From time to time we get requests from people who want to license our HPL2 engine in order to make a commercial game. This is quite flattering, but the answer is always “no”. Our reply is to simply state that there is no documentation, we do not have time for support and they are better …
Useful Tips for Horror Game Designers
A while back Chris Pruett (creator of the excellent Chris’s Survival Horror Quest and currently at work with some creepy stuff at Robot Invader) and I had some discussion about common horror / puzzle tropes over twitter. Now all of these little nuggets, and more that came up during subsequent mail discussions, have been collected into a nice blog post by Chris. If you are ever going to make a survival horror please read this first.
SOMA Officially Revealed
After more than two weeks of teasing, we are happy to properly announce our new game: SOMA. It is a sci-fi horror game played from a first person perspective with the goal to deliver a truly disturbing experience. Having worked on this project for over three years now, it is really nice to finally reveal it to the world!
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs Available Now
The year is 1899. Wealthy industrialist Oswald Mandus has returned home from a disastrous expedition to Mexico. Wracked by fever, haunted by dreams of a dark machine, he recovers consciousness in his own bed with no idea of how much time has passed since his last memory. As he struggles to his feet, somewhere beneath him, an engine splutters, coughs, roars into life…
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs Bloody Preorder
It’s time to step back into the darkness. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, the follow-up to the genre-defining horror game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, is now available for pre-order with a 20-percent discount.
5 Core Elements Of Interactive Storytelling
Over the past few years I have had a growing feeling that videogame storytelling is not what it could be. And the core issue is not in the writing, themes, characters or anything like that; instead, the main problem is with the overall delivery. There is always something that hinders me from truly feeling like I am playing a story. After pondering this on and off for quite some time I have come up with a list of five elements that I think are crucial to get the best kind of interactive narrative.
Thoughts on The Last of Us
I have now finished playing The Last of Us and feel it has quite a few things worth discussing. Overall it is a great game and there is a lot that can be learnt from it.
Hiring: Gameplay Programmer / Designer
Frictional Games is once again looking for someone to join our ranks! This time we are looking for a Gameplay Programmer / Designer to employ full-time.
Nailing Down Terminology
One thing lacking in game design, especially when it comes to interactive storytelling, is a proper set of terms. While I do not think having a precise terminology will directly aid in making games better, it will help us communicate better. As proper communication is crucial for progress, proper terms are indirectly an important part of making better storytelling games. Because of this, I am going to go over some terminology that I find essential, what I mean by them and why I define them in a certain manner.
Thoughts on Slender: The Arrival
Slender: The Arrival is the commercial version of a free game called Slender. The original was based upon a a simple concept: find eight pieces of paper before the Slenderman, a now famous creature that started out as an internet meme, gets you. I wrote a blog post about the game when it was released and as a short experiment I found it quite interesting, but wondered how one would make it into a longer experience. So when I heard a commercial version was in the works I became quite curious, and gave it a go soon after release.
