Brain Drained
A double whammy screenshot saturday for our sweet sweet fans on this sweet sweet Father’s Day weekend
“GO HUG THOSE PEPS”
CONCEPT ART THURSDAY: PT II of II
Part 1 - Part 2
What’s happenin’ babies - it’s another CONCEPT ART THURSDAY, where we dump our raw sketchbook pages and predevelopment concepts out to stimulate your vision spheres.During this period we were delving further into developing our character’s tones and personalities and fleshing out some of the game’s mechanics. You can see that at this time Dudu Torres was becoming more involved in our character design process for SOS, iterating on each character’s design and experimenting with color and style until eventually landing on our current design near the top. Meanwhile on paper more animation cycles, visual effect sequences and environmental designs were being planned out for The Grey Man. Also his overall body shape starts to get all wobbly and stuff - and we sorta ran with that.
That’s all folks -
We’re bringing you closer to the present day in our design process with each passing Concept Art Thursday so don’t miss em or you’ll really be confused when everyone is talking about it at work, like “dang! I messed up.”
Check out our Kickstarter today and help us spread the word! Send it to the President, his has kids and also a dog! Have a neighbor or a grandfather? Invite either one (or both) over to use your internet and pledge their brains out!
We’re nearing the final stretch or is it the final countdown?
Either way let’s do this!
CONCEPT ART THURSDAY: PT I of II
Part 1 - Part 2
GTT 9/10 - SOS: EPISODIC GAMEPLAY EXPLAINED
We’ve mentioned that SOS is an episodic experience - how, exactly? We’ll clear that up in today’s GAME TALK TUESDAY.
In each episode of SOS, you’ll undertake one of the various dangerous and exciting missions of the Agent over his storied 40 year career. You name it, he’s likely to have experienced it in the line of duty. Though, one can imagine what kind of toll that would take on someone, psychologically.
SOS’s episode selection is sewn right into the game’s narrative; there are no menus to slough through (other than hitting ‘Go’ at the beginning of the game). When you begin, you’ll find yourself controlling a young boy. You’ve just been dropped off at your reclusive grandfather’s modest estate in the countryside by your mother. It’s the first time he’s reached out to you, or anyone in the family for that matter; your parents and relatives don’t talk about him, nor is he ever at any family gatherings.
After making your way up to the study, you’ll find him sitting alone, staring out the window at the cold, grey day outside. You’ll notice around the room is various war memorabilia; medals, uniforms, photos, antique (and not so antique) weapons.
Your presence will likely go unnoticed; though, that just means you’re free to look around uninterrupted. You can interact with the items in the study by pressing E. Most items have a story behind them - others have more, and that’s where episodes come in.
Certain items in the room may sparkle from time to time; interacting with these items will cause your grandfather to perk up and ask you if you’d like to hear about the tale behind that particular item. By selecting yes, you’ll be put in the shoes of the Agent and thrust into the associated episode.
The game launches with two episodes, as we’ve mentioned elsewhere, but what are these episodes about? Find out below!
Episode One: Might of the Steel Hand
This one is a straight up spy adventure - The Mighty General ‘Steel Hand’ is preparing to launch missiles at key countries in the global landscape, and it’s up to you to get in there and take the whole thing down before that happens. The player will have to get the missile codes and disrupt the launch to make time to neutralize their armory, and sneak their way deep into enemy territory, all the while avoiding the wary eye of Lt. Fanibhusan, the Steel Hand’s watchdog and right hand man.
Episode Two: Sierra Never
When a cutting-edge, independently owned science facility goes rogue and kidnaps one of the Agency’s top scientists, they send the Agent in on a critical mission to rescue her and find out who’s pocket the CEO of the company is in. Is it the work of an enemy? Or a misunderstanding between allies? The Agent will have to solve this as a figure in the shadows stalks his every move. It’s all capped off with a reunion between two bitter rivals and a memorable ending.
All episodes are replayable as many times as you’d like - and with multiple ways to get to the end goal, you’ll want to replay them just to see what it’s like to sneak through an area you fought through before, or complete an extra little side goal you skipped.
Each new episode is tied to another object in the study, meaning that when you get a new episode, it integrates seamlessly into your game. Additional episodes are roughly the same length as the two included in the game at launch.
That’s about all we can say regarding these for now, but we hope this sheds some more light on the overall narrative of the game!
Does this new information get you even more excited about THE ATTACK PACK? Channel that excitement into a money hadouken and fire it into our faces!
We also want to remind everyone that coming up this week are some big things: Tomorrow’s the final day for submissions into the LET’S PLAY competition - we’ll be revealing the selected warriors tomorrow night, along with a short gameplay video showing off the competition’s boss fight for the first time in detail! You can still throw your hat in the ring by emailing us at letsplay@attackmountain.com!
