Beyond The Abyss FIRST SCREEN SHOTS!

Hey again everyone! Hope all is well in your part of the world... we have some big big news to talk about here in this issue... Ok, there is a lot of info I have to go over in this blog. This is going to be a long one, so please bear with me. I am trying to cram as much info into one blog as humanly possible. I hope you enjoy this one... Here is a break down of what I cover in this Blog...

Beyond The Abyss: First Screen Shots
Andrew Hull and the Beyond The Abyss Engine!
Mike Rowley Joins The Team!
Some Content Packs used for Beyond The Abyss game thus far
Digital Lightstorm Forums and slight web site update
Final Thoughts

Beyond The Abyss: First Screen Shots!

After several redesign attempts, over 40 is where I stopped counting, I have come up with a decent design I'm happy enough to show off to the world. The island is where you begin your adventure and learn how to use your controls and weapons. It's going to be a fun filled level I believe based on how I want to set up the events to make it feel like a midway at a fair. My main goal here was to make a volcano island, I have tried several attempts in Grome, L3DT and even went as far as trying to create my own terrain in Milkshape but nothing seemed to make me happy, so I used the good ole terrain editor built in to the TGEA engine. It did pretty much what I wanted.

I wasn't looking for a jaw dropping island level for this anyways. Just something to get the job done and look decent at the same time. I'm going to polish it all up with trees, huts and a few fun things later as time goes on anyways. I want to add a shooting area where you can target practice, throw and drop items and pick up things like small rocks and weapons/sticks and even holster your hand gun or carry-on bombs or whatnot. All these are new systems that our main guy, Andrew Hull, lead coder to the project is working on getting into the engine.

Now, on to some screens... these are general shots of the island which is a WIP (Work In Progress). All I have left to do is tweak how I want the island to feel, so watch for new screens for this in the coming weeks and months. Enjoy...








The island will have a dock where you can take your sub to and from the underwater Oil Rig and move about pretty freely. If you feel like you need to go back to the island later on, you can leave the rig and head back. Once you are in the abyss part of the game you can not go back to the island level until the end of the game in edition 4 where our game closes back on the surface of the island and you try to make your escape from the island and the underground base. Kinda like SAW here, I don't want to give too much away as the ending to the game has a lot riding on the shock factor, so if you excuse me, I can't say more then that right now, but I guarantee, the story and the game will be well worth the wait.

I have a lot of people helping me with story ideas on just what happens through the game, when, how and to who. Since i always wanted to be a director as my real job when I grew up but never got the chance, here is where I get the chance. I wrote some scripts in high school and after and even did some small indie short films that never made it to the Sun dance Film Fest but I'm hoping for a quality production with this game. No, we're not trying to go head to head with EA or ID. I just want an indie product that will make the audience have a great time, make a little cash from the effort and get a name for all of us who are working hard on the backside of this project.

Funny, I've always enjoyed the SAW movies. Did you know SAW started as an indie short film? Yup. I love how the movie shocks you with all the traps and such. Well, this game we're working on will have all kinds of twists and turns and an ending that will leave you talking for months. Or that's my hope anyways for the game. I want to bring the shock factor to the small screen of gaming. I hope it works. If I fail in this quest, hey I can say at least I tried, and next time it will be better. Better to try and fail... then never try at all...

Oh and I have been asked several times, is there a release date on this? No, no release date has been planned but we're shooting for the end of Summer, 2009 for the first edition to hit (a 4 level package). The mini-pack will feature the opening to the story which we work on the other 3 editions that will be out within 3 months of each other, or again, that is the plan. The release could change, i won't know until later after the first edition is out the door. That's all I can say about the release date...

Andrew Hull and the Beyond The Abyss Engine!

We have a great team of guys who want to make a name in the gaming market. One guy on our team, Andrew Hull, is an amazing coder I think. The guy knows his stuff and he has asked me if he could be a part of our team. Andrew has modded the TGEA engine to the point we're going to start calling it the Beyond The Abyss Engine, as that is how much work this guy is doing on the engine side of things. He is impressive to say the least.

Yuri, the guy who made the GMK, another wonderful kit you need to pick up if you get a chance, helped us merge the code from several packs into one for this engine and Andrew has really tweaked Yuri's work up to an amazing level i think. (Not saying Yuri is a bad coder at all!!! :o) Andrew has expanded upon the code and all the packs we merged and modded to make a wonderful compile for this game and I feel really good about how the engine is going to look and feel in the end. We might even open it to Beta Testing down the road, we're still talking that over.


Mike Rowley Joins The Team!

Mike from the Garage Games boards has joined us to help with the production of the Beyond The Abyss game. He is our consulting and modeling guy mainly. He knows a lot about the TGEA engine and enough to guide us through the battlefield to bring us out the other side alive. He is a good friend and a fellow truck driver like myself. He has released several things, including his racing kit from a while back that we're using to play around with for our upcoming racing game that's being planned for down the line.

