Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to get picked up by Dread XP. A indie horror publisher who put together collections of games from some of the best indie horror developers in the business. Airdorf, David Syzmanski, Torple Dook, Corpsepile just to name a few.
This will be the 4th collection that the team have released with myself being the newest developer added. This time, instead of giving it a numbered collection and being solely centred around the Horror genre, we are instead developing our own individual FPS games. At this point in time as I write this, I can now share more about the game since the game releases on Steam on April 12th.
After a father receives a letter from his estranged daughter, he discovers the commune she joined is not what it seems. Following a set of strange coordinates far offshore, he finds a submarine that leads to another world. He quickly discovers this world contains a variety of aggressive creatures. He must fight to find his daughter and escape... or will this world swallow him whole?
"One of 5 locations in the game. This is the sky castle level being pulled by two giants in a storm".
The game has 5 levels in total, ranging from a water based Level, a desert area, a commune and the aforementioned sky castle area. Each area has it's own boss and has different enemy types to keep things fresh and exciting. The game had to be made in 20 days and was a non stop effort right until the very end.
I managed to implement a lot of the different aspects that I have been learning from the indie game dev course such as version control and project management. The game in itself is a form of Rapid Ideation so I am thankful I have been able to utilise these practices to better help me manage my workload.
Version control has been especially important as I have had to share and keep up to date with the ever changing levels of the game. Plus, this allows the publisher to go in and play updated versions as well as the QA testers let me know if there are any bugs.
The above link will take you to the steam page where you can download the game and also see the trailer in action. The whole process has been quite overwhelming and I have had many nights over the last two weeks where I have been up all night working on this game. To that end, I am very grateful to have had this opportunity and would gladly work with the team again on another collaboration. I have learnt a lot about the inside development from inside the studio and publisher and some of the other things to consider when making games, big or small.
Accessibility, resolutions, tutorials, volume sliders and controller mapping and support just to name a few. These are the sort of things I am now considering putting into any future games I make.
Seraphixial is at the 41 second mark. Dread Central, 2021. Dread X Collection: The Hunt Launch Trailer. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E_K4EMwqtI> [Accessed 29 April 2021].
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