Transformers: FoC - Demo Thoughts -

So, I've just got done playing the Transformers: FoC demo that is up on Xbox Live, and I think PSN. I'm not too sure, but I just spent about two hours playing the demo, which included playing both of the missions and the multiplayer component, and I've decided to do a little write-up about it.

So, for the missions you play as Bumblebee and Vortex. Each have their own play-styles, weapons and means of combat which is pretty cool. Bumblebee can turn into a car, and Vortex turns into a helicopter but can also turn into a jet to fly faster, so that's pretty cool. The game felt solid, and from what I played the story was really engaging, and drew me back into the days of when I'd watch Transformers G1. That's a good thing.

Then, I dipped into the multiplayer and was quite honestly blown away. The main thing that got me happy was the customization and the ability to create your own Autobots, and Decepitcons which I think every kid wanted to do when Transformers G1 was in production (The Michael Bay stuff doesn't exist). So, I dabbled with that a bit and created my own Transformer who is like a pink color and in my head I named him "Canadiatron". The combat is also pretty damn flawless, and I enjoyed that quite a lot too and my god does it feel amazing to start blowing up the other team with rockets, transform into your vehicle form, fly towards them and smash them to pieces.

It's pure bliss, and I'll be buying this game on day one. Such a solid experience. If anyone is on the fence, please download the demo. It's so good.

A Scam Artist In Our Midsts

I got a very useful message this morning by a guy who will remain nameless, but he hosts video-game streams. He brought about this guy named "Justin" which is my name, posing as me in these streams saying he created Slender: Source and he's trying to get money for donations towards the game.

Funny thing is, we have not asked for donations yet and have only sold shirts as a form of in-come so we can afford server fees when the mod releases. He also states that this guy is from the UK when I clearly am from Canada.

So, if you see a guy named Justin from the UK asking you to donate money to him for Slender: Source, please ignore it. You'll lose that money, and it won't be put towards anything. It's a scam, and what-not.

I'm really glad this was brought to my attention, I don't want anything happening to our loyal fans.

I'm So Very Nervous

If the picture above isn't enough of a spoiler about this topic, then I'll be blunt & honest. I'm nervous as shit, and my nerves are very shot at the current point in time (the playing of Cry Of Fear hasn't helped).

We've finally released a deadline for when the closed beta for Slender: Source will sent out to certain people, and press. December 2012, is the month and it's closer than I thought. We still have quite a bit of work to do but I'm positive we can have a solid, beta product by then and hopefully push out our initial public release sometime in March or February of 2013. I've really never been this nervous about producing something before because my reputation as a developer is staked on this, and possibly my future as a developer.

If this mod fails, or is received negatively by the community I'll be heart-broken. The entire development team at Ethereal Entertainment has been hard at work developing the mod, and the scares that some members of the team have been getting are hopeful, and making the whole nervous episode of mine less of an issue, and just more of me being a paranoid kind of guy. The amount of support behind this mod is giving us a ton of inspiration to finish this mod, and hopefully provide one of the scariest multiplayer experiences imaginable for players.

A lot of people are worried that we won't be able to scare them with their friends leaping about, and all I ask is have faith. We have a ton of ideas to scare the pants off of you guys, and we're positive we have a solid idea on how to do it. As I type this, I realize I still have a hefty amount of work to do today on the mod, and that I should get cracking on it. December isn't that far away, and I want to provide a solid experience for everyone who's going to be in the closed beta.

Especially the press people who've been covering our mod. I'll leave with one little bit of information, something that should be of some relief to people doubting us, or the people having a ton of faith in us with this mod. Slendy has his base code finished, and he's made our Lead Programmer, and myself both shit ourselves almost. He's terrifying.

Saga Of Pandoria - Help Them Achieve A Dream

I'm not one for pimping out games that you need to check out, and I'm definitely not the kind of guy to advertise a game and beg people to fund it. However, there was something about this game that caught my eye, and struck me at home. It's hard to get into the game development industry, especially when you don't have the funds to do so.

Saga Of Pandoria is a Fantasy-RPG being developed by Team Monkey on the Source Engine, and they're trying to raise $33,000 so they can afford to license the Source Engine and distribute their game as a stand-alone project, and make their dreams come true. Something that hits me right at home, and right in the heart. Everything the team is trying to do with this game is brilliant, and I for one want to see it succeed and not die off like other promising mods/games. But, how about a little detail about this game?