Be sure to come back on Thursday for more concept and developer art!
CONCEPT ART THURSDAY: PT II of II
Part 1 - Part 2
It’s us again - CONCEPT ART THURSDAY is back, and we got some awesome things to share today. You know, if you want to read this.These are from later on in pre-production, when SOS and The Grey Man were well into their prototyping phases.
If the style of that first image looks familiar, it’s because it’s the first piece of concept art Dudu did for SOS! You’ll notice that it shares a style very similar to our previous project, Legend of the Time Star. We decided pretty early on that we wanted SOS to have an identity all its own, so ultimately we wound up going a different path with the art style. Still, we thought you’d dig seeing it as part of the development process.
That’s it for today - come back on Saturday for our weekly progress report, and then again for a GAME TALK TUESDAY you won’t want to miss. A lot’s going to happen between now and then - we’re working on prepping the BOSS BUILD for the six Let’s Players that will be taking on this crazy tough challenge for a chance at the prize. If you want to throw your hat in the ring email us at letsplay@attackmountain.com.
Check out our Kickstarter today and give us a high-five headbutt.
What is the GM and how does the capture mechanic work?
Alright, everybody. You’ve been wanting to know more about THE GREY MAN and now you’re gonna get to know it.
THE GREY MAN is an experience composed of two parts - exploration and human capture - set in the vast expanses of Tinder-Boone National Park (and Campgrounds), a protected nature preserve. GM will encounter humans camping throughout the National Park shortly after his landing on Earth, and would like to take them all back to his ship.
To capture humans, you’ll have to hover your cursor over your intended target and click. If you’re successful, you’ll trap the target in stasis, which prevents them from – well, pretty much doing anything. The cube will have a secondary wave of energy passing back and forth through it – click a second time while this wave of energy is overlapping the stasis cube to seal it up and ship it off to UFO, who will automatically analyze and document your new find!
Though the main objective throughout the majority of your experience is to use GM’s trans-dimensional powers to collect humans, you may also need to use those powers to defend yourself from some of the particularly threatening ones. That’s right – although you’re a cosmic entity of high frequency vibrational power, your abilities are dampened upon entering the dense third-dimensional reality of our planet. But you probably already figured that out.
You’ll have to avoid being tranquilized and netted for research by the troops of Forest Rangers lurking throughout the wilds of the park. Humans are always on the lookout for a new species to categorize, so why not you? You’re a great candidate!
As you explore the natural landscape of the park, you’ll become more comfortable with your surroundings and the layout of the place, which in turn will let you fine-tune your capture strategy. If a camper notices you before you lock them into stasis, they’re gonna freak out and run for their lives, so don’t blow it! Mess up once, shame on them! Mess up twice, they’re gone! Here today, gone tomorrow!
If some of those humans get away, don’t feel too bad! Time doesn’t exist for GM – it’s not going anywhere. You can always return to the area later, once the crippling fear of seeing an unexplainable energy being dies down.
The video above shows some simple examples of the capture mechanic at work in our capture test engine - which is where we will continue to terrorize our human subjects during development for your enjoyment.
That’s all we’ve got for you today – but hopefully now you’re getting a better idea of what your time in GM will entail! Come back for CONCEPT ART THURSDAY and be sure to keep supporting our Kickstarter with money punches. If you want THE GREY MAN and SOS for your computer PC machine, all it takes is one $5 uppercut and a power tweet.
Attack Mountain: GIF MONDAY 9/2
Hello everyone,
It’s our second GIF MONDAY, and we got some spicy GIF meatballs here cooked up real nice, went ahead and smashed ‘em into the ole’ CD-ROM drive.
Click the still images below for animations!
Don’t forget tomorrow is another GAME…
Joe here - today’s GAME TALK TUESDAY on the Attack Mountain dev diary.
Every week we’ll post a gameplay video showing off a specific mechanic or system in either SOS or The Grey Man, as well as a short writeup explaining the idea behind it.
Today’s entry is about SOS - as you might’ve guessed - and to celebrate our first GTT post we’ve got a treat for you - we’ll be talking about the roll feature that can make or break your spy career.
Our general design philosophy when we work on player abilities is simple - make sure there’s a give and take. The roll is a particularly good example of this; you get big benefits if you know how to use it properly, but it can also screw you bad if you’re all loose-cannon with it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself: before I even explain how the roll works we should explain some of the overarching stuff in SOS so that you can frame the roll properly against everything else.