If you are a modeler, programmer or level desinger or just want to get your feet wet in a project, drop me an email and I'll see where we could use your talents. What we're doing as of right now, is enjoying doing the game, when we finish it and sell it, we all will get a cut of the pie from the sales it takes in. We don't get paid until the work is done and if the game don't sell, we don't get paid. Even if it don't sell, I can honestly say I am happy as I finished at least one game in my lifetime. I feel strongly that the game will sell upwards of 5,000 copies as of right now but we will see. The edition structure may change from 4 levels each down the line, I won't know more until we finish the first edition. If you have a talent and want to help out, email me dlstorminc@yahoo.com or will_zettler@dlsstudio.com Thanks!

Some Content Packs used for Beyond The Abyss game thus far:

Here is SOME of the packs we're using, in no certain order...

Big Cliff Kit
Cirus Skies
GMK
Material Editor for TGEA 1.8.1
SSAO kit

Sea Wolf Pack
Sci-fi guy pack
Adam Pack
ModMaker Weapons Combo Pack (6 weapons from all 3 packs)
Mechs Pack from 3dRT.com

and much more that I will post in my next blog...with new shots as it comes around.

Digital Lightstorm Forums and slight web site update

Our Forums are now open and running. We use PHPBB. Mike Rowley was kind enough to help us setup and run the boards over at DLS. They are slowly coming to life and we're hoping to get a lot of chat going about our games over there in the coming months. If you get a sec, stop on in and say hi. I'm proud of the forums, they give us a chance to talk to you and you can talk back to us (in a good way). The web site is down to one page for right now until we figure out what we next need. The online store we was wanting is still in the making, and we're even considering selling others contents packs on our site store once it opens. I'm thinking right now it will be something like Garage Games has for content packs such as exclusive or non-exclusive to our site. So that will be interesting as we iron out the bugs.

The goals for the web site are as follows:

* Get the barebones store up and going
* Add others content to our store
* Add all our own content packs to the store
* Provide a gold and silver membership package to the site
* Allow registered users to log in to the site
* Allow gold or silver members to play online games depending on membership
* Get site to run something like a gametap or instantaction is now (Keeping it simple)
* Get other game dev's up on our site and their games
* Keep it strictly indie dev's for the games that we feature

Well that is about the rough framework we have outlined for the site in the future. Still, we're looking at a many months off from even ground breaking something of this size as the overall scope is beyond my web design skills and can not be done alone, I don't believe unless your a flash and html god of some kind which I'm not. :o) We will open it up for Beta testing once we even get the bare bones in order so watch for that down the line as well.

Other issues will be:

* How to convert over others games to use the plug-in browser system like T3d uses now

* How to host a massive site like this as I doubt 1and1.com which I'm now on will have something this massive available.
* I would like to host our own servers for this idea if possible at a central location hub of some kind.

Other crazy ideas that might be bigger then what I am scoping for will include:

* Online events like a QuakeCon would have but you will be able to play thru your own game if you buy it at the store vs online people that play that same game. Thus this is only an idea, I don't think it would be possible unless we team up with other DEV's and convert others games over to work like this with our system. Just a thought anyway.

* Do an Internet Cafe feel for the site and maybe contract it out to other hot spots and Internet Cafes' around the contry (and maybe the world?). We could provide the hot spot location and equipment for the location and charge on a per game play or a group game pass where the player can play several games at one location for X-amount of hours or an all day pass at that area for one low fee. A friend and I have always wanted to open our own Internet Cafe so this would be a cheap way of doing one.

Final Thoughts

Just wanted to also let everyone know that the Home Depot day cab job didn't work out in Dallas, so I am as of now back on the road doing Over The Road. But that's ok, I feel I am in a better spot to work on gaming stuff being more free and unrestricted and not tied down due to a 12pm til 10pm daily schedule. I can work on game design and still drive and make a living but I can also enjoy game making more now between loads or whatnot. I don't get weekends off anymore but I feel so free it's unreal. So now home is where ever my turtle shell stops for the night (my truck) is where I call home now. Just wanted you all to know, but I will be back in Dallas sometime in the next year, so so I'm hoping anyways. We will see what the cards have stacked in the deck for me.

Okay, that should be about it for this issue of my book report! :o) I will post another again soon with more pics of the Oil Rig and base once it's fully done. Also, as soon as I finish the island level with all the eye candy I'll post more shots of it as well. Until next time, stay safe, and always keep reaching for the stars...

this is BYA (Beyond The Abyss) Blog number #1

Will Zettler
www.dlstudio.com
will_zettler@dlsstudio.com
Older Email: dlstorminc@yahoo.com