Games [WIP - LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR] Grim Realms - Devlog

Hi All,

We are a team of 3 people (writer and two artists) who have been working on an H.P. Lovecraft game since Christmas time. We have been doing this on our spare time. We wanted to show our progress with everyone.

This is a horror FPS game inspired by Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Bioshock, Half Life and more with a mix of Lovecraft.

Features

• First Person Shooter elements, we wanted to have some action and survival horror and not only hiding and evading enemies. Something like in the first Bioshock or the Ravenholm chapter for HL2
• Puzzles, we wanted to have some puzzle elements that would affect gameplay like in the Silent Hill games
• Journal System, gather all your notes and hints in your journal for puzzles and other reminders
  
• World Lore, the world in the game has a story, history and you learn about it through gameplay
  
• Special weapon types, find unusual weapons that are out of the ordinary.
  
• Gruesome and out of this world enemies, inspired by Lovecraftian stories and other horrors
  
• Other surprises that are upcoming.

Plot

There are things we were not meant to know.


The pursuit of knowledge, of history is a noble thing, but for those who seek to understand, there are dangers which lurk in the darkness of the past. Returning from a journey overseas, Graham Carlson is haunted by shadowy memories of an ancient and forgotten place, found as a result of a lifetime of study.


As he finally reached the end of his voyage, a horrific accident struck the freighter he was on, sending him into the dark maw of the open ocean, finally washing him ashore on a quaint, secluded island just off the coast of the eastern US. However, the darkness he sought to escape seems to have followed him as the residents of the island are at first insular and later far far too welcoming. For there is a great sickness, a contagion in their hearts, something inescapable, undeniable and something that yearns to be free once again.


Futhermore….

The

Madness

Is

Catching

https://www.facebook.com/pg/gaspunkgothic

 

Feel free to ask questions or if you feel some info is missing. We will be updating with more info as we continue work on Grim Realms.

 

Added some of the features in the list.

 

You could use the abstract theme you have going on to your advantage in a horror game, the purple light certainly gets the mind thinking "what could possibly be in that shed"?

From what I've learned of horror game development, the fear is in the unknown, and I like that there are no monsters jumping out in your screenshots.

Could use some work on the textures, there are loads of high quality textures at textures.com for free download, or you could subscribe to Allgeorithimic's Substance Source. That terrain material in your Beach.jpg pic could use some work, but your geometry design lends well so far to the abstract horror theme.

Looking forward to more...

 

Thanks for the crit and comment. I am actually using textures from textures.com, I think the screenshots themselves are a bit low res as the actual game is a lot better looking. I tried using a tool to take some screenshots but it distorted them a bit. I do have some lower res textures that are placeholders. Although that being said our focus is more to finish a game than loose ourselves in development. We want to strike a balance, have a certain mood and get that to the player without taking us 10 years to finish. This is our first ever game and I think we are on the right track.

I will be uploading some more screens soon hopefully show some better quality.

-Vincent
3D modeler

 

Forgot to mention, that purple glow has actually to do with the story.

Another problem I had for the screenshots is that the game is at night and the contrast is configured for my screens. I have a tiny bit of post processing noise and when I modified the pictures the noise was too intense so I quickly despeckaled the screenshots. That's probably another reason.

Would you have any tips for taking better screenshots also for dark scenes that need to be configured for a specific screen setting?

 

In my experience I try to never modify the screenshot in image editing software (Photoshop) - if I get the thought of that, I immediately know that my lighting in the game needs to be adjusted!

Maybe that's not what you're suggesting, but if you do have a dark scene, it can be contrasted with a focal point that is bright, sort of like in your scene with the purple light, it works very well, the contrast between dark and light.

