project first revelead 6/12/2013
hi unity community. Since its E3 week I decided to also reveal the project I have been working on. A new Almond-Hill game.
I just posted a big post with all the details on my blog and I encourage you to visit it to check it out. For my WIP thread here I will make it short and sweet.
Ok, so my newest game is a new original horror game called “Almond-Hill: Silent Meow” which is a complete reboot to my original Almond Hill game I released back in October. This will not be an Almond-Hill 2 but a completely new almond hill that wont play anything like the original one I created at all. I have been using unity for 2 years and am very experienced and created many games up till now but none where serious and quality attempts but more experimental projects for learning. Starting with this project and future projects I will be taking on larger games and more serious attempts. So I hope to create a really well polished quality game with unity.
I have coded my previous projects but I will be using playmaker for this project this time around.
Ok about the game:
“Almond-Hill: Silent Meow” is a stylized horror game.
You play as Leon Coffeebean. One day you receive a call from your grandmother Grams Coffeebean who lives in a town called Almond-Hill. Grams tells you that she needs help with a “special search”. You later learn that her cat Almond has gone missing and she needs to to explore Almond-Hill in search of her lost cat. As you get to Almond hill and start your search you find out that the town is haunted and there is someone/something living in Almond-Hills forest. Grams stays in her house the whole time and that is why she is unaware of the happenings in Almond hill.
Characters:
Leon Coffeebean, the main character of the game:
Grams Coffeebean, Lives in Almond-Hill. Leons grandmother, asks Leon for help.
Almond the cat. The missing cat you are searching for, no one knows how, when or why the cat became missing. Almond is a very special cat that can walk on two legs and is a loyal feline companion.
Vehicles:
You will be able to drive vehicles in this game. Since I am a solo dev, I am definitely not going to try and make this crazy big map like you see in the GTA games and red dead redemption for example, but I will make a decent size map. A map big enough to drive in 
Dont worry, I have lots of experience and I understand the limits of not over complicating things and trying to make this AAA game that would require a whole company. I am not going for that, but definitely something unique.
Snowconesolid Transport Taxi: (First car you see and can drive)
Almond Red Truck:
there wont be many, but I plan on creating other vehicles in game to.
There is still a lot more work to do. I also plan on creating an awesome render for each character in game like the first image you see above.
Final thing to say:
Bashing SlenderMan
What this game is not going to be is a Slenderman game. This will be a truly unique and original horror game that will be better than slenderman in every way. And no its not going to be anything like Slender. I bring Slenderman up because all I see when people want to make a horror game (Esp on the unity forums here) is Slenderman. Honestly, I am sick of seeing slenderman everywhere. Its not original and very boring. If you want to make a Slenderman game that is fine, but one of the reasons I am making this project is to also encourage you slenderman nuts to try something new. There is unlimited possibilities with what you can create and I believe you can create it. So Slenderman people. do not take this the wrong way, but this is more for motivation so you guys can unleash your true creativity
Anyway thats all for now. be sure to also check my blog in my sig below. I will have more soon
8/6/2013 UPDATE: Almond Hill silent Meow Teaser Trailer
8/9/2013 UPDATE: New main character announced
Special Detective Pekoe Tea Leaf
Detective Pekoe has been sent to the town of Almond-Hill to investigate a recent murder and the mysterious town itself. He might not be the best agent for this job but he has style and gets things done. The Agency did not give Detective pekoe a handgun because he has terrible aiming and failed the target shooting test. But all in all, he is a good at what he does. Also, he prefers tea over coffee.
8/10/2013 UPDATE: First playable Demo released
Today I have the very first playable demo of Almond-Hill Silent Meow up.
This demo is the very beginning of the game where you play as Leon Coffeebean. Its a pretty short demo but I hope you enjoy it and it keeps you wanting more. Keep in mind that after this part of the game, the gameplay will switch completely because the player will play as the new main character Detective Pekoe. Hopefully I will maybe have a second demo out soon when I get more work done so you guys can play as detective pekoe. My aim is to try and get in a variety of different gameplay into this project so it stays interesting throughout the whole game.
Anyway enjoy the demo. Any feedback is welcome.
