Beyond the Mountains of Madness is a science-fiction horror game (modification) for Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
My work
Started in March 2011, Beyond the Mountains of Madness was my first serious venture in video game development in a 3D environment.
Developing this modification helped me learn a lot about the nature of video game development, such as scripting, real-time computer graphics, level design, world building & optimisation. Having access to pre-made art assets, I primarily focused on the technical and design aspects of game development.
Through this project, I learnt AngelScript, which uses C/C++ syntaxes, without the need to worry about memory allocation. I also learnt to use Frictional Games' in-house engine 'HPL Engine', which is similar to the Source engine in terms of interface and high-level features.
With Beyond The Mountains of Madness, I wanted to create levels that seamlessly transitioned from indoor spaces to outside environments. The HPL engine wasn't really designed for this however, which meant that I had to do quite a bit of optimisation in order to make the game run at a consistent frame rate. This was mainly done through traditional techniques such as distance culling masked by fog (Silent Hill 2 is probably the best example of this).
Although a great learning opportunity in many regards, the project I envisioned was quite large in terms of scope and scale. In retrospect, I should have probably created some smaller modifications first, before attempting to create something of this magnitude.
Developing this modification helped me learn a lot about the nature of video game development, such as scripting, real-time computer graphics, level design, world building & optimisation. Having access to pre-made art assets, I primarily focused on the technical and design aspects of game development.
Through this project, I learnt AngelScript, which uses C/C++ syntaxes, without the need to worry about memory allocation. I also learnt to use Frictional Games' in-house engine 'HPL Engine', which is similar to the Source engine in terms of interface and high-level features.
With Beyond The Mountains of Madness, I wanted to create levels that seamlessly transitioned from indoor spaces to outside environments. The HPL engine wasn't really designed for this however, which meant that I had to do quite a bit of optimisation in order to make the game run at a consistent frame rate. This was mainly done through traditional techniques such as distance culling masked by fog (Silent Hill 2 is probably the best example of this).
Although a great learning opportunity in many regards, the project I envisioned was quite large in terms of scope and scale. In retrospect, I should have probably created some smaller modifications first, before attempting to create something of this magnitude.
Beyond the Mountains of Madness
|
Roles: Technical Designer & Gameplay Programmer & Art Director
Developed by: Elroy Gopal Team size: 1 Development cycle: 2011 - 2014 Engine: HPL 2 Engine Duties:
Release date: Limited release http://www.indiedb.com/mods/beyond-the-mountains-of-madness |
|