I use this free asset to take screenshots, on the asset store, maybe you will like it: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/utilities/screenshot-creator-67779

I noticed the post process noise in your scene, it sets a mood well, sort of Slender,

Looking forward to more

 

Thanks for the encouragements, I get what you say by a scene is not lit correctly but in the case of a moody dark scene, it's hard to balance the contrast and brightness in the sense of the lighting is adjusted perfectly for my screens that I work with. Once I get the menu options it will have one of those "adjust the brightness until you can barely see the image" options. I don't want to have to change the settings for screenshots in case they are too dark say for someone looking at the forum on a phone. That is my dilemma and why I gave a slight boost, exageration of brightness/contrast. Maybe a work around in the meantime would be to have a slightly modified post processing profile for screenshots and videos.

Thanks for the asset suggestion, I will have a look once I can access my computer.

-Vincent

 

Updates will be coming soon, this is a project we are doing on our spare time and I am dealing with some personal things at this time.

 

This looks really nice! I'm a composer student and if you want music for this game, PM me and I can compose a demo track!

 

Thank you for the interest and offer. We are still early in the sound design, but I will keep you in mind. I will be posting some more info.

I am dealing with anxiety disorder and it is very difficult some days/weeks to focus. I will keep this thread updated once I can get my grips.

 

Stay strong brother!

 

Hey, nice work. Just sharing some of what I've learnt about dark scenes while working on my current projects.
Take a quick look at how night / dark scenes are filmed in movies, and you'll realize that they are mostly done with bright lighting, and then later color graded, and other effects added in between that process. I've found that this approach gave me some great looking dark scenes.

 

Thanks I really appreciate the feedback. I will have a look at some of my favorite horror movies and see how they approach this.

 

Looks nice. I hope you'r taking the idea of Lovecraftian monsters seriously, lots of people simply do it wrong. The second you can hurt the monster, it loses most of it's effect. The point of Lovecraft is that his monsters were not simply something humans don't understand but it's something humans can't understand. Simply being in the realm of these creatures caused most of the characters to go mad. I'd be very interested if your game includes some non-euclidiean geometry.

The only monster in video games that I would really consider "Lovecraftian" would be Shub-Niggurath in Quake. It was completely invulnerable and didn't even really notice you as you wandered around it's inner sanctum. Humans are to they what flies are to humans. It's impossible to confront it directly. Similar to how a mosquito could never hurt a human and we basically ignore them, but one with malaria can really mess you up.

 

Thanks for the comments and interest. Lovecraft is my favorite writer and I agree that most times the "Lovecraftian" feel is misused. I have all of his works and even a tattoo on my arm, I am really passionate about his works.

My plan is to have you descend into madness gradually. There will be "normal" enemies that you can kill that have gone mad and then furthermore into madness there will be unspeakable things of horror. My global plan is to have a similar feel in gameplay to the original Bioshock. I want a good mix of survival horror and gameplay. Not only walking around and hiding. I don't mind the "walking simulator" type of game but I feel most horror games these past years have pretty much only been that. You can have the sense of dread without loosing the other gameplay mechanics.

This is our first game and we are taking the time to flesh out everything and not rush it. I have been gathering information for years on how I want this game to be and hopefully I have gathered the necessary knowledge to put this together.

 

Hi all,

I've had to deal with some personal issues over the summer and had to put this on hiatus. I am slowly starting to get back into it. I am updating the engine from 2017.3 to 2018.2. I have also purchased Substance Designer and will revamp my materials as well as I have been using Quixel. Slowly learning how Substance Designer is working.
Created this over the weekend:

 

The game has been updated to 2018.2.17 with very few errors which I was able to correct. Now working on replacing some materials with newly created ones from Substance.

 

Hello,

It's been a long time since I last posted, I have been dealing with some personal things but glad to say that my project is still ongoing . I suffer from anxiety and I have been through a few hard moments this past year. I've never completely stopped working on the project but progress has been slow. I am glad to say that things should be back on track. I should have some updates over the weekend.

I've recently bought Bolt visual programming to help me put some concepts together quicker. As well as Gaia to help with terrain.

This is a fairly big project and I am putting together a sort of P.T. demo/prequel scene in the meantime.

Have a nice day guys!

 

Alright, delays again but still pushing.

Making some changes to the layout of the map. I have a friend helping with layout and story elements so that the flow is cohesive.

Few screens