Demo Link (Dropbox)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50235309/AlmondHillSilentMeow/Demo_1_SilentMeow%20Opening/Demo_1_Build.html
UPDATE:8/17/2013
Newest screenshots from the Almond-Hill main village area
at the phone booth
at Silent Meow bar
Update: 8/28/2013
Alarm Monster screen shot
Update: 9/7/2013
ok todays update.
Ill start off with my new character that will be part of the game.
The Patrol doll
an early enemy you encounter in the game. She cannot be defeated so the best thing to do is avoid her by sneaking past. usually there is more than one patrol doll in the area. They shoot out yellow beams of light from their eyes to represent their line of sight. Stay out of this line of sight to avoid getting put in the “Feeding Room”
With the addition of this character I can move on and talk about those major changes and what you can expect from gameplay.
So lets talk gameplay. As I mentioned above, the patrol doll is an enemy you avoid and sneak past. This adds in stealth elements to the game. Actually, I believe I mentioned somewhere in this thread a while back that I was going for a stealth-horror type gameplay. I think the game will be more unique with these elements. This character is only one you should avoid, but throughout the whole game there will be other charactes/enemies you have to avoid. I will try and get a different enemy for each level in the game.
more changes, Major changes
Remember that demo I released a couple weeks ago? if you played it you know that at the end of the demo Leon coffeebean is killed by some unknown masked man who is chasing Almond the cat. Well, after doing a lot of thinking and making a bunch of changes to the storyline I decided that entire part of the game will not be part of the final game at all. I took it out. Leon never died, actually he has an even more important role to the games storyline now. Leon is actually teaming up with Detective pekoe to search for his lost cat almond now. So this means that I am also taking out that killer character I created. He no longer has any purpose to the game.
I think the game is turning out great so far despite all the changes I keep making and I can’t wait to show you guys some more in the future
Update: 9/10/2013
The very first level of Almond-Hill is finally complete. I did a lot of work. created AI for the Patrol dolls that works good, set up the puzzles and main missions in the first level. And it maintains a dark atmosphere.
Its a horror game but the gameplay is fastpast and so is the stealth. You don’t slowly sneak past ghosts and what not, you wait for your opportunity and run past them.
Also, I mentioned that it would have a sort of zelda type element added in. In each level there will be a unique item you obtain to help you through complete the level.
I don’t want to spoil anything but I will reveal the main item in the first level.
It is a boxing glove.
Update: 9/12/2013
finished the newest character for Almond hill.
This one is very important.
The Feeding Demon
I am not going to say anything about this character so nothing is spoiled. You will have to play the game to find out, when its finished of course.
more soon!
Update: 9/14/2013
Screenshot of the day
Car is approaching Leon on foggy road.
See, Leon is back in game now
Update: 9/19/2013
Stank’s Gas station in game render
I posted a WIP screenshot of a place called Stank’s Gas. The only gas station in Almond-Hill, which you can go to in game.
Today I finally finished creating that stank’s Gas scene and worked on it in unity. I set up lighting, fog, etc and designed the inside of the place as well.
So I just want to show how this gas station will look like in game. I am proud of it if I must say so myself. 
Stank’s Gas in game
As most of you probably have figured by now, this game is heavily inspired by the popular “Silent-Hilll” series.In my game “Almond-Hill”, the gameplay, storyline, characters, etc is completely different. However, I must admit that some (not all) places in the game I created are inspired by places from the Silent Hill games. Stank’s Gas station for example is a place inspired by the gas station in silent hill. So, I just wanted to post this screenshot from Silent hill I have been using as inspiration as I created Stank’s Gas.
I posted that just to compare my gas station and the gas station in Silent hill. In terms of design and atmosphere.
Silent Hills screenshot wins of course as it clearly has better fog and lighting than mine but I like to think that my gas station came close enough. Lighting is much darker in mine and fog is less dense and darker. My screenshot is pretty small for some reason but up close and running in game it looks much better I think. (Not better than the silent hill screenshot, I mean it looks a lot better in the actual game of mine)
Major Updates and changes soon
I know in my previous post I mentioned that I was going to keep making changes, major and minor with the game and that I would just not talk about them anymore. Well, after I talk about this next major update/change I am making to the game I wont say anything else after that for sure I promise. I know I said this before, but I believe that now I truly have good planning for this project and finally decided what I wanted it to be. But that is for a different post because I don’t feel like talking anymore at the moment. So stay tuned for my future posts in this thread as I discuss the final (hopefully final) major changes I plan on making.