SOS’ core gameplay takes pages from a lot of older top-down spy titles from the Atari, NES, and SNES eras, as well as cues from various arcade shooters from the 90’s. The idea was to meld the two styles of gameplay together; you’d have tense moments where you’re trying to avoid detection coupled with high-intensity arcade action when you get caught. It’s been pretty fun internally, as one moment you’re hiding in the shadows stalking an enemy and the next you’re having a huge chaotic gunfight.
However - it’s not that cut and dry. Sneaking is usually the best idea in SOS. I might make it look easy in that gameplay video but when you first get to playing you’ll notice that gunning down 6-7 guys in one fight is not easy. You don’t have a lot of health and one misplaced bullet can leave you wide open to get filled full of holes.
That’s where the roll comes in. You use WASD to move and the mouse to aim and fire your weapon/KO enemies/throw grenades. At any time when you’re moving, you can hit CTRL to dive into a roll. During a roll, you are immune to most gunfire (but not explosions). Bullets will fly right over your head! You can extend your roll indefinitely by hitting CTRL - each hit equals an additional roll, giving you fairly precise control over your momentum.
This does come at a disadvantage; for one, if you fire during a roll you’ll immediately break the roll and become vulnerable to gunfire again. This means if you break your roll at the wrong time to try and get a shot in, you’re almost guaranteed to die. Additionally, you can’t change directions once you start rolling, so if you’re not careful you can tumble into a wall or obstacle and corner yourself. Even worse, you can accidentally roll yourself into a grenade or rocket and blow yourself to hell.
Long story short, the roll action is a good representation of all of your actions in SOS - if you use them right you’ll be the ultimate spy. If you use them wrong, you’re doomed to die on the job.
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That’s all for this week’s GAME TALK TUESDAY. Next week we’ll be talking about The Grey Man! If you like what you’re seein’, we’d love it if you spread the word about our Kickstarter, or kicked us a couple bucks!
Thanks for reading, we’re super stoked to show you more as our campaign continues!
We missed you guys - but enough of that mushy stuff, let’s get down to business:
Today Attack Mountain rises from of an ocean of black lava to unveil the computermachine games of ATTACK PACK 1. ATTACK PACKS contain smaller, hand-crafted gaming experiences made by a game dev duo that’s been making games since the mid 90’s.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/attackmountain/atkmtn-presents-the-attack-pack
ATTACK PACK 1 contains two radical PC games: SOS, a tightly woven spy thriller, and The Grey Man, an experience we’d spoil by trying to explain it.
Check out the Kickstarter here - and if you like what you see, maybe you kick us a couple bucks?
Here’s the deal with this dev diary - throughout the Kickstarter campaign we’ll be using the schedule below to keep things smooth. Check in with us on those days, when we’ll reveal cool stuff about these two games we’re making. We’ll be updating four times a week! That’s a lot of days!
SATURDAY: KICKSTARTER PROGRESS REPORT
SUNDAY: X
MONDAY: GIF DAY
TUESDAY: GAME TALK TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY: X
THURSDAY: CONCEPT ART THURSDAY
FRIDAY: X
We hope you’ll spread the word about our project, and send people you think might dig us over to our Kickstarter. We’ll thank you!
That’s all for now. See you on Monday for GIF Day.
(Source: maudit, via zombiepussyliquor)
STARSEEDS/STAR SEEDS are individuals that have experienced life elsewhere in the Universe on other planets and in non-physical dimensions other than Earth. They experience the aloneness and separateness that is the human condition, but also have the sense of being foreigners on this planet. They find the behavior and motives of our society puzzling and illogical. Star seeds are often most reluctant to become involved in the institutions of society, e.g. political, economic, health care, etc. Even at an early age, they tend to discern the hidden agendas of such conventions with unusual clarity.”
Star seeds incarnate into the same conditions of helplessness and total amnesia concerning their identity, origins and purpose as do Earth humans. However, the genes of star seeds are encoded with a “wake-up call” designed to “activate” them at a pre-determined moment in life. Awakening can be gentle and gradual, or quite dramatic and abrupt. In either event, memory is restored to varying degrees, allowing star seeds to consciously take up their missions. Their connections to the Higher Self are also strengthened, permitting them to be largely guided by their inner knowing.
Many star seeds are practiced in rapid “spiritual weight loss”. Star seeds can throw off in a few years the limiting behavior patterns and fears that Earth humans might take many lifetimes to accomplish. This is because star seeds, having been on similar missions to other planets, are quite familiar with the procedures and techniques for raising consciousness.
