MCM Comic Con countdown and other news

After few months of silence, I am back. With new computer and new ideas, hopefully, will be back here more often! I needed an upgrade so instead of investing money in a laptop which could not keep up with the current trends, went for build my own desktop this time and finally can keep up with modern games (i5 6600 for win7 and gtx 1060 6GB). Also purchased mechanical keyboard and wow, that is a huge difference! Fully recommend it to anybody who types a lot.

The latest progress in Soul Revenant revealed the new sluagh and Dumahim and next on the line would be the Melchahim. At the moment we are bit of stuck as we need a new gameplay programmer to help with combat, so if you know anybody who would be interested to join our team, please let me know. Kyle Misko is also working hard and he recently is tackling the soundtrack of Soul Reaver, reimagined for Soul Revenant. His latest piece is for the City and shall be unveiled soon. More frequent updates are found at our facebook page.

In two weeks, Comic Con is back at the Excel Arena and I will be attending all three days. Last time we were super exhausting coming back and forth to the venue, so this time we are staying over at hotel which is closeby. I can announce that I will be cosplaying as wraith Raziel once again on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, I will be cosplaying as one of my favourite japanese horror ps1 videogames. Can you guess? If not, come and say hello at Comic Con, I´ll be wearing grey and black.

That concludes a little round up for now, I will photos from Comic Con once it´s over. Only two weeks to go! See you there!

Soul Revenant project update

I apologize for being silent for a few months, but we are back with some new content to show you. Our environmental artist Francesco has  finished the Underworld section of the game and now moved on to modelling the Abyss and the Sanctuary area. These are the current screenshots from the Underworld area (work-in-progress):

 The vortex of souls

Tunnel leading out of the main chamber

In front of the Warp Gate

 The exit to the Underworld

The exit to the Underworld in material realm

Dumahim training chamber

In spectral

On the way to the Sanctuary

Soul Revenant - New team and switching to Unity

Greetings to all the fans supporting this project!

I got some news to share with you regarding what is new with Soul Revenant. After my old programmer left the project, I was alone and had to rethink how to complete the project. After posting the ad about looking for a programmer, I got a few replies and I can announce that the search was successful indeed. Now we have a team of five people (a programmer, two 3D animators/modelers, 3D environmental artist and me as the director/designer). We talked over what would be the best course of action for the project and after days of considering how to proceed, we decided we have to switch engines in order to fully unleash the game´s and team´s potential, as 3DGS was holding us back in many regards – be it the archaic programming language, lack of screen post-processing effects, high-end graphics, particle effects, etc. I believe that switching to Unity has many advantages and in the long run is a better choice for making this game.

Initially there were many problems to solve and one of them was the environmental shifting which was very problematic and in the old build it only swapped two models around. The combo of Unity and Blender with new talented artists will enable us to make a true HD remake in every sense – all of the environments will be fully remodeled in higher polygon count and more detailed architecture. Also, the Hylden gave us permission to use his amazingly detailed models of Kain and Raziel for the game. Unfortunately, all the code has to be written from scratch as well, as the language of the current scripts is nothing like what Unity uses. However, the new programmer is very skilled should be able to fully replicate all the needed systems for the game and I will try to help out with the basic functions as well. More so, we are all dedicated LOK fans on the team now, so remaking the game should be easier in this regard as well.

We will work in the scope of monthly goals to achieve, so there is always some progress done but it gives the team enough time to work but not become overwhelming. Please always bear in mind that we are all volunteers and have other responsiblities like work, studies, etc., so meeting a deadline might not be always possible. Developing a free game is very flexible process and depends mostly on the availability of the team. Currently, we started working on remaking the Drowned Abbey, so even though the updates will be less frequent, they will be worth the wait I hope. I might update this post with a little sneak peek of what we made so far. Thank you all again for your support and remember – as long as one of us stands, we are legion!

Turel's clan territory and Lt. Raziel skin

Since the Undercity is done now, I have started working on the Smokestack area and overhead mountain paths leading to it. Follow me on facebook, where I post updates frequently. Here are the latest screenshots I took from the Smokestack/mountain area:

Also, I got an idea to have a little easter egg in the game. Since we never got to play as Lt. Raziel in Soul Reaver, I have decided to put him in my remake as an unlockable skin.

The Undercity and the Priestess

In the last two weeks I was focusing on redoing all of the Undercity and incorporating it into the world of SR. I have used several bits of the existing City architecture and used some of them to built the new Undercity part. I have also applied the released Undercity textures on the new levels to create an authentic feel. I won´t spoil where the entrance to the Undercity is as you have to find it yourself, but I hope you will find the additional area exciting to explore and solve the new puzzles. 

Compare with the original screenshots (source: Arnold Ayala´s blog):

Also, here is the Priestess as she will appear in the game:

Compare with original Priestess sketch (recoloured by me):

New footage and screens from Soul Revenant

I finally got back to working on the game again and put all the levels in the world so they are pretty much ready for putting in decorations, torches, etc. I have recorded a short video of how it looks like so far. Bear in mind that animations, enemies, abilities, lighting, etc. is all unfinished and will require lots of work and tweaking. Like the project on Facebook for more news and screenshots!

Competition winners and more SoulRev screens *UPDATE*

The winners of the Christmas competition are Tube Reaver for the fastest email with all the screens and he won Trine 2 Complete Edition and Baziel, who won Serious Sam double pack. Alas, I didn´t get more emails, so I hope you at least enjoyed the SoulRev demo. I have currently finished the material version of Necropolis and going to tackle its spectral version. I have also used Daniel´s higher res textures for the chapel and started working on the northern vastes part. Hope you like the new screenshots! (They are still WIP so I haven´t tweaked a lot of the textures yet for example).

UPDATE: I have uploaded more screenshots below.

Soul Revenant demo and Christmas Contest

Hello my dear readers,

since Christmas and New Year are just around the corner I decided to make something special for you this year. I have prepared a short demonstration on how my SR remake goes along and with it, I´ve thought it might be fun to get you involved in a small contest and you can win some games too!

In order to win one of the prizes (Steam game keys) you have to find 20 Christmas presents which I hid within the demo. Download the demo and the instructions on how to participate. The instructions also contain the controls, so don´t forget to download it as well! Enjoy!

Note: Please make sure you download the correct file as pictured below. Also no installation necessary for you to play.

Download SoulRev Demo  - Mediafire

Download SoulRev Demo - G-drive

Download the Instructions

I hope you will like the demo and have fun with the competition!

Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you all!

Soul Revenant Update - Adding Raziel´s territory

After a two month break I decided to continue with work on the project. In the last few days I have been adding decoration to the Sanctuary of the Clans and also worked on putting together Raziel´s stronghold and added to the game. I still have to add the spectral version of it, but as it is a rather tedious and long process, I´ll try to add in the next few days. If all goes well and I´ll get together with my programmer next week, I might be able to release a playable demo before Christmas. Just bear in mind it is only a small demonstration as you can´t really fight anybody (I´ve placed few enemies in so you can see them in few spots), has bugs and collision problems, have to iron those later. Like us on facebook if you support our cause, thanks!

Below are screenshots from the newest build and a sample of higher res flags which I made to replace the old ones.