light source and snarling occasionally. They also just lay down to rest at times, kind of cute.

This is the first room in the game when we fall through the ceiling of the old tomb. Still needs prefabs of spider webs (in progress) and more rubbish strewn about floor. Have some good ash mounds to go in here.

All candles in the game have flickering lights with animation using a very efficient, very clever static light map trick.

Still working on the decal sheets of glowing green fungoid masses throbbing on the walls and dripping ichor. A custom shader written for Unity.

 

[Eirinjas]

Those rats look like they are peeling out and burning rubber.

 

[luj1]

- lantern looks huge
- interface should be more stylized
- what he said about rats

 

[megidolaon]

Something I've yet to see in a Lovecraftian game is architecture built of non-Euclidean geometry. It can certainly be done in an engine with visportals, it's just that nobody's bothered doing it.

 

[grimace]

No point in having a Lovecraft game without quality rat herding. Spent two nights coding and tweaking rat herds with appropriate swarming behavior, squeaks, fleeing light source and snarling occasionally. They also just lay down to rest at times, kind of cute.

This is the first room in the game when we fall through the ceiling of the old tomb. Still needs prefabs of spider webs (in progress) and more rubbish strewn about floor. Have some good ash mounds to go in here.

All candles in the game have flickering lights with animation using a very efficient, very clever static light map trick.

Still working on the decal sheets of glowing green fungoid masses throbbing on the walls and dripping ichor. A custom shader written for Unity.

View attachment 11189

What a fantastic way to prepare for a Matt Chat.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

- lantern looks huge
- interface should be more stylized
- what he said about rats

The interface is just test/placeholder graphics right now, have some awesome gothic UI graphics with bubbling soul ball to show how much health you have left instead of just a label.

There is no point in doing a game inspired by Lovecraft without a journey into the eldritch realm, so of course already been doing a bit of work on that - including the wild geometry.

I thought I would be the only person doing justice to Lovecraft when I finally started on this game (been planning it so long) but looks like Stygian : Reign of the Old Ones is going to beat me to it.

You should also see some of the writhing tentacle experiments I have been doing. Looks pretty good for an indie. I spent a bit of time building tentacles with horrible textures and making them flail about wildly, including attaching them to some enemies.

I really wish I knew enough about kinetics to make them reach out and grab things but to be honest I don't. I just figured out how to make IK chains and wobble them according to various sine functions.

 

[luj1]

I thought I would be the only person doing justice to Lovecraft when I finally started on this game (been planning it so long) but looks like Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is going to beat me to it.

But why do you think Stygian is doing justice to Lovecraft? I don't think so. Stygian is infantile and over the top, lacking a sense of measure, w/ a flat palette and clip art characters giving it that early-2000 flash game look. So no worries, you can still outdo Stygian in many respects.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

No point in having a Lovecraft game without Eldritch mucus, glowing fungus and a lot of spiderwebs.

Just playing with it trying to improve the atmosphere and general zeitgeist. Want to get it consistent in design throughout the game. Was trying to get the mucus to glow and shimmer, still working on it. Needs the right shader.

That's a corpse candle on the wall - you light them and by staring at them for a moment while they flicker you can stabilize challenges to your sanity.

Also have the rock shaft upwards that you got into this room with broken rope ladder. Want to have Randolph Carter at the top of the shaft shouting instructions to you kind of like a beginner tutorial before you leave this room and head downward. One level down is the first Miskatonic Expedition waymarker and telephone to the surface.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore, did you model this off your own gout-ridden arm?

Anyway, Eldritch mucus and Miskatonic stuff are all well and good, but the corpse candle is conceptually brilliant -- an archetype deeply rooted in our psyches.
Walk me through your thought process. How did you conceive of transplanting the corpse candle here?

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore, did you model this off your own gout-ridden arm?

Anyway, Eldritch mucus and Miskatonic stuff are all well and good, but the corpse candle is conceptually brilliant -- an archetype deeply rooted in our psyches.
Walk me through your thought process. How did you conceive of transplanting the corpse candle here?

I did what any reasonable, thoughtful designer of survival horror would do - I ripped the idea off AMNESIA. I also had a really good Unity Asset of a corpse hand holding a candle.

I have another hand holding a box lantern but this one was even more ghoulish.

 

[Citizen]

2039 will be THE BEST YEAR

 

[HarveyBirdman]

I did what any reasonable, thoughtful designer of survival horror would do - I ripped the idea off AMNESIA. I also had a really good Unity Asset of a corpse hand holding a candle.

I have another hand holding a box lantern but this one was even more ghoulish.

Ha! You chose to replicate a very cool mechanic. Looks like I need to play Amnesia.