More Soon!
Update: 9/22/2013
Places to go!
Just wanted to post pictures of two unique places you go to in the game I finished creating recently for the project.
well, first here is Stank’s Gas station, a place I showed progress a day or two ago and have completed and already put in game.
and here is the newest scene I just finished creating. The Silent Meow bar.
if you any of you have been following this thread from an earlier time you might have noticed that I created a bar called “Silent-Meow bar” a while back.
I decided to completely redesign it and make if from scratch again while keeping some of its original design. I am making big changes to the game so I had to remake the silent meow bar. Its bigger now and I actually designed the insides of it because every building/scene you visit in the game, you will be able to go inside. I am not completely done with this scene, I am still working on more of the insides of it but pretty much it is near completion and I should have it in unity by tomorrow where I will start making it interactive and part of the gameplay/storyline.
If you havent seen the original Silent Meow bar I made a while back you can see it somewhere in this thread. But if you feel like comparing my old one with the new one I will post it here to.
Old Silent Meow bar
The old one I made was good to but only to look at. It was to small and I never made an inside for it. The way I made the old one also made making an inside for it to difficult since I used one sided tiles.
Final major changes soon and possible finish date
anyway, real soon I will talk about the final major changes I plan on making to this project and then I will continue to make more progress.
due date?
I am not completely sure yet, but I plan on having the entire game finished and released sometime November. But that could change, I will have to see how things go. Hopefully though I will because that is what I am aiming for. I might put the game on hold during October. But that is something to talk about for another time.
anyway, more updates soon!
Update: 9/24/2013
New Character
Everybody meet Drunk Guy
Drunk guy is a character you meet early on in the game. He is literally drunk when you meet him. You eventually learn his real name as you progress through the story. He is not one of the main characters but a side character.
More new characters, more big changes and news and more soon!
Update: 9/27/2013
Another new character
Just finished my newest character for the game.
Today you will meet non other than Stank himself. The owner of “Stank’s Gas” in Almond-Hill.
I started modeling him yesterday and today I finished the creation process so he is game ready now.
Like I said before, there will be a good amount of characters to meet in this game.
I will be revealing a new character daily, or whenever I finish a new one.
more updates soon!
Update: 10/1/2013
New character
Leon Coffeebean version 2
Interesting story behind this character.
I planned on redesigning my original Leon Coffeebean model and it became this new Leon model that you see here. But I was having a lot of trouble getting all the old systems that I created for my original Leon model to work with the new one. So I decided forget it, I will just stick with my original Leon design. Dont get me wrong, I love the original design for Leon that I created but I thought I would just try to make him a little more like my newer more recent characters. Anyway, making this short, it didnt work out so I am just going to stick to using my original Leon coffeebean model for the game.
But I really do not want this new Leon model I made go to waste so now what I am planning is adding this Leon as one of the secondary characters into the game.
So there will be this comedy moment in the game where you meet this new leon who looks like you and has the same name as you.
So Leon 2 will also be in the game
Almond-Hill project on hold during October New horror game project coming soon
Ok todays news. Just as I said earlier in this thread, I will not work on Almond-Hill during October. And October just started. I just posted a blog entry about all of this over here on my dev blog if you want to read it http://snowconesolidwho.blogspot.com/2013/10/almond-hill-on-hold-new-halloween.html
if you dont I will quickly explain. I released the original Almond hill game last year as a quick short horror game project around Halloween. Since that time I have decided to make it a personal tradition of mine to work on and release a short horror game every year for Halloween. So this will be a project I only have this month to complete, it will be a short and fast project I will challenge myself to complete and have released by the end of this month. That is why I will not work on Almond-Hill during this month. I am very excited about this new small project and have plans for what I will make. I can’t wait to get working on this project and it feels good to know I have a deadline so I will have to have a game out by the end of this month. again, it will just be a quick short horror game project. Almond-Hill is a much larger project that will require more time to complete and it feels good to take a break from working on that so I can work on something different.
As for Almond-Hill, I will resume working on that project after October. In the meantime you can enjoy this final in game screenshot I took when I last worked on that game.
so that is all for now, be on the look out for a new thread I will create soon once I make good progress on my short horror game.
see you back in this thread sometime after October!