42 Years have past. Long enough for the world to heal. Long enough to forget the horrors of the war that almost claimed not only our lives, but that of our entire world. From the east came the Empire, their mecha and weapons soon overwhelmed the defenders of the Allied Kingdoms but, they were beaten.
Three warrior from the Kingdom Domen stood against the tide of chaos when no one else could. Wielding the powers of the eight great elements of mana, the heroes beat back the empire. However, the aftermath of what we today call the Second Imperial War was high indeed. The Empire lies in ruins, the allied kingdoms threaten to break apart from within, and Mana, the source of all magic, has vanished.
42 years have past, to the east the Empire stirs, the forests of Domen have turned dangerous, fought with monsters and bandits. Now a new generation takes to the defense of the world for now is the time for the Return to Mana.
Inspired by SNES classics, Team Monkey announces a brand new fantasy adventure/RPG for PC. In Saga of Pandoria - Legacy of the eight elements, brings an innovative fresh setting to the PC platform and a full 3 player cooperative playing experience. Fight together with 2 friends to prevent the Empire from rising again and restore peace to the world of Mana.

I can't even begin to explain how badly I want to see this get funded, and how badly I want this in my hands on release. It feels like an RPG I've been waiting for and the fact that it's inspired by SNES classics makes me happy. Not to mention there isn't a huge influx of PC only RPG's and this one seems to really be the one we all want, and deserve. The people at Team Monkey deserve to have their dreams come true, and deserve to have their game release and funded.

Anyways, enough of that rambling. Here's some screenshots, trailer and the link to their IndieGogo page.

 

 

 

Slender: Source News For July, 29th 2012

It kinda bugs me that people are reporting that we are part of Parsec Productions. We're our own standalone studio 'Ethereal Entertainment' and we've gotten Mark J Hadley's blessing to produce and finish Slender: Source, and we're really proud to have his support in our first endeavor making a video-game. So again, we're our own development team, and Slender: Source isn't related to, or a direct sequel to Slender by Parsec & Mark J Hadley.

However, in other news there's been some detail leaks about Slender: Source that I need to correct. We said the game MAY be released in February or March of 2013, but we weren't too sure if we'd have a solid game by then that people can enjoy. You can expect it in 2013 sometime, but as for early 2013 we're gonna do our best. That gives us around 8 months of development time, and since we're only doing two maps for the first release that shouldn't be such a difficult task. We've got a ton of models being made, both of the maps have some pretty sweet progress done on them, and the coding is starting to get a little more completed.

We've also got a pretty awesome person doing our decal art for us that you'll see in-game. This is essentially going to be in the form of notes, diary pages, and just creepy imagery you'll see plastered on some of the maps. Here's an example of one.

Another thing I'd like to cover is that we're going to keep the isolated feel that players experienced, and expect from something like this. Players will be split up from the get go and their best chances of survival is to reunite, and only one of them has a flashlight. The other players will still be able to see and everything, it's just the flashlight will prove a very useful asset. However, if the player carrying it dies it'll be able to be picked up, so no worries there.

Adding to the isolated experience is the way we're working with voice-chat. You'll only be able to communicate with people within your vicinity, and you won't be able to speak to the dead. We realize third-party programs would ruin this, but if people want to ruin their experience that's fine with me.

Also, each experience shouldn't be the same when you play Slender: Source. We're not going to have randomly generated maps, but the scares & dolls are going to be different every-time. The dolls will spawn in different locations, and the scares won't happen in the same places either.

A common question we're getting is people applying for beta testers, etc. We're no where near the point of looking for testers. Wait till we release a formal announcement about it, but until then we're not doing beta testing until we have a stable product.

Also, to all the people thinking this won't be scary. Some of the development team has been jumping during testing of the maps, etc. If we're getting scared by our own creation we hope other people do to.

Until then, we hope you're all excited for the mod and we can't wait to play with you guys in-game.

- Justin Ross

Slender: Source Intentions

Justin "Manio" Ross here, and I'd just like toss out a little bit of information out to the community, and hopefully clear up a ton of confusion, and problems that have recently arisen with the mod, and with people watching the mod's progress.

People have been concerned that we're trying to cash in on the success of the indie horror title "Slender" developed by Mark J Hadley, but this is not the case. We're all huge fans of his game on the development team, and huge fans of the Slenderman mythos as well. Slender: Source (name subject to change) is purely an inspirational piece to show our love for Slender, and the urban legend around the creature. We apologize formally to Mark J Hadley, and want him to know that we're not trying to undermine, or do anything negative on what was already presented with Slender.

It's a fantastic game; and we're just trying to show it some love by developing this and we hope that this can clear some things up and we can discuss the future of our games together, and provide some truly horrific scares to the gamer community, which he has done marvelously with Slender.

