Previous News
Nov 15th, 2008
This morning, we hit a milestone. We sort-of finished a map.
This might not sound like a particularly noteworthy event, but for me it is. I've always been of the belief that, the minute an area of the game stops being fun to work on, the minute you should stop working on it. Leave it, work on something else, come back to it later.
With that in mind, myself and the other level designers have been making little bits and bats of individual maps, without actually getting a great deal finished. For the first time now, though, you can run through one map from start to finish, with most of the details and functions in-place. It only takes about five minutes, but hey - it's something, isn't it?
So, what else have we been doing?
Well, there are some new prop models coming along nicely, some new areas of the game are being designed, the story is being continually tweaked and refined, we've got a bit of new code, some new artwork, and a lovely "readable content" system that you can see in action below. This should hopefully add a whole lot of depth to the game world, allowing the player to explore the nuances of the narrative in their own time and as deeply as they see fit. Neptune is a mod that will reward exploration despite its mainly-linear path, and delving into the nooks and crannies of the ship will hopefully throw up some nice surprises.
Since it's been a while since the last news post, a
couple of these screenshots won't be particularly new to some, but we hope you like what you see regardless. Thanks to everyone for their support and advice so far - keep spreading the word, and keep in touch!
Lewis & The Neptune Shipmates x
Oct 13th, 2008
Well then. Do take a seat. We have lots to discuss.
The team seems to be constantly changing at the moment. This is sort of to be expected as a mod is finding its feet. Real life takes over, different projects become more important, whatever. But the up-side of this is that we've ended up with a whole host of different people at least having something to say about what's going on behind the scenes, which is really valuable. The Two Toms, badgering away with their level designs until recently, funnily enough did a great job helping us refine the story. Voice artists have made suggestions about the textures, concept artists have made suggestions about the script. It's all surprisingly cohesive. To those who have worked with us and have since moved on: we wish you all the best, and thank you kindly for your help.
We're in the process, then, of helping a few new faces settle in. We'll introduce you to them all when things are more concrete, but from the looks of things these people have considerable talent, and I look forward to working with them in the coming months.
We keep hitting these development walls where we're forced to sit back and say, "Well, we can't crack on with X until Y has been completed..." and, at such times, it's easy to end up thumb-twiddling. As such, if you have anything you think you can offer to the project, please do not hesitate to get in touch. We're in particular need of modellers, skinners and coders to help us out in various areas, as well as high-quality voice artists. You know the drill. Fire us a message with examples of your work, and we'll talk.
Onwards and upwards, then. There might be a little wait before significant updates, but until then, we'll keep feeding you little bits of what we've got so far.
Sep 23rd, 2008
News and Stuff!!
Well, my aim to update weekly has gone to pot a bit, but hey, it's only been a fortnight. Things are starting to move on rather nicely now. We have a couple more screenshots to show you:
These are from an early area of the mod, in the First Class area of the ship. As usual, areas may be subject to change, but everything's starting to fall into place in a sort of 'in-game' fashion now, which is always nice to see.
We have a couple of top guys working on some music and sound effects for Neptune, and it's all sounding absolutely fantastic. In-game, the combination of 1940s music with the creaking and moaning of the partially-destroyed ship works wonders. I found myself sat on the edge of my seat when exploring a level that I designed. That either means I'm the biggest wuss in the world, or we're doing something right.
We're almost at a stage where we're ready to write up the script, at which point we'll be requiring a talented team of voice artists. If you're interested, please send me a private message.
'Til next time, folks...
Lewis & the Neptune lot x
Sep 11th, 2008
Early Media Release
We are proud to unveil some early screenshots of Neptune! These are early examples, demonstrating areas which are likely to alter during the development process as we constantly refine and retune our work. We're also refining the story at the moment, with a pretty big change meaning a slight shift in art design... generally, though, everything's coming along nicely.
IS THAT A MEDIA RELEASE IN YOUR POCKET, OR ARE YOU JUST PLEASED TO SEE ME?
