by John | Dec 15, 2014 | Game dev
Since our trailer video was released, we’ve done a -huge- amount of work updating the textures, scene dressing and improving materials throughout the different areas of the game. We have also done a completely new pass on the texture maps for the main character, Sam, bringing his quality up dramatically. We’ve created hundreds of “smalls” models to help fill out the environments and give them a more realistic and lived-in feel. Alongside this we’ve done new passes on a lot of the larger prop pieces, bringing up the quality across the board, concentrating on trying to stabilise our overall texture density across the game. This has helped making the props fit together in the scenes, without noticing a difference in quality between props due to texture size/detail and the technical ability of the different modellers we’ve had working on the project so far. In game prop paintings Another addition to the game are our oil painting props that include over forty unique, contemporary and classically-themed paintings created by Jackie Pearce (yep, we are related :D). Visit Jackie’s page on the prestigious Saatchi Online gallery, where you can see some of her amazing work. An example, in game, can be seen above. Testing We are currently testing the puzzles and general interaction-based flow of Thanatophobia, and the bug list has dwindled. I’ve actually now managed to play the game from beginning to end (minus a small number of features we are waiting for implementation), and even knowing exactly what to do, the solutions to all of the puzzles, not reading any of the clues/notes and with no enemies, it takes...
by Susannah | Dec 2, 2014 | Uncategorised
Thanatophobia’s first gameplay trailer, shot and produced by project director John Pearce. All footage is taken from in-game beta content and displays a wide array of different features, including voice acting, an expanded view on Thanatophobia’s musical score, animations, character design, environmental interaction, puzzle solving and finally an early peek on combat. Thank you for watching and don’t forget to like and share the...
by Susannah | Nov 6, 2014 | Uncategorised
We have created an original and exciting soundtrack that not only pays homage to the old survival horror games but, more importantly, gives a new and unique style that can be appreciated by the veteran survival horror enthusiasts. The soundtrack is very important to us, as a strong score is paramount to creating the perfect horror atmosphere. Voice talent co-ordinator and composer, Alex “AJ” Katsinas, says, “It’s an honor to be part of such an awesome project. I’m in charge of the music, sound design, and voice work. I’ve been hard at work crafting soundscapes and scoring cutscenes, and I can’t wait to show you guys in the video above! “What you’re going to hear is the main theme of the game. It is a slow, thoughtful, depressed piano piece. I worked with founding member John Pearce to get the sound just right. We took a lot of inspiration from the work of Erik Satie. His work has a powerful sadness about it, and I incorporated that deep emotion into the main piece.” We’ve noticed that while the community has their favorites (we’re looking at you Silent Hill). It’s important that understanding what is great about Akira Yamaoka (who created the music for Silent Hill) does not pigeon-hole Thanatophobia into ‘just another copy’ of the master. This is why it’s been perfect for us to have a flowing and quickly developing sound concepting workflow, taking influence from a broad range of horror sources and styles. So far we have well over 60 minutes of original Thanatophobia music score and the amount of content is ever...
by Susannah | Oct 2, 2014 | Uncategorised
In summer 2012, Death Knell Games was proud to announce and welcome the addition of James Tan and his company Digital Confectioners to the Thanatophobia project. James took over as lead programmer and our coding output, game flexibility and usability has increased significantly. James is a game developer who specializes in Unreal Engine. Having used Unreal Engine for the last 12 years, he believes that every game genre can be created in Unreal Engine. He has been involved in almost every field of game development such as animation, level design, technical art, 3D modelling, 2D texturing and programming. He is currently working for Epic Games as a documentation writer and on other Unreal Engine based projects outside of Epic Games. James has a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from Otago University and occasionally practices as a pharmacist. We at Death Knell Games are very excited about this partnership, and are enjoying a fun and productive development process for...
by John | Sep 2, 2014 | Uncategorised
One of the most exciting parts of creating Thanatophobia for me was when the alleyway scene went into a proper iteration of modelling. The procedural buildings seen in our original screen shots were simply just pre-alpha place holders and were then generated with more features and randomised weathering for more variation up close. Other additions to the alleyway map included a more advanced sky material with blended clouds, real-time randomised lightning and a dynamic, sphere mask moon (massive thanks to Julio Juarez for the fantastic dynamic sky information and tuts, more of which can be found, along with some of his incredible work on Mass Effect 3, on his website). I worked hard on the scene think it’s starting to look quite good for a DX9 rendered scene. The first copy of my show reel above, is mostly taken from Thanatophobia. Here you can see some info on materials and methods I used, and it is a good way to sneak-peek some of Thanatophobia to you!...
by dkg | Aug 30, 2014 | Uncategorised
The PC game Thanatophobia, created by devoted and independent development team Death Knell Games, is sure to dig deep into your mind and pique your curiosity in an atmospheric and horrific environment. The game is a brand new entry into the forgotten world of old school, third person survival/horror, with focus on puzzle solving and storytelling over intense action. Delve into Thanatophobia’s immersive storyline, combine items, solve riddles and combat disturbing enemies to overcome your fears. Who are we? Death Knell Games is a small but driven team of independent gamers who are entirely self funded. The group originated in London, England, but has since expanded internationally to span Sweden, America and New Zealand. Why did we come together? The team members share a common interest and passion for horror games. Our united care for the survival-horror genre drove us to one conclusion: to bring back the old school, story driven, survival-horror genre to a modern audience and breathe some fresh air into a genre that we know and love. We wanted to develop games for a mature audience that cares more about puzzle solving and taking time to soak in the atmosphere rather than battling it out under constant gunfire. The team behind it Death Knell Games consists of a core team along contributions from a raft of talented devoted extras. The founding member of the team is John Pearce (team leader, art-materials and model director) who was originally aspired to simply create something substantial out of Unreal Engine 3 without slipping into simple drag and drop methods. In summer 2011, Andreas Schouten from Sweden took on the...
