We Create Stuff blog

Hey! I know it’s been a while since we updated the blog about Echoes, so it’s about time to show some pulse.

We had a few internal changes lately, and that includes the arts team. Worry not, Axel is still leading the exceptionally awesome style behind Echoes. But we have two new fellows working with him, and I can’t hold it in anymore, I just have to post some of the stuff they’ve produced for the game.

Let me introduce Greg Bartlett (http://www.zeedox.net/), Greg takes care of the level design in Act 2. So he’s already done some impressive work! Let me show you a glimpse from one of the stages in Act 2:

Echoes Red Enigma - Stage 6 hills, by Greg Bartlett

Echoes Red Enigma - Stage 6 caves, by Greg Bartlett

Pretty awesome eh?! You can see the new multiple paths, executed with hills and caves. Some of these are well hidden, as there’s “fog of war” by default – found on many popular RTS games. You get rewarded for finding those sort of caves during the campaign!

Now let’s take a closer look at things, done perfectly by Samuel Thompson (http://www.wildforge.com/). Sam took care of the concept art in Act 2, and he’s mad talent and stylish. Check out the following shot of Diabolus holding up a UEN Marine:

Echoes Red Enigma - Diabolus concept art, by Samuel Thompson

Anyone up for these as wallpapers?:-)

That’s it for this update, keep checking on us every now and then!

- Check out some new gameplay elements in Act 2

- Check out the new shield concept in Act 2

Hello everybody ! Mxthe here.

I am proud to announce that Underhell Prologue is finally released !

You can read everything you want about the game on the the MODDB page, so I will use this post to thank everyone that has helped me in the past 6 months.

Hen Mazolski, for his support, his contacts, his ideas and his friendship
Koolfox, for his amazing insanity, his awesome sound effects and propositions and the hours we spent talking on skype or playing b*tch.
General Trivium, for his voice acting, his awesome sense of humor and his great friendship.
Pedro, for the website design and support.
Ido, for the Collaboration with WECREATESTUFF, the website and the forums, and for being so damn cool.
OneManShow, for his great wisdom and knowledge of the SMOD functionality, I could not have nailed down the SMOD that well without him.
GuessMyName, for his help on the modeling department.
DragonMaster, for his awesome voice acting, his patience, his amazing talent, friendship and beta testing !
David Kingery, for his voice acting, friendship and smart comments
Tom Stoffel, for his AWESOME music composing skills, his AWESOME friendship, and the fact that HE knows, that we could be into space by now!
The SmodAuthor, this mystery man who made one of the best HL2 mods out there.

And I also want to thank everyone else in the LONG credits, but these guys here were really close to me during the past 6 months, and it’s been an AWESOME ride, and it will continue to be for a long time, cause this is only the beginning!

Some exciting stuff happened last night: Interlocked, our 3D puzzle game, has launched. You can now play it right here! There is also a mirror at ArmorGames, and the game will soon hit other major gaming portals.

The game contains 20 challenging levels, each one consisting of blocks that hold each other together. Take them apart and you’ll feel ten times as smart

We had tons of fun making Interlocked, and we hope you will enjoy playing this game as much as we enjoyed creating it! Thanks again to Simon Butler for the wonderful graphics, Yoav Landau for the sweet SFX and Paul Collier for the chilling background music.

Hey guys Hen here. It’s been a while since we last updated.
As you may know Nightmare House 2 got the second place in MOTY, while the first place was a multiplayer mod, which means Nightmare House 2 is the best Singleplayer Mod of the year.

So as a thanks I’ve decided to release the Nightmare House 2 source files, which means all the maps are now accessible and editable, the code, etc.

What does it means? It means anyone can look, learn, modify, and use stuff from the maps and the code. Just give us proper credit if you do!

So to grab your Moty/Xmas/New Year present:

• Click here (direct download of the source files)
• Or visit the official site and check the Downloads section

If you didn’t already, don’t forget to check “The Lost Files” of Nightmare House 2.

PS: I challenge any talented people to create a working Nightmare House 2 online CO-OP, it is easily possible now.

PSS: People keep asking whether I’m going to make Nightmare House 3 – No, it won’t happen, the Nightmare House story is done the way we designed it. If anyone want to make an unofficial sequel in the Nightmare House universe you have my go, you have all the proper resources now.

So yeah, go crazy, I’m waiting to see what you can salvage from the files. Instructions found inside the “readme.txt” file.

Hey! Echoes: Operation Stranglehold (Act 1) is out for some time now. Since its release we learnt a lot about how to make Echoes even better. We listened and still are listening to all the feedback, and we’re glad to introduce two important concepts which we’re implementing in Act 2.

Grounds

One of the things that make Echoes unique is the genre union of RTS and Shooter. Many complained RTS is too difficult to pull off in a side scroller. We sat and thought it through, and we figured a solid way to have true strategy in a sidescroller, here’s an example:

Multiple grounds concept (RTS)

Multiple paths are now introduced in Act 2. Some underground, some on hills. These paths offer tactical value, and we believe complete the RTS aspect of Echoes.

Multiple grounds concept (Combat)

Cover System

The Shooter aspect of Echoes (Combat mode) was a great challenge to make. It’s not about throwing sidescroller-shooter elements into the engine, because there’s also a great deal of balancing between the enemy AI and the player’s powers. So we balanced the player further in Act 2, and one of the things we added is the option to avoid bullets on both sides. We simply laid a few sandbags around the battlefield, and voila!

Cover system

Of course it works with Dem as well.

These are just two of many new things that make Echoes Act 2 so solid.