So, at long last, we have something to show you. We are extremely proud today to unveil some early screenshots of Neptune. We must stress that these are early examples, demonstrating areas which are likely to alter during the development process as we constantly refine and retune our work.
We were hoping to have more from the main decks of the ship to show you today, but a large computer crash destroyed a fair portion of early level design work. No matter - we'd only begun work on the game proper a couple of weeks earlier, so although it's frustrating it's certainly fixable. And fix it we shall - hopefully by next media release we'll have some more tastiness to show off.
IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT, PUNK?
Well, it's been a tricky old time lately, with a couple of team reshuffles and some pretty serious narrative revamping. The story is something that I'm sure will naturally develop considerably over time, but yesterday we made a pretty dramatic shift in terms of the major plot development. Without giving too much away, it's about how all the chaos came to be, and it involves rethinking our art and level design a little bit. Again, no problem at all. We're early enough in the project for it not to be a huge setback.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE...
As always, we really appreciate everyone's attention to this project, and it'd be brilliant if people could show their love by telling others about Neptune, linking to us, writing about us, whatever. If anyone feels they have anything to offer the project (we will, eventually, be particularly in need of modellers, animators and coders), do get in touch.
'Til next time, chums...
Lewis & the team x
Sep 2nd, 2008
Weekly-ish news update #3.
Weekly-ish news update #3. Plodding along handsomely, trying desperately to leave that horrible zone of 'finishing pre-production'.
This is, by far, the most frustrating period in a mod's development.
We're now at the stage where the story's pretty much finished, the artwork's all getting there, level designs are starting to come together, the script's being written, and then half of it's being chucked out and started again with.
Okay, maybe that's not strictly true, but it certainly feels like suddenly we're having to revise a lot of concrete ideas we had about the specifics of Neptune.
This means a few things. Firstly, I'm really stressed out, because I really want to actually start making the thing in a way that will resemble the finished product. Secondly, the planned media release seems a little silly now, as the content represented has largely been chucked out. If we can get everything updated quickly, we still may be able to treat you to something in the next couple of weeks, though. Thirdly, it's got to that annoying stage when you've been working on the same thing constantly for a few months, when all the ideas you had at the start that seemed fantastic, ingenious, innovative and amazing... well, they now sound a little bland and predictable.
I'm going to take a risk and wager that it's because we're too close to the project, and not change any of the core ideology of the thing. Nick's writing up a new version of the story, which gets rid of some cliché, adds some depth of character, and establishes some nice new themes. Clearly, we're not giving any of this away, but hopefully everyone will find it sufficiently odd and interesting to keep them hooked throughout the few hours of gameplay we have planned. We're working on a very specific artistic style to the thing, giving the mod a sense of time and place. All we can really expand on all this is, it's the end of World War 2, you're an innocent man taking a risk so you can afford to put food on your family's table, and it all goes horribly wrong when your boat capsizes in the middle of nowhere... oooOOOOoooh!
The pace will pick up, I'm sure, because we welcome two new team members this week. Anthony Sims and Jacob Fisher both join the art team, and we can expect some lovely models, textures and - sooner - concept art from that crazy pair. Welcome aboard!
See you all soon with something more interesting to report.
Lewis & co.
Aug 23rd, 2008
Quick updates
A quick update, since it's my aim to keep news posts nice and regular. A big thank you for all the support early on, and some insight into what we're all beavering away at behind the scenes!
It's my aim to keep updating the news page as frequently as possible with information about what's going on behind the scenes.
It's my aim to keep updating the news page as frequently as possible with information about what's going on behind the scenes. We're still early in development, so there's not a huge amount to say just yet, but I thought I'd keep you all posted.
Firstly, thank you for the fantastic response to the recruitment post. Apologies if we've not been able to offer you a position at this time - we'll likely need more help as the project progresses so do get back in touch when we inevitably post again. The response saw a two-strong team blossom into an 8-strong development group in just a few days, and I'm delighted to welcome so many talented modders aboard the Neptune ship.