The name change is purely because we don't want people to think we're a "sequel" or "spin-off" to Slender. We're our own creation, and own take on the myths and we don't want to take any credit, and what-not for the original Slender, and the inspiration it has given us.

Slender is a brilliant game, and everyone here at Ethereal Entertainment can see it becoming a solid experience that will probably be one of the best horror games of all time, and we know for a fact there's no competing with it, and we never even planned on competing. We just wanted to put our own "spin" on the Slenderman legend, completely separate from what Mark and Parsec Productions provided for players.

It should be mentioned that without his game; we never would of designed Slender: Source. Being a fan of the mythos for a while myself I never knew that a Slenderman game could work until I saw his project, played it & fell in love. I mainly started development of Slender: Source for something my friends and I could run about it, and really never wanted it to become huge and gain media coverage. I just wanted something people I was close to could experience together; since we all adored Slender.

Anyways, please go here and play the original game and tell Mark J. Hadley about the wonderful job that he's doing with Slender.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/141488-Slender-Beta-0.9

Everyone here would like to tell Mark directly that we love his work, and we all would purchase his game if he plans to distribute it; and that no ill intentions were planned with Slender: Source, and that we wish him the best of luck with Slender. It's one of our favorite games!

- Justin Ross
Founder of Ethereal Entertainment

(PC) Four Keys | Review by Manio

Developer: Andrew "Mclogenog" Yoder
Engine: Unreal Development Kit
Platform: Windows
Genre: Adventure-Puzzler
Release Date: July 10th, 2012
Download/Game URL: http://www.indiedb.com/games/four-keys

 Four Keys is a short experimental game about exploration, the ways we think about physical space, and the medium specificity of video games. Does it deliver, or does it seem like another lackluster Portal clone?

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 The Game

Four Keys is a puzzle-exploration game designed on the Unreal Engine; or at-least that's what I think the game is. You're solving what seems to be puzzles; or just exploring. It's really hard to tell what kind of direction the game is going in. However, on to the review!

The whole concept of Four Keys is to well, find four keys hidden around the level. It's not exactly the most difficult things to do, and you should expect to complete the game in about ten minutes. So, to put it bluntly it's extremely short, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The game does one thing exceptionally well, and that's the feel/design. When I was in game I felt like I was exploring some sort of "virtual" "Tron-like" universe, and to escape I needed to find these keys.

The game doesn't really give you any directions as to why you need these keys, you just do. The point of the keys is to unlock the color-coded doors all around the map, and these doors usually lead to the other keys. However, some doors are not color coded and you can just simply enter them at anytime you wish and check them out, and possibly find a key. And this where the puzzle component gets thrown at you. 

 

 An example of one of the color coded rooms.

 Each room seems to have some sort of puzzle-esque element to them, or at-least that's how I felt in my experience with the game (you may feel differently). For example, one room had me wandering up what seemed to be endless flights of stairs, and I was getting extremely frustrated and figured this to be amateur level design, only to find my theory proven wrong. A really neat concept for a puzzle, and it made me feel an idiot at the end result.

So, aside from the "old-school" "Tron-like" visuals, we're also represented with what seems like some pretty retro sound effects that sound like some old kind of computer system when you pick up objects, and interact with the environment. It's a wonderful feeling; and it really helps to capture the mood. Since this game is so short, my review is pretty much coming to an end, but don't fret this game isn't bad what-so-ever, it could just use a little polish and some extra content. Again, this is an early build of the game and I'm expecting some more levels later on. 

 The Good

• Funky level design really makes you feel like you're in some sort of virtual world.
• The adventuring, and "puzzle" aspect reminds me of Portal; so fans of the Portal series may enjoy this.
• Retro sound effects that really set the mood for the game.
• A fun, little game to quickly breeze through and experience.
• It's free!

 The Bad

• Lack of content is a little disheartening, but I hope more maps/levels will be added in the future. This game has potential.
• It may be a little short for some people.
• Could use of some polish to some of the models, and the levels feel a tad bare.
• The direction of the game is a little confusing; but my verdict is that it's a puzzle adventure game like Portal.

 So, what's the final verdict for Four Keys? It's a very neat concept, but some of it seems a little lack-luster and bare. Still though, it's a fun experience to quickly breeze through, and has a lot of potential. If the game added more content, and possibly a 1-2 story I could see people dropping a few bucks on this. It's free so everyone should check it out. Four Keys gets a Thumbs Up from me.
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Review by Manio, as seen on NooBTooB.com