PDA

View Full Version : Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder



galip
28-11-2007, 10:56 PM
Our first project "Darkness Within" released a few weeks ago. This is the first game of 3 in the series, since we aimed to create "Loath Nolder" games. So who is Loath Nolder? What is the game all about? If you need answer first, please read the story below... If you have already played...let's discuss anything about it!


----------------------------------------------

As police detective Howard E. Loreid, players are tasked to solve the murder of Clark Field, a wealthy man involved in the occult. At the top of your list of suspects is Loath Nolder, a highly respected private investigator who mysteriously abandoned his last case for reasons unknown. Rumor had it that he ventured to several exotic places around the world. It remains a great mystery as to why Loath Nolder disappeared so suddenly, resurfacing five years later and resuming his investigations just as abruptly as he had left them. Why does this venerated P.I. now sit on the other side of the law?

This seemingly routine investigation takes a dramatic twist as strange and terrifying happenings begin to plague your psyche. You experience lucid horrifying dreams and are tormented by paranormal happenings. Why do days pass instead of hours when you sleep? What’s real and what’s not? As you pursue fugitive murder suspect Loath Nolder, you must face dire truths hidden deep within a haunting darkness and the recesses of your mind.

FEATURES:

• Built-in Hint System with 3 Difficulty Levels – Players can choose to play in Standard, Detective, or Senior Detective modes.
• Unique Inventory System – Utilizing the ‘thinking screen’ allows players to collect and examine items, and thoughts. Clues can also be researched, combined or used.
• Dynamic Puzzles and Features – Traditional adventure game puzzles are complimented by deciphering dreams and underlining excerpts in documents to garner critical clues.
• Enhanced Gameplay Experience – The proprietary game engine enables compelling special effects and stunning visuals in a panoramic first person game environment.
• Eerie Gameplay Atmosphere – An immersive experience is created by a fascinating story, chilling real-time cut scenes, and haunting music.

PolloDiablo
28-11-2007, 11:07 PM
I've just finished this game in Master Detective mode. I loved it, although I will admit I have cheated once or twice by switching off the "underlining - always" option when I felt I was spending too much time trying to find out if a certain document contained any clues or not.
In the end, I had missed one document and one clue, but also something like half of the 'secret clues'. So I'll have to replay it pretty soon to get a more perfect score. Already looking forward to that ;D
Excellent job.

galip
28-11-2007, 11:14 PM
That may not be counted as cheating :) I see your point ;)

And for the secret clues: Some of them are really hard to find, don't push yourself too much..ok? ;D

And thanks for the nice comments!!

Noone
28-11-2007, 11:30 PM
Can you tell a bit about the history of creating the game? I've heard this game was frozen for some time? How many of the initial project appeared in the final version of the game? How have you managed to restart the production?

AllisonSkerl
28-11-2007, 11:44 PM
I really enjoyed the music in Darkness Within, and wanted to ask what other music has inspired you or if there are any other projects that you have done music for? :)

galip
28-11-2007, 11:53 PM
The idea of the game was created 4 years ago. Onur and Oral was working with another group of people. They were approaching the project much more amateurish and then 2 years later the project got a more professional look. During those 2 years Onur and Oral improved themselves greatly at 3D modelling and composing, during those times I joined the team and began preparing a new game engine(CPAGE) from scratch. We did many changes on the game in many aspects (story, game play elements, characters...) I think it can be said we recreated the whole project and renamed it to "Darkness Within", which was "Loath Nolder: Labores Solis". The development of the game took 2 years approximately.

Onur
29-11-2007, 12:01 AM
Hi Allison,

Good to see you here:)

We partially inspired by some ambient and dark ambient artists like Lustmord, ethnic works of Karl Sanders (his great "Saurian Meditation" album:)) Arcana, Raison D'Etre and the rest was created by our imagination:)

The first game project we prepared music for was Galip's Dual Blades which was published by Nintendo for Gameboy Advance a few years ago. But they are not so good:D

Noone
29-11-2007, 12:10 AM
Has the release of "Scratches" game by Nucleosys anyhow influenced your team?

galip
29-11-2007, 12:14 AM
Scratches was a good example of how a small team can be successful in game development. And yes, I can say this gave us courage..

Quill
29-11-2007, 12:37 AM
Hi, congrats on getting your game out there! It's encouraging that smaller independent developers are producing decent titles such as this. I like the little touches such as the zooms as you move between locations and the ability to examine the inventory items in detail. The graphics look really nice - what 3D package did you use to render the scenes?

galip
29-11-2007, 12:43 AM
I'm glad you that liked how the game looked :)



The graphics look really nice - what 3D package did you use to render the scenes?

We're using our in-house game engine(Its name is CPAGE) which was written from scratch by me using DirectX9 API ;D </advertisement>

Noone
29-11-2007, 12:51 AM
Well, the same question I've asked Momenum AS. Don't you think that there were not so much pr about your game, that it should be promoted better? More internet activity and so on...

Quill
29-11-2007, 12:55 AM
Advertise away! :) It looks to be a really nice game engine so all your hard work has paid off. What are your future plans for CPAGE?

I was really wondering about the rendering software for your pre-rendered scenes (e.g. was it something like 3D Studio Max, XSI, Blender, etc.).

galip
29-11-2007, 12:57 AM
Yes, maybe we should have released some materials of the game earlier to create a more enthiastic community about the game.
But for the next game, we'll be prepared :)

galip
29-11-2007, 01:12 AM
Advertise away! :) It looks to be a really nice game engine so all your hard work has paid off. What are your future plans for CPAGE?

I was really wondering about the rendering software for your pre-rendered scenes (e.g. was it something like 3D Studio Max, XSI, Blender, etc.).


Thanks! We'll go on improving the engine..probably will be adding new fxs and capabilities. And of course, we will develop 3 of the game series with it ;)

We used Cinema4D for our pre-rendered scenes BTW.

Quill
29-11-2007, 01:40 AM
Have to say C4D gets nice atmospheric results. Keep up the good work Galip!

Onur
29-11-2007, 01:54 AM
Thanks Finn:)

Galip went to bed, it is a bit late in here:)

PolloDiablo
29-11-2007, 07:17 AM
Here are some reviews I found. They are in Dutch, so you probably can't read them (perhaps with Bablefish???) but in case you 'collect' them or something. ;D

http://www.gamer.nl/doc/42930/Darkness-Within-In-Pursuit-of-Loath-Nolder
http://games.fok.nl/review.php?reviewid=22045
http://www.insidegamer.nl/pc/darknesswithininpursuitofloathnolder/recensies/18456
http://www.gamevillage.nl/showthread.php?s=f1c4e5bb20645d7d730276ac8438493a&p=2650122#post2650122
http://www.pcparty.nl/content/reviews/2879/
http://www.gamersnet.nl/reviews/darkness_within_in_pursuit_of_loath_nolder/

I guess you can see from the score who's an adventure-lover and who isn't ;)

Onur
29-11-2007, 02:57 PM
Thanks for the links, I will check them all out.