Just in case you copied it purely based off its gameplay, here's why the idea blows me away so much:

200,000 BC. Every day is fight for survival. You hunt prey, avoid predators, and forage for anything non-poisonous. Rocks, sticks, bones, and mud are your tools. The elements are omnipotent. Your tribe is everything.
At the end of each day, you find respite at the campfire. You commune with your tribe for a time. Eventually, the fire lulls all present into a trance, eyes intent upon the fire. Your thoughts wander with flames and smoke, twisting upon themselves, casting shadowy illusions upon the faces of your tribesmen while illuminating the otherwise unseeable. The wood hisses and cracks, and an elder announces that sleep is in order. You are finally prepared to rest, mentally restored and ready for another day.

The campfire speaks to us on a fundamental level. We see the campfire in the moon, guiding us through dark nights. Corpse candles, will o' the wisps, jack o' lanterns, fox fires... they enthrall us, because they are variations on (or perhaps unsettling perversions of) the campfire.

Dark Souls nailed this feeling with bonfires. Apparently Amnesia did too with normal candles, according to the Wiki. Bringing corpse candles into Lovecraft feels natural.

 

[GandGolf]

Apparently Amnesia did too with normal candles, according to the Wiki. Bringing corpse candles into Lovecraft feels natural.

Actually it was more like if you didn't have any light source the darkness would sap your sanity. Merely having light was not enough to restore it from what I remember though there were potions (or something like that) instead.

 

[Parsifarka]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore
Actually Amnesia didn't have a properly working insanity mechanic, as one of the developers explains in the attached video.

Of course, I played it the way it was supposed to and so I believed the game would severely punish me should my character go insane or be found by a monster, hence I avoided all fail states during my playhtrough thus having an awfully tense and enjoyable experience. However, upon knowing the trick I don't think I can play an Amnesia 2. I hope a Thal will know how to work this out.

 

[zapotec]

Imho you should do something similar to "The mound" novel , i think nobody in the game industry ever did the Kn-yan underworld etc

 

[Beastro]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore
Actually Amnesia didn't have a properly working insanity mechanic, as one of the developers explains in the attached video.

Of course, I played it the way it was supposed to and so I believed the game would severely punish me should my character go insane or be found by a monster, hence I avoided all fail states during my playhtrough thus having an awfully tense and enjoyable experience. However, upon knowing the trick I don't think I can play an Amnesia 2. I hope a Thal will know how to work this out.

Can't unknow now.

Well, at least I never found Amnesia all that scary. The lack of a weapon oddly frees the player from a lot of anxiety over how to protect yourself and all you need to focus on is running and hiding.

A lot of the scariest moments I've had in games is clinging to a weapon, but not sure how to act, like the first Bloodsucker in Stalker down in Agroprom. After it wiped out the mercs there as I ran to find a corner to hide in I wasn't sure how to act with it pitch black until the thing leaped out at me as I rock and rolled it down.

Had I been unarmed I'd have just kept running away.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore
Actually Amnesia didn't have a properly working insanity mechanic, as one of the developers explains in the attached video.

Of course, I played it the way it was supposed to and so I believed the game would severely punish me should my character go insane or be found by a monster, hence I avoided all fail states during my playhtrough thus having an awfully tense and enjoyable experience. However, upon knowing the trick I don't think I can play an Amnesia 2. I hope a Thal will know how to work this out.

On the one hand, I don't want to give out the entire design document, on the other I was to blabber about all the cool stuff in it I am working on.

Needless to say, in the frightened mode you will botch almost every important action, including drawing the extremely important sigils in the air that are sometimes the only thing that can save your life. For example, there are sigils that will make you vanish from sight for some creatures and others that will temporarily block a hallway until you can escape.

 

[Ninjerk]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore
Actually Amnesia didn't have a properly working insanity mechanic, as one of the developers explains in the attached video.

Of course, I played it the way it was supposed to and so I believed the game would severely punish me should my character go insane or be found by a monster, hence I avoided all fail states during my playhtrough thus having an awfully tense and enjoyable experience. However, upon knowing the trick I don't think I can play an Amnesia 2. I hope a Thal will know how to work this out.

On the one hand, I don't want to give out the entire design document, on the other I was to blabber about all the cool stuff in it I am working on.

Needless to say, in the frightened mode you will botch almost every important action, including drawing the extremely important sigils in the air that are sometimes the only thing that can save your life. For example, there are sigils that will make you vanish from sight for some creatures and others that will temporarily block a hallway until you can escape.

Is this going to have Cthulhu directly in-universe or is it just inspiration?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Which sigil lets you urinate yourself?

 

[Alex]

Hastur's. You too can be a king in yellow.

 

[Parsifarka]

Needless to say, in the frightened mode you will botch almost every important action

Nice, now it sounds like Dark Corners of the Earth, already mentioned earlier in this thread. That awfully flawed game is fucking lovely, great source of inspiration.
It's good enough to know that sanity will have a real impact on the gameplay, I won't try to get you to spoil us Cyclopean Chasms. Keep inclining

 

[Fedora Master]

If there's one person I trust to write convincing mad ramblings, it's Cleve.

 

[Beastro]

Which sigil lets you urinate yourself?

Can you use pee to draw sigils on the ground???