The three categories of Star Seeds are as follows:
- Typical Star Seed - may have lived 5-50 life times on Earth. Some of these were preparation lifetimes which included periods of acclimatization to being a human being on Earth and the development of the life missions leading to the climax of these activities in this current lifetime. Earth represents a place of service more than a place of learning for these Starseeds who have already achieved higher consciousness on other planets. As there were fewer lifetimes on earth compared to the average human being, this leads this group of Star Seeds to retaining some of their gifted abilities such as with Healing, Telepathy, Channeling and other general higher consciousness qualities. Star Seeds as often come to Earth at times of rising spiritual awareness as this is the environment that their gifts can be recognized and when they can truly help others.
- Old Soul Star Seeds have usually had hundreds of life times on Earth going back to the beginning of humanity and even the beginning of the planet. These are the Guardians of Earth and have strong links to Sirius which is the spiritual guardian of Earth and humanity. (Like the Dogon tribe in Mali, Africa) Their Life Missions are tied into the long term evolution of Earth and humanity and this is why they have willingly incarnated on Earth so many times in order to fulfill these projects. They have often performed the roles of Spiritual Teachers, Shamans, Prophets, Light Workers (especially with Earth ley lines and at sacred sites such as the Great Pyramids, Ankor Wat, Machu Picchu, Stonehenge, etc.), Temple Guardians, and Healers. These Star Seeds hold the wisdom and spiritual knowledge of the ancients as it has been used on Earth. This includes the human knowledge of astronomy, astrology, runes, numerology, certain healing modalities, light work and spiritual ceremonies. This is said to be the last lifetime as a human being for many of these old soul Star Seeds who are completing the cycles of lifetimes on Earth and all the project and work included in these cycles. These Star Seeds have often mastered the ability to hold a balance between being grounded and being spiritually aligned.
- New Star Seeds have often had few or no previous lifetimes on earth. They are attracted to Earth and humanity at this time of Ascension as it is easier for them to integrate with humanity now than at previous times. They also have many important gifts for humanity and roles to play in this time of great change for humanity. Their energy fields are quite pure and expansive as they have not been experienced the process of become dense through living on earth before. Even thought they have amazing gifts, they can find it hard to integrate within humanity which is so different from the Star Beings and worlds that they represent. They simply have no experience of the lower consciousness of humanity. The New Star Seeds are often young and some see them as “Crystal” and “Rainbow Children”. Some are the “Seeds of Ashtar”. This lifetime is often the beginning of future cycles of lifetimes on Earth and so they are preparing for future lives and future missions in this lifetime.
For Star Seeds it is important that they reconnect to their star origins and star connections as this bring them a sense of identity and belonging which may not be available in normal life on Earth. Where the reasons for Star Seeds to come to earth involve learning, it is often to sample conditions for growth and experience that do not exist elsewhere. Common characteristics of all Star seeds:
- A deep interest in spirituality.
- A realization that Earth is not their true home.
- They feel drawn to outer space, the stars and cosmic energy.
- Personal Qualities such as being artistic, being sensitive and possessing higher consciousness.
- They sometimes have dreams or memories of places not on Earth.
- They sometimes have experiences of physical and non-physical encounters with star guides, and energy beings from other dimensions.
- They often have noticeable gifts in the areas of healing, channeling and psychic sensitivities.
The Star Masters consider all human being on earth to be Star Seeds as they point out that the physical human body is also extraterrestrial in terms of its building blocks such as DNA etc. The majority of human beings have different reasons for coming to Earth when compared to typical Star Seeds. Theirs is the path of spiritual learning and spiritual evolution through the Earth School of Learning.
However the density of Earth is such that repeated incarnations here often results in human beings losing their awareness of spiritual realities and their spiritual gifts. The physical plane of Earth dominates their consciousness to the point where they cannot even imagine extra terrestrial realities For these humans, their focus is needed on everyday “earthly” matters and this is why they are not drawn to such esoteric subjects. They need to learn how to master the lessons that the Earth plane has to offer and this consumes their time and energy, and as such they are deeply consumed by the illusions of separation and lower consciousness that exist here. In this lost state the extraterrestrial/multidimensional origins have been forgotten and so there is little interest in this subject.
Many Star Seeds acknowledge that they feel different from others and this brings them much loneliness and pain. Often they blame themselves and feel as if it is their fault for not fitting into their family and society in an easy and enjoyable fashion. The sense of separateness does not have to be. The whole Star Seed story is rich and beautiful. It is however the human condition which is full of illusion and suffering. Once the illusions are seen through, reality changes for us all and we can choose a different reality full of connection, freedom and joy.
In addition the term “seed” implies that the Star Seeds are contributing something that will grow and assist others here on Earth. Indeed many Star Seeds carry high spiritual energies and consciousness which are contributing to the ascension of consciousness in individuals and in humanity as a whole.
(via trulyshit)
Kilian Eng the genius
