Creature Design

I’ve buckled down with the creature design for Cold & Dark and I’m trying to find the right look for the nasties in the game world. I have the basic ideas ready for the alien races. The antagonists are quite unpleasant and extremely hard to deal with at times. But that’s in line with survival horror in space. Being sealed up in a gigantic steel box in the middle of a vacuum together with hungry creatures that kill humans on sight is never a pleasant experience.

Running the Mechanics Ragged

This weekend’s playtesting is over. We gamed like crazy and I subjected the avatars (the equivalent of characters when using the Cold & Dark nomenclature) of the players to some really nasty stuff. The main idea was to test the combat and health system. And test them we did!

The players squirmed as their beloved avatars were shot, bitten, suffocated, irradiated and splashed with corrosives. They even got grenades flung at them. The system held up pretty good, but there were a lot of things that needed to be clarified, changed and developed further. It was a good session as it gave me a whole lot of information to work with.

When it comes to the musical aspect we managed to compose the first track. We named it Sleeping in the Ghost. This song is our first step towards finding a unique sound for this soundtrack.

New Music and Combat

Today Peter Skopa is coming over to work on some new tracks. The focus is going to be the game Cold & Dark. This whole weekend is about that very game. We need to find the right mix of horror, action and suspense that we can apply to the soundtrack. We’re also experimenting with some podcasting ideas that will be used for marketing. But this, like a lot of other things, will be introduced further down the line.

Then of course there’s a game test. Tomorrow we’re going to beat the crap out of the combat and health system and see just how airtight (or not) these mechanics are. I’ve added some new nasty details like critical hits that have a dismembering effect.

The New Logo

We have been developing a new Wicked World logo and we’re quite content. We think it goes hand in hand (no pun intended) with the kind of games we produce. A bit gritty one might say. Here is a closer look.