[Released-ish] The Fresno Experiment

[Zirrrus]

You can play it now!

https://zirrrus.itch.io/the-fresno-experiment

 

- - -

 

I've been tinkering on this since the start of the jam but don't have much to show yet.

 

It's supposed to be a simple horror game, set in the foggy Fresno swamps(which I assume exist). You walk around and are stalked by a terrifying monster while collecting items/clues to solve a puzzle.

That's the idea anyways. So far I have spent most of my time using Unity's tree creator to make some trees(which always end up looking way too vibrant and cheery the intended atmosphere):

 

Played around and found pretty good settings for an ominous fog:

 

And the monster:

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/SOFneZk.gifv

I've since had to tweak the appearance to a slightly less cool setup because the wind zone that was keeping the particles near the center made the trees go absolutely crazy. It's fine though.

 

Right now it looks like I won't be able to make the game I had in mind originally but a heavily downscoped version should be possible.

[atte]

Looking good! That kind of all enveloping moody fog is great. Even when knowing it was mostly/partly because of technical limitations I still love the look of games like Tomb Raider and Silent Hill on PS1.

[SharedControl]

I love this look!

Are you using particles for fog or just doing it from the object distance like old ps1 games?

[Zirrrus]

Thanks!

 

4 hours ago, SharedControl said:

Are you using particles for fog or just doing it from the object distance like old ps1 games?

 

Both! The distance-based one to properly hide objects and a particle system which moves with the player but creates particles that stay in place so you get a sense of actually moving through the fog.

 

Today I started building the central location:

[FartSatchel]

Looks great! Hearing the buzz of the swarm in the fog would be quite the experience

[Zirrrus]

4 hours ago, FartSatchel said:

Looks great! Hearing the buzz of the swarm in the fog would be quite the experience

 

Getting that right proves to be quite a challenge. Currently it sounds like a broken electric razor.

 

No real progress today, just built a few new (un)important assets.

[nkornek]

2 spooky 4 me

[Zirrrus]

Finished a location:

 

 

I'll try to cobble something together tomorrow but to be honest I'm not feeling the jam spirit this time around.

[pdotjpg]

5 minutes ago, Zirrrus said:

I'll try to cobble something together tomorrow but to be honest I'm not feeling the jam spirit this time around.

 

Nooooo! This looks excellent, I really like the crisp, cartoony aesthetic.

[brendonsmall]

The visuals of this game are fantastic! Even if you end up shipping a spoopy "walk around this church and listen to these eerie ambience SFX", I will play it

[Zirrrus]

It's not done but it's something: https://zirrrus.itch.io/the-fresno-experiment

 

The looming showcase weekend game me enough energy to scrape my assets together into a thing I felt was good enough to serve as a proof of concept.

[coughlinjon]

I am very excited to try this game

[fabian]

Just played it, nice atmosphere, but could use some scary swamp sounds maybe

 

Spoiler

Am I supposed to buy new shoes for the main character with that credit card so I can replace his flip-flops?  

 

Are you going to continue working on this?

[SharedControl]

I just played it, cool visuals and i like that you can just run super fast.

I second what @fabian said about the sound.(the hidden content had me laughing so hard)

 

If you update it further i'll definitely check it out again.

[Zirrrus]

20 hours ago, fabian said:

Just played it, nice atmosphere, but could use some scary swamp sounds maybe

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Am I supposed to buy new shoes for the main character with that credit card so I can replace his flip-flops?  

 

 

13 hours ago, SharedControl said:

I second what @fabian said about the sound.(the hidden content had me laughing so hard)

 

Once again I pretty much forgot about sound. It's a really bad habit, I know...

Spoiler

With the footstep noises in the end I simply forgot to change them. And you had sent me such nice ones too, @fabian!

I had put them in as a funny experiment. That's also the reason you can run. Hearing that just absolutely cracked me up at first.

 

 

20 hours ago, fabian said:

Are you going to continue working on this?

 

Probably. It's my first first person 3d game and gave me a chance to try out and get frustrated by a lot of new systems, like Unity's terrain and tree creators. It might eventually lose the Wizard Jam theme but there are a bunch of things I wanted to do and just didn't get to.

For example some sort of inventory or at least a way to examine objects more closely...you can't check out the credit card in all its glory, which is sad:

[Nappi]

Good work with the visuals! The fog makes the environment feel really eerie. 

[eRonin]

this is just the right amount of spoopy for me. 

[atte]

This has ton of atmosphere already, and yeah some moody soundscape would really heighten the spookiness. Having completely lost the sense of direction, stumbling into a new location/point of interest felt really satisfying. I had a nice conclusion to my first try:

 

Spoiler

 

I found and went inside the church, soon I heard the buzzing coming closer again. I wondered for a second if it went through walls and then it was already too late, as the swarm blocked the way out and I died.

It's good and scary that you can actually see individual mosquitos clearly when close enough. I tried exploring again and only then I noticed that you could follow the paths. Also that the monster didn't appear until you picked up the mosquito sounds.

 

 

[pdotjpg]

I love the prop work here - reminds me of Blendo games. The visual fidelity is really well-considered and the shapes, colours and texturing of the 3D models is beautiful! The name of the game and the prop work already creates this tantalizing feeling of a bigger world and story. The Unity terrain looks janky as ever and the fog is a bit too overbearing for my liking, but I'd really like to spend more time in this environment when/if it's more fleshed out.

[brendonsmall]

This is a really cool start to what could really be a fun walk-'em-up. I really like the humor and signage/props. 

 

Spoiler

The "helpful map coming soon" was great

 

I found it was hard to know where to go next. I found the church, but then kind of got lost, and ended up back at the starting dock area again. Perhaps the fog was too thick, or the guideposts were not quite obvious enough for me. But this was a fun environment to be in!

 

I could really see playing something like this in a longer form with some more audio and things to discover and a scary or strange mystery to uncover.  I hope you make more games like this

 

[RubixsQube]

I played your game last night!

 

(link to exact time if this player doesn't do it right)

 

I really enjoyed it, even in its weird rough unfinished state. Up until I realized that I didn't know if I had discovered all of the content there was in the game.