Vapourware [feedback] Gaslight Horror - XCOM meets Arkham Horror

[thesheeep]

As a dayjob, I work as a designer in a games company that does contracted game projects for PC and mobile. We seldom use anything else than Unity. Also, it is at the moment the most used development environment with professionals other than AAA-teams. I kinda picture it almost like Photoshop: an essential tool for hobbyist and professionals alike.

Comparing it to Photoshop is a bit wrong, though.
Photoshop is a standard because of what it can do. There is no equal alternative, just more specialized niche products.
Unity is a standard because of how easy it is to use. Anything you can do with Unity, you can do with engine X as well or better, there are many alternatives. But Unity has the largest userbase, thus it attracts the most new users. Most of which are plain bad developers (due to lack of experience, for one).
It is kind of a vicious circle, we get more and more developers that are less and less capable of doing anything other than Unity development.

As a developer myself, I simply have less respect for developers that can work only in high-end engines like Unity. But that is definitely biased.

So in my opinion, you cannot reliably infer the quality of a project from the choice of Unity.

Certainly true. But since when are first impressions reliable

 

[Temesis]

Comparing it to Photoshop is a bit wrong, though.
Photoshop is a standard because of what it can do. There is no equal alternative, just more specialized niche products.

Agreed.

 

[ArchAngel]

This does look interesting but will the full game have a bit better graphics? Such simple graphics look terrible in 3d and from FP view.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Well, I like the the core idea. Old X-com was tense as fuck, and ever since I played Valkyria Chronicles I hoped for a X-com clone with its third person camera and movement. Imagine searching for aliens in near pitch dark cornfield in ol X-com... only with VC's TPS-ish camera & movement. Now, such a game played from first person makes for even tenser and scarier experience.
And I do like your choice of setting too.

That said, visuals look borderline atrocious, almost like another early access Unity title made in a week or so with with one on those cheap asset packs.

 

[thesheeep]

This does look interesting but will the full game have a bit better graphics? Such simple graphics look terrible in 3d and from FP view.

That said, visuals look borderline atrocious, almost like another early access Unity title made in a week or so with with one on those cheap asset packs.

Small hint Temesis , always put a big, fat "PRE-ALPHA-GRAPHICS-NOT-FINAL-OMG"-watermark on your videos.
Because for non-developers this is often not an obvious thing.

 

[Riskbreaker]

You are not as clever as you think!

Video is already marked as a prototype, but even then it is still valid to question if that is the kind of art direction and assets that will be featured in finished game.

 

[thesheeep]

I know the video is marked already, but it's not enough. Honestly. I'm not blaming you here.

Well... you didn't really ask about the art direction, did you?

 

[tormund]

Visually this looks remarkably similar to "Sir you are being Hunted", even the HUD and choice of font look similar

you didn't really ask about the art direction, did you?

Why not?

 

[thesheeep]

you didn't really ask about the art direction, did you?

Why not?

That said, visuals look borderline atrocious, almost like another early access Unity title made in a week or so with with one on those cheap asset packs.

That doesn't strike me as a question, but I guess you could say it was implied.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Well... you didn't really ask about the art direction, did you?

Fair enough.

It was silly to complain about visuals at this point anyway, especially in the way I did, but I couldn't resist. Call it reflexive reaction to Unity games with certain kind of visuals.

Their hearts are in right place, I guess. There is almost a bit of original Thief look to their lighting and low poly environment.

 

[Temesis]

That said, visuals look borderline atrocious, almost like another early access Unity title made in a week or so with with one on those cheap asset packs.

Thank you for the feedback, this is maybe not the stuff we want to hear but very necessary for us.

Yeah, these are prototype graphics, but in regards to art direction, the core idea is to imagine how isometric retro game world look from 1st person view. The lighting is done without real 3d-lights, just using vertex colors (similar to minecraft), because realtime 3D lights and destructive environment would result in steep performance requirements. Other thing about the graphics is the discrete, tile-based world, just like in 1994 X-COM: this also adds to the blocky feel. Personally we like it, and the low poly stuff, but of course it is a huge problem if the key audience doesn't...

ADDITION:

Also, with our lighting system we can have randomly built levels. At the same time, it kinda makes it very hard to have advanced materials such as normals on the buildings...

 

[thesheeep]

Vertex lighting works on games with more abstract graphics, so if you'll be going for that in the end, I could imagine it working.

However, a horror game without very good lighting? Not sure if that can work.
At least so far, best atmosphere in games usually comes from good lighting. I'm especially thinking about stuff like Amnesia here.
But me having a hard time imagining graphics is a common thing.

Might be worth taking a look at the real old games like Witchaven, Blood or Hexen.
Those had to create some kind of a sinister/spooky atmosphere without access to modern graphic pipelines.

 

[Temesis]

Witchaven, Blood or Hexen.

Great games!

Also, another question here is what kind of retro-approach feels "right" in this type of game.

 

[tormund]

For what it's worth, I don't think that this looks BAD per se. It's clearly early and unpolished.
If there is one thing that looks odd to me, it's how clearly high resolution of some textures makes them stick out. Look at the wall texture at 0.18-0.19, something like that on a low polygon building (and with generally low-poly models by the looks of it) makes me think of some 90s game with recent HD texture mod.

 

[Zombra]

I guess this project vaporized?