SHP Forums

NineZyme Entertainment wrote: Hi Tawmis! Thanks for your interest in the project, and for reaching out to us...
We have approached Activision with what we'd like to do, however it is a complicated situation and things aren't entirely sorted out yet. They are extremely hesitant, and basically won't even consider it without some kind of playable prototype/demo. So, our plan is to just move forward and complete the entire first chapter of the game - then use that as a platform to reconnect with them, gain some community support, and do a funding round for the remaining chapters.
It's unfortunate, because it basically all just comes down to money. These types of games don't tend to be very lucrative, and Activision is only really interested in projects with high profit potential.
Sooo, there are a lot of things stacked against us. But we're going to give it our best and see what happens! Meanwhile, if anyone in your forum/community would like to help... talking about the project and getting the word out would be great - or spam Activision with support for what we're doing (just don't tell them we asked you to do that, ha).
Thanks,
--- NineZyme Entertainment

NineZyme Entertainment wrote:

Hello again super fans!

We hope you somehow managed to celebrate a safe and entertaining All Hallows' Eve this year! Maybe someone out there dressed as Laura Bow?? If so, please send us pictures and we'll share them in the next newsletter.

November is already upon us, and there's no time to waste... so let's just get right into it!

Remember, to view any of the images in their full size, just click on them (Gmail) or right click and select Save Image As or Download Image to copy it to your computer. If you are on a mobile device, you can touch and hold to save the image to your device. And, as always, visit the website if you'd like to view some of our previously released images: www.ninezyme.com

A 20s Year In Review
That's right! Can you believe it?? We've been officially sending out these monthly newsletters for an entire year already. It's amazing how quickly it flew by. Actually, it has been a little -over- a year (+1 month), since we took a break over the last holiday season.

So with that, let's do a little compare and contrast to see where we're at with everything!

CHARACTERS: Last year we had most of the characters for the Prologue Chapter already fully modeled and textured (and several other characters with 2D concepts). Today these characters are also fully rigged for high quality animation, with several sample animations, and many promotional renderings. Some of the characters have even had their roles extended from what they were in the original design, because we were so happy with them! We have also done voice auditions and cast the actors for every character in this chapter, and have sample recordings (and several official lines) for each of them.

ENVIRONMENTS: Last year we had our 2D environment concepts entirely completed, but only one scene which was partially done in 3D, and maybe a handful of random objects here and there. Today we are excited to say that we are currently building out the final 3D environment for the Prologue Chapter, and it is almost complete! We also have most of these scenes fully set up with proper lighting and animation in-game. There are still a few bits that need doing here and there, including one of the major puzzles/interactables in the game... but for the most part, the 3D environment work is really close to being done for this particular Chapter - and it's looking great!

GAMEPLAY: Last year, we didn't have any gameplay in place at all, and had not even figured out how we wanted everything to work yet. Today we have the core systems implemented and working, along with most of the user interface elements, inventory, conversations, save/load, etc. Plus we just have a much better sense of how everything is going to tie together. A lot of this was just going back and forth between different established designs and finally making a decision about what was best for the game we are trying to build.

As you can see, we've made a pretty solid amount of progress given the circumstances. It has all taken longer than anticipated (an all too common story in the game development world) but we are very pleased with the outcome so far, and we hope you're excited about it too.

This is how Laura will be chauffeured off to the main plot of the game, toward the end of the Prologue Chapter.

What's Next
As a tiny self-funded team, we struggle to do a lot of things in parallel to one another. We just can't afford it unfortunately. This means we have to build things in discreet "phases". This is part of the reason we haven't shown off much of the actual game yet - because, frankly, there are some very key pieces still missing, and we felt it wouldn't do justice to our overall vision of the game (and would probably just cause more confusion overall).

However, now that we have nearly completed the environments for the Prologue Chapter, we can officially shift focus to some of the other stages of development. Our key concentrations over the coming months will be on character animation, cinematics, music & audio, finalizing the script, more ui art, and continuing to get the gameplay elements all tied together.

With a few more of these pieces in place, we hope to be releasing our first official gameplay video in the near future. We will probably only be demonstrating the Desktop version of the game (mouse controls), as we likely won't have time to fully polish the gamepad controls this time around. Our hope is to have it ready for you before the holidays! Perhaps even for the December newsletter. Fingers crossed! Wish us luck.

On nooo... What happened here!?
Laura will have to follow the clues and find out!

MusicallyInspired wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 12:51 am Welp...it's not a Hidden Object Game after all. At least not a traditional one...

MusicallyInspired wrote: ↑Mon Jan 04, 2021 10:50 pm I mean like this:



But yeah, could still be one in disguise.

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:34 pm Larry 2 is easily the silliest game in the series, but it's still funny. (The Dating Connection still cracks me up, even now).