Broken Signal - An Action Immersive Sim (Prototype & Funding Application)

I got my game prototype "Broken Signal" to a pretty good stage, and applied for funding around the October 2018 Film Vic funding round.

But I found out a few months later that I didn't get chosen for that round.

Here is the game video I put together for my prototype submission.

I was hoping to get Pre-Production funding, to develop the concept, world design and concept art, and a core set of gameplay features developed.



I was happy with where I got the game to, but I don't think I would want to try to develop it further without being able to pay the people who I wanted to start contributing to the concept art and world design.

So I've put it on hold for now, but the elements of this game are definitely going to move forwards to one degree or another into my future projects.

And I may very well come back to this specific game concept to finish it off at some point!  :)

Quake: Underwater Jam - "Bad Day at the Research Facility"

Recently, the Quake Mapping community ran a map jam with the theme "Underwater", so I decided to join in, using the great new editor called Trenchbroom.

This is the FUNC_MSGBOARD release thread, where you can download the maps, and read people's comments, etc.

http://bit.ly/QuakeUWjam


"Get your fingers wet in these 9 awesome water themed maps"

• Bloodshot 
• Giftmacher 
• ish 
• JCR 
• muk 
• MUZBOZ 
• nyo (Nyoei) 
• Pinchy 
• Pritchard

My map is called "Bad Day at the Research Facility" and is a Half Life / Science themed map in an underwater research facility that comes under attack during your first day at work.



The map features the voice acting talents of Brendan Barnett whom I frequently work with because he is amazing.

The jam went for 25 days, and in that time I did about 135 hours of mapping, which was pretty intense!

For me, the main purpose of doing the jam was to get more practice creating levels, and investigating the Trenchbroom mapping workflow, for research to improve my own tools and processes for my next Unity game I'm working on.

On this front, it was a fantastic experience, and Trenchbroom provided a template for many great ways to work, and I'm hoping that tools in Unity like ProBuilder will help build fast, cool looking, fun levels, with some approaches I've nabbed from Trenchbroom.

Here's a bunch of screenshots from my Quake level, "Bad Day at the Research Complex".



We start off in a lab, performing some routine tasks for our boss who speaks to us over the intercom.



The large staff locker room.



Through the vents we go.

Heading towards the central elevator.



The warehouse has been overrun with ogres.



The final scramble up the central elevator.

ROMACK: Dev Log 003 - Ragdolls, Doors, NavMesh Obstacles

I had fun this past weekend adding some new features to my Thiefy / Quakey prototype.



I added doors which open away from you (depending which way you approach them from).

The doors are also Navmesh Obstacles, which carve into the Navmesh when closed, thus blocking the AIs from going through.

Ultimately, I plan to make it so the AIs can open and close the doors where logical.

I'm thinking of swapping out the Quakey stuff and focussing on Thiefy stuff as I keep going on the AI.  I might use the Thief guard voices as my placeholder sounds, so I can check off the AI states as I get them into my implementation...  things like...

• "Dum da dum..." -> Idle / Patrol between patrol points.
• "Hey, did I see something?" -> Suspicion.
• "You there!  You're dead meat!" -> Chase and attack.
• "Hey, where did they go?" -> Lost sight of you.
• "I'll find you!" -> Suspicious, searching for you (cooling down).
• "Hmmm, gone now, I guess..." -> Given up, lost track of you.

ROMACK: DevLog 002 - A Quake-meets-Thief style AI system

I took these Christmas holidays to work on various fun projects.

I've been working on a Quake-meets-Thief inspired project these past few days.

Some basic AI & gameplay is taking shape!

I'm really happy to be learning new things about in C# and Unity in general. :D



I've been working on some enemies that launch grenades at the player.  They detect you by sight, taking field-of-view, line of sight, and the lightness of the player's position into account.  

I also added basic ragdolls for when they die, and they carry around torches to see with.

Here's several minutes of me just running around playing with the AI's.


Note: I'm using some sounds from Quake, but the grenade and launcher are my own models and textures.

ROMACK: Dev Log 001 - Beginnings of a Quake-like

I started playing with some Quake-like elements in my prototype level.




I made a Grenade Launcher and Grenade in Maya and Substance Painter, and made my homage to the Quake Grenade Launcher.  What a beauty!

This demo also has the lighting of torches, spreading light around the building.  But I removed that soon to allow for "hiding in the dark!"...

Murray Lorden's Quake & Quake 2 Levels (1996 - 1998)

Quake Levels

I just dug up my old Quake & Quake 2 maps from around 1996.  Here they are!

You can download my maps for Quake and Quake 2 here (5mb).
They're rough around the edges, but I hope you enjoy them.  :)


The first map I made for Quake was "Bones".



At the time I was more focussed on playing music in a band than playing computer games. But one day, we turned up for our usual band rehearsal at our drummer's house, and he had Quake set up, networked across two computers!

It blew my mind.  Full 3D, realtime, incredible sound and lighting.  We started playing deathmatch with 2 or 3 computers at a time, and I loved the single player just as much! Quake drew me  straight back into the world of computer games.

Later, I found Virtus Deathmatch Maker at a local computer store in Eastland, Ringwood. I think it was a Dick Smith. I was thrilled to see this program would let me make my own maps!  I'd made my own maps for simple things as a kid, like Ancient Art of War...  but never anything in 3D!  It was a a lot to learn, but it pulled me straight in.


My second map was called "Myltek".





I still wasn't super good at making a visually rich or coherent world, but I enjoyed making the gameplay spaces, implementing game logic and challenging situations, and testing them over and over, tweaking things.  

Quake 2 Levels

Later I got Virtus Deathmatch Maker 2 so I could make Quake 2 levels.

I got a bit more carried away with these levels, bringing in some custom ambient sounds, and making environments that were a bit more themed (although still a bit rampant as well).

This is two missions, that joined together.  There isn't really an ending to it all!  But it's a fun journey.  


I call it "Drunken Goons & the Underground Operation".




Thief 2

It wasn't until a few years later, around 2000, that I built a more coherent, fully realised environment and mission for Thief 2, called "Lady Lomat's Flute".  

I first released that mission in 2001, and then revisited it again about 10 years later, adding a lot more polish, and a complete intro movie voiced and illustrated by Brendan Barnett.