Speaking of cool new additions, check out Robin Lingmerth. He’s one of the two new artists we have on the team, and takes good care of all concept art and still scenes.

Still images for an Act 2 scene

So when can you expect Act 2? Well, unfortunately, not this Christmas. We’re expecting a delay for Act 2, and we can’t promise any date yet. Keep checking for updates though, because we will eventually post a few spicy videos from development.

Hey guys, today we have some awesome news for you! Over the past few months we have been busy developing a new flash game: “Interlocked”.

Interlocked

Interlocked is a casual 3D puzzle game with a nice atmosphere. The gameplay is designed around disassembly of interlocking puzzles (you know, those wooden bastards that are impossible take apart). Each level, you’re given a unique 3D puzzle consisting of blocks that hold each other together. The structure can be rotated freely and you can then disassemble it one piece at a time. There is also Challenge Mode where you can test your performance based on different parameters such as time and moves.

Here are some screenshots:

Assembled Burr (Click to enlarge)

This is a level at its initial state.

Disassembled Burr (Click to enlarge)

Here is the puzzle after disassembly. The pieces disappear when  they are removed, but I left them in for this screenshot.

Interlocked starts off simple and escalates to more difficult puzzles. There are even 6 “hardcore” puzzles that are more challenging then the rest . The puzzle in the screenshot is a simple one.

Just a few notes about the team: This is a small game, there are currently 3 people working on this project. I am Nikita Leshenko and I do some coding, some modeling and some other things for the game. The second team member is Ido Tal (this guy needs no introduction on this blog, you know the man). Last but not least is Simon Butler, the artist. He’s in charge of making this game look awesome .

Well, that’s it for today. We expect to release this game here on We Create Stuff in a few weeks, keep checking in for updates.

Hey guys, Hen here. Let me tell you about a funny story. A few weeks after the release of Nightmare House 2, a random guy nicknamed Mxthe added me on Steam. He told me how, like me, he worked on a horror mod back in 2007, even before the Nightmare House 1 remake came out. Apparently our mods were very alike, in terms of story, style, and so on, he even had a creepy girl model just like NH2′s. Because of that, no motivation and the lack of a team he stopped working, until very recently.

He showed me a few old videos and I was amazed, the mod was like the brother Nightmare House never had. At this point we both agreed to revive the project from the dead.

Here is a very old teaser from the mod, back in the days of 2007 (Again, made before the NH1 remake came out):

Me and some of the Nightmare House 2 team are helping Mxthe to develop UnderHell now, and things are going great. UnderHell is an episodic horror mod for Half Life 2, very similar to Nightmare House 2 in a lot of ways; style, visuals, and quality. There are even a few connections to the Nightmare House universe itself!
The first chapter, the prologue, should come out soon, and will be hosted here on We Create Stuff.

Here is the trailer for the first chapter which will come out soon:

I’m holding myself from giving too much info, Mxthe himself will post about UnderHell soon, giving more details.

Until more info will be posted, here’s a nice little video of GeneralTrivium, one of the beta testers, testing one of the maps:

• Click here for more information about UnderHell

During the GameIS 2010 event last night we won two awards for We Create Stuff’s latest releases. I had my camera with me so I took a shot of the cool statues they made:

GameIs 2010 awards

About GameIs: “GameIS is a non profit voluntary organisation that help Israeli companies and individuals to connect and create business in the video games market. We cover technology , services  and game production over mobile, web, pc and consoles” – So thank you guys so much. It was a fun, informative and a communicative event.

We’re preparing a few cool updates for you guys. If you liked Nightmare House 2, you’ll be happy to know Hen will post something related to it very soon. I’ll post a few updates myself, regarding Echoes Act 2 and a new puzzle game that’s in development.

Now that Act 1 “Operation Stranglehold” is out and is fully playable, we’re getting quite a few questions about what is next for Echoes.

Spreading Act 1 among Flash portals on the internet is an important goal. This will build up what we need before the release of Act 2, which we’re now working on. If you’re a game site owner, contact us for details.

Speaking of Act 2, here’s a nice concept which we’ll see quite often in battle. It’s the ‘shield carrier’ unit of the UEN – it casts a large shield which protects the units inside it from enemy fire. It can take quite a few bullets and even explosions before ‘running out’, and when it does run out, it starts charging itself back up again. It’s an efficient vs. enemy fire with splash damage, such as the Hybrid Grenadiers… and other things coming up in Act 2

Shield Carrier unit of the UEN

So this is just one out of many features we’re working on for Act 2, which will enhance the epicness for both Strategy and Combat modes. We’ll keep posting them overtime, as well as gameplay videos sometime later in development, so keep tracking Echoes Act 2!

I have decided to make the entire development process of Nightmare House 2 open for you fans and developers out there. It’s been a long, great experience and due to the heavy demand I organized everything in one compressed file. It contains work from me and the rest of the team,  taken from different phases of development which did not end up in the game.

What’s in The Lost Files?

Documents: Our improvised design document, sketches/concepts and old todo lists.
Music: Lots of cut tracks, testings of style, etc. (for the final OST read along)
Sounds: Unused SFX.
Videos: A few videos we  took around development and some fun stuff.
Pictures: Loads of pictures from in-dev maps, models, old crap and fun.
Maps: A few test maps and older scratched versions of Nightmare House 2.

Download The Lost Files here, or find it under Extras in the main website.

What’s next?

We just released all of the ingame tracks, high quality, with a few bonus tracks. Download the OST here, or find it under Extras in the main website.

I’m organizing a translation package for Nightmare House’s subtitles. If you think you can contribute or want the progress on this, check this thread.

Commentary mode is planned; we’re hoping to release it soon.