The basic idea of the game is that you’ve stumbled upon a jumble of lightly encrypted files.  Each level is a grid puzzle that you have to complete to unlock a file.  Once a file is unlocked, you get to check it out–Some files are excerpts from books or snippets from old newspapers.  Some are notes written directly to you.  Hopefully we’ll get some images and audio mixed in there, too.  I’ve included two examples of these files.  One is a newspaper clipping and the other is a series of Bible verses.

“…but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.  So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.”

-Genesis 4:5

“If we go on sinning after we have learned the truth, no sacrifice can take away our sins.”

-Hebrews 10:26

“They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.”

-1 John 4:5

“So do not be afraid of them.  There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.”

-Matthew 10:26

Yes, it's an actual newspaper article from the 30s.

The second project might be called The Influence, and it’s a puzzle-horror game.  It’s a story about the biggest fucking conspiracy ever.  Like, take the sort of cheesy idea of a shadow organization, but extend it to Lovecraftian scales, where it doesn’t even really exist as a normal entity anymore.  The basic goal is to make you paranoid about every single thing in your day.  The enemy isn’t just everywhere.  It’s everything.

Anyway, I’m back from Edmonton, now, which means I’m back to my own work.  I’m still in a state of never being actually satisfied with how Grief plays, so I’m gonna let the project rest for a bit and work on something else.  The script is mostly finished, and I like it a lot, so that’s all good.  The gameplay needs, once again, to be redesigned, though.  Best course of action that I can see is to let the ideas churn for the time being, and work on another game for my contract with Armor.

At the moment, I’m calling this new game “Chivalry is Dead.”  More details when things start to come together.

I’m spending the month in Edmonton, working for MaxGames on a sequel to Stick War (which in turn is a sequel to an old game of mine, called Champion).  You can read about what we’re working on at StickWar.com, but this site will be left alone for the time being.

Tally-ho!

Also, I hooked up the Jack animations from Company so that he wouldn’t be a green rectangle anymore.  Once I find a character artist, I’ll get the actual game art put in.

Everything is working better than before, and I’m satisfied.

It’s still missing some little things like a mute button and cookies to save your progress.  Other than that, it’s mostly just tweaking from here on out.

Let me know what you think of the game–I’ll be releasing it pretty soon!

Oh, also, make sure you try out the Zero Writes.  They’re bombs that kill everything on the screen.  I’m really satisfied with how they feel at the moment, and I can’t wait to get sound worked in so that these guys can make some noise.

To sum things up, Grief isn’t a shooter.  Grief is a puzzle game.  There are no enemies to shoot.  The gun ends up being purely a tool that you use in solving puzzles.

Aside from the game mechanics involved, having it be a gun is pretty important to the mood of the game.  The second chapter in Grief is Anger, and this is when Henry gets his pistol.  He’s frustrated with everyone and wants to feel powerful–A pistol sums that up in one concise package.  The real trick is going to be making sure that getting a gun feels like an important event, like it would be in real life.  Having a gun in a video game is often par for the course, so there’s no real impact when you get one.  In Grief, we’re going to have to set this up thoughtfully enough to make it feel genuine.

Substantial, empowering, and most importantly, somewhat dangerous.

As a side note, I’m back to work on You Find Yourself In A Room.  It’s not going to be entered in the JayIsGames contest, because A) it would be disqualified anyway, and B) I already missed the deadline.  The demo for that one is updated with some actual content.  There are just three simple levels at this point.  Hopefully it’s somewhat clear how the game’s flow is going to work–It starts out pretty straightforward, and slowly gets sick of you.  Then it starts to resent you.  Then it starts to hate you.

It’s fun as hell to write, by the way.

Here’s a game for you to try out.  It’s a moody little puzzle game about a lonely protagonist who can make copies of himself (by pressing the space bar).  He can stand on his copies, and his copies can stand on him.  He talks to himself throughout the game, which is shown as text overlays that appear over the level art.  The music featured is an original song, focusing on lonely sounding piano work, with some synth thrown in for good measure.  When he is limited in the number of copies he can make, the number left is shown as a number in the top left corner.  His chief personal motivation ends up being a girl.  The goal for each stage is to get to the square shaped exit.  Sometimes there are platforms that only copies can pass through, and sometimes there are platforms that only the original character can pass through.  The ground is a dull brown with grass on top.  Each level is exactly the size of the screen, so there is no scrolling.

Now, here’s the kicker.  I’m not talking about The Company of Myself.  I’m talking about Little Thing.

Play Little Thing

Anyone else feeling a little deja vu?

Grief is about the psychologist from the end of Company.  His name is Henry.  Near the beginning of the game, he finds out that he is dying of a newly discovered illness.  The rest of the game is split up into chapters that are based on the five stages of grief.  These are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.  The player unlocks abilities that coincide with the current stage.

There are four characters in Grief.  Henry is the lead.  His daughter, Liz, is the most directly affected by Henry’s illness, though she doesn’t understand it, since Henry doesn’t want to admit to her that he is dying.  Dr. Parson shows up periodically to study Henry’s illness, though it’s clear that he has no intention of finding a cure.  He is only interested in making a name for himself.  Finally, the grim reaper shows up periodically to help Henry understand and manage his fate.  The grim reaper is interpreted differently than the average “black cloak and sickle” that we’re all accustomed to.  In Grief, Grim looks like an average person (In fact, in this case, he looks like Henry).  He’s generally laid back and calm; possibly indifferent.  He’s not trying to show off and terrify people.  Intimidating because of his position, maybe, but not because of his demeanor.

If you take a look at the current version (the tab near the top of the page, under the title), you can test out the first version of the gun that Henry acquires at the beginning of Anger.  For those who are interested, the bullets are physically simulated–They have mass and all that.  In certain cases, it’s possible to bounce one off of something and hit something else.

I’ve also been looking around for voice actors and a character artist.  I’ll let everyone know once I’ve got a team on lock down.