All this means that, after just a few weeks of 'proper' work on the mod, we're inching closer by the minute to coming out of pre-production and starting to actually make the thing. Our level designers are hard at work coming up with floorplans for the ship and working out all the little intricacies required to start building the twisted world of Neptune. The main bulk of the narrative is in place, complete with some horrific twists and turns. The whole thing is falling into place exactly as I imagined, and I genuinely sense truly good things for this mod.
We should be in a position to throw our first media update into the mix in the reasonably near future. Keep your eyes peeled - when it does arrive, I hope you all like what you see!
Thanks for such brilliant support so early on.
Regards,
Lewis and the Neptune Team
Aug 10th, 2008
Unveiling / design philosophy / recruitment
It is my great pleasure to unveil Neptune, an original single-player modification for Half-Life 2. Please visit the profile or website for more information. I have written a public design philosophy for the mod, enclosed in this news post, which outlines what I aim to achieve. We are also looking for a number of team members - see inside for more details. Thanks for reading.
NEPTUNE - Design Philosophy
Neptune is a single-player total-conversion modification, with no links whatsoever to Half-Life 2. It is a first-person action-adventure, with roots in horror, and a strong reliance on narrative.
Neptune begins onboard a seemingly recently-abandoned cruise liner, and the player immediately realises that something has gone very wrong onboard. Visual and aural clues, as well as direct communication with NPCs, will help to unwravel a complex story involving morality, betrayal, and the dangers of attempting to 'play god'.
I created a mod half a decade ago for Half-Life. It was called Solo Operations, and it was genuinely rubbish. The 6/10 scoring on ModDB is something I consider extremely favourable, but at the time we were young, inexperienced, and dived into the project head-first without any real planning. Subsequent efforts to create better mods have been hampered by a lack of time and resources, but more importantly by a lack of focus on the sort of experience I wanted to create. Neptune is the result of my time experimenting with game design. In it, I believe I have found an ambitious but certainly achievable goal, and a gaming experience I have a real desire to create.
This desire arose primarily from my time spent as a games journalist. It has become very apparent over the years that the games that both myself and others in the field consistently praise are those driven by a strong, engrossing narrative. Too many titles rely on the player's desire simply to complete the game for the sake of it, rather than because of a genuine interest in the story and a feeling of involvement in the game's universe.
I became particularly interested in working within the horror genre having read a number of articles and essays by UK journalist Kieron Gillen about the use of fear in videogames. His belief, and mine too, is that games become truly scary not through the use of 'boo' moments, causing the player to jump in his/her seat, but through atmosphere and immersion, and more importantly, through the writing of a story that is genuinely unsettling. Gillen cites System Shock 2 and the level 'Robbing The Cradel' from Thief: Deadly Shadows as excellent examples of this; a combination of their stories and the unsurpassed immersion of their level design makes these two games large influences in the creation of Neptune. BioShock is a more recent, and perhaps even stronger, example of the kind of palpable, unsettling atmosphere I intend to create. This atmosphere is created via a variety of delivery methods, but all have one thing in common: they make the player feel like he/she is battling through a real world, with real characters who are telling a real story. Even System Shock 2's far-future, high science-fiction universe manages to achieve this by playing with ideas familiar to the player. While jump-in-your-seat moments are obviously helpful (when used sparingly and thoughtfully) in raising the tension factor of a videogame, a Doom 3-style shooter is something I have no intention of creating. Neptune isn't like that.
Myself and a couple of others have spent a lot of time planning out a thoughtful story, and whilst it is by no means finished, it is now at a stage where we can begin to piece it together into something that will work in a functional gaming world. Gameplay obviously has to come first and foremost, but this functionality should be consistent with the story we are trying to tell. A game with perfect mechanics but an uninspired story is a dull game, and players will be unlikely to persevere. On the contrary, many players battled through the technical inadequacies of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines due to its incredibly intricate narrative and a real sense of empathy with NPCs. I believe this is truly telling, and it disappoints me to see so little of this theory being applied to amateur mods. Maybe this is why we see so few truly great single-player efforts from such a large and strong mod community.
I shall no doubt add to this as my thoughts and ideas develop. In the meantime, thank you for reading.
Lewis