SDP - A new Custom Story from Darkfire

[Darkfire]

ModDb (click on the image):

The mod is soon to be released.

Plot premise:
Ethan Roscoe sets sail for the desolate Madden Island - the new home of his cult-fanatic twin brother, Clyde. He hasn't given a sign of life for way too long, so Ethan decides to pay him a visit.



This mod features:
-Plenty of new assets
-Original music made specially for this CS
-New potions
-Photos as part of gameplay
-Enhanced, yet simplistic crafting system
-Tinderboxes getting back a crucial gameplay role
-Never seen before, subtle hint system
-Levels which are actually relevant to the story
-Rarely featured environments, such as sea, coasts, mountain woods and lakes




This mod does NOT feature:
-Poorly lit maps;
-Annoying sanity drain;
-An excuse of a story with no clear purpose;
-Poofing monsters coming out of closets;
-Teleporting naked guys shoving themselves at your screen;
-Teleporting-behind-you knight armours;
-You know what, no teleporting at all;
-Any other cringeworthy jumpscares either;
-Areas as plain as a pizza with no topping;
-Reading books (I mean, come on, my last mod had notes that were three-pages long);
-Rare monster encounters (Previously there were only three over the course of the three-hours-long mod)

[DanielRand47]

Looking forward to it! This sounds like an original mod. Something that's rare these days.

[Slanderous]

Can you also share the screenshots in their non-brightened version? You know, to get a glimpse of how it will look in the actual game.

[Darkfire]

I could, but you pretty much can't see anything. For some reason my computer takes screenshots as if my gamma was turn all the way down

[Mudbill]

That's pretty normal. The gamma is a filter, so the OS ignores it when drawing the color values of an image. I guess you can try increasing the brightness slightly.

[Darkfire]

I posted a progress update on ModDb, check it out:
[LINK]

And here's an early-access sneak peek for Frictional Games Forum users only; a screenshot from the newest map.

[DanielRand47]

Looking real good there. Can't wait for the release!

[Darkfire]

Article Update:

Have you noticed how 90% of mods handle monster encounters ?

The usual scenarios are:
a)Monster appears and you have to run
b)You have to hide before the monster enters the room
c)You need to go find the proper passage in an area with a monster

Perhaps you got bored with those, and you usually react with "Another monster, huh ? Whatevs, easy"

Here my strategy comes in. For this mod I have invented a new formula.
It can be brought down to five principles:
1. Give the player a puzzle to complete while simultaneously dodging the enemy
2. Make sure that the puzzle itself isn't overcomplicated, which would render the experience frustrating. Also the puzzle should be significantly easier if the player remains unspotted.
3. Restrict the gameplay area, so that the enemy doesn't disappear ( they do so as soon as you go too far a distance from them, which is a mechanic heavily overused by players to avoid encounters)
4. Give the player a certain amount of options for avoiding and distracting the enemy
5. Implement random enemy paths, so that the player has to improvise every time they die.


This might seem to transform Amnesia's difficulty level to a Dark-Souls-tier, but believe me that it doesn't.
What it does though is bring out a level of adrenaline that you only experience when first playing Amnesia. At least it did for me. When I first implemented this formula, it turned out to be the first time I've been thrilled by my own mod.

Another sneak peak from "SDP"

Obviously this is not a friendly advise for fellow modders only - By writing this artice I wanted to point out a certain route of design I took while developing the SDP mod.
I would also like to mention that I haven't overused this formula, so that the gameplay doesn't become too samey. There will be some of the old scenarios as well, although usually with a twist.

That's all I wanted to say today, thanks for reading