Teresa Moontyners - In the lair of the beast

The big day has come!

From today Teresa Moontyners - In the lair of the Beast is on Steam.

I am very happy that I have succeeded in this task, and I share this goal with you.

In the end the time dedicated to the translations took enough time, I entrusted the translation from Italian to English to 2 guys who from what I could see did a good job.

While for the remaining languages, I translated line x line the whole document using as I had previously mentioned online sites such as Reverso and Deepl, I find that the translations are more accurate comparison to the Google translator.

Well, I’ve done mine, now it’s up to you to play this adventure, solve it and send your opinions whether they are positive or not, any feedback, will be useful for the next title that I want to develop.

Thank you for having accompanied me in this venture just reading the news and updates that I inserted from time to time.

E.. seen the period I wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Luca Quartero

Teresa Moontyners on Steam

Finally, the procedure on the Steam store was completed and everything was accepted.

If all goes as hoped, you will be able to add the game to your library by December.

For the time being, we ask you to add it to your wish list on Steam, this helps us get noticed.

Thank you all.

Today it is with great pleasure that I open this update post announcing the end of the adventure development.

Finally, after a couple of years of work, I can say that I managed to complete this challenge.

I must admit that tackling this work alone put me to the test, despite the fact that I had no time to respect.

As a first experience with the Unity engine, I think I managed to do reasonably well.

I'm sure that all the hours spent learning the mechanics and thinking about how to solve the problems that arose will come in handy in the future when I start working out the idea for the next video game.

Now having a foundation, I can work out an idea knowing what logic to follow to get results.

But now I'll stop praising myself and continue with some details on the work done this month and some personal considerations.

As mentioned in the previous posts, I spent a lot of time creating the cutscenes of the final, i.e. those clips that are so rewarding for the heroic player who manages to complete the adventure.

It works like this, when the final sequence begins, I block the possibility of interacting with the video game, which put more simply, means that the mouse pointer will disappear and with that the possibility of being able to do anything.

In this way, the player can sit back and enjoy the epilogue of the story as if it were a film.

The only command I leave active is the pressing of the 'ESC' key which will give the possibility to exit the game and return to the desktop.

I timed the final from the moment I interrupt the commands until the thank you screen and it's about 15 minutes, and I can assure you that all this time will not just be dialogue, but different situations will alternate.

I thought and rethought about a final that would live up to the story being told, coming to the conclusion that the right idea was to mix moments of action with moments of reflection, and I think I did the right thing, even though I already know everything, when I happen to see the sequence again, I still get a few chills.

Well; now that the game is finished and everything seems to be working fine (bugs fixed, spelling errors corrected, and the like...) I've extrapolated the much-hated file containing all the text in the game, (putting this text online on a word-count site gives me about 24500 words) and now I'm going to tackle the translation issue this way:

I will try to arrive at a decent English translation by passing this file to someone who can do the job decently, it doesn't have to be a perfect translation, but at least it has to respect the grammatical rules of the Anglo-Saxon language.

While for the other languages, I will see if I can get around with online translators and possibly the help of a few players, who in their spare time, will alert me to possible errors in their language.

Logically, in the game options menu, I will indicate next to the chosen language whether the translation is in a final version or in a provisional condition.

Personal considerations.

I really enjoyed having had the chance to try my hand at this development, being lucky enough to be able to translate your ideas into graphics and words and then see them work in the game is really rewarding for someone like me who grew up with video games, I'm also lucky enough to have a good imagination and this is very useful to be able to write quite original stories.

But as in all things to succeed in an endeavour, it takes perseverance and patience and fortunately I have managed to manage development time well with my daily life.

Teresa Moontyners, is a fantasy story that in its simplicity I hope will bring a moment of entertainment for those who want to play it, I don't expect great results, because I already had the greatest success when I decided to dedicate myself to this project.

I thank you all for your attention, and while waiting for the translations to be finished, I'll see you at the next update.

The much coveted vacations have arrived, perhaps not for everyone, but for most people this is the time when they turn their gaze to their favorite vacation spot, and having packed their bags and completed their last commitments, they set off to indulge in a period of leisure and carefreeness.

Those who decide for the sea, those who decide for the mountains and why not, even the countryside in a cool farmhouse can be the ideal solution for those who are looking for some relaxation and healthy living surrounded by nature.

I this year, like last year, will be spending the vacations here at home, quite happy to be able to continue the development of the adventure that has now been going on for a good 2 years... well not bad for a novice.

Of course, it would be the best to be able to work on the game relaxed on a deck chair at the beach, with the sound of the waves playing in the background sound, but knowing me, I would eventually avoid continuing in order to devote myself to pastimes more in keeping with where I am, so better to avoid temptation and finish what I started.

This last level, it is putting me to the test, I had started with the idea of creating a series of scenes that would take the player by the hand and accompany him to the end, but although I managed to maintain this idea to some extent, I managed to complicate it because I wanted to insert a little more color here as well, thus turning this game session into another series of small puzzles and objects to search for that will gradually make the desire to savor more and more the moment when the end of the story will be revealed and we will know what the fate of our protagonists will be.

Inserting Mike and Andrei in the finale helped me a lot, with them I created funny and hilarious scenes that are intertwined with more serious moments; I am proud of the result I am getting.

In addition, the presence of these 2 characters, gives me the opportunity to create the scenic ending that I envisioned.

At the moment my idea of the final movie to be enjoyed is divided into 3 main moments on which I am working; the union of these 3 sequences will come to a duration of 5 minutes and even more, so as to make the "official" ending fulfilling for those who had the perseverance to finish the game, after all, the movies at the end of the game are precisely for this, to reward the player for his efforts.

And now I will take 5 minutes of your time to tell you how I created these short movies(if I can call them that), I will premise that there will be many ways to get them and that my method may not be the best, but in the end by following this procedure, I manage to get what I am looking for and so I continue on this path.

Let's take a character, our protagonist; he is assigned main animations that will be the ones that will animate him, the waiting stance, walking, running, crouching, jumping, and anything else that will be necessary throughout the course of the adventure.

A rule is assigned to these actions, for example if the character moves, his speed will increase and so if it will no longer be equal to 0, so the animation will change from holding position to walking, by increasing that value even more, the animation will change from walking to running.

This is how it works for the other main actions as well, thus creating a whole list of animations to be performed depending on the rules that are active at that time in the game.

But if this character has to perform an action that will be represented only once in the whole adventure(I give a silly example: picking his nose), I think it is useless to go and load the list I mentioned before with this animation that we will use only once.

In this case, I create a clone of the character to which I assign only the animation of sticking his fingers in his nose, and I take advantage of a change of camera shot to replace the subject with his copy thus obtaining a scene similar to this one:

the subject walks to a door, stops and opens the door, the camera frame moves to the new room doing an overview of what is inside, then as if by magic when the camera returns to frame our protagonist you can admire him in the intent of picking his nose.

Here are all the cutscenes that I created in the game, are done in this way, you will understand that with this technique, there are no limits to what you can show, it's all in the imagination and also in the skill of being able to create animations that can faithfully reproduce the action performed(...in this I know I'm not a great expert, but I leave the final judgment to you).

I leave you below a movie in which you can observe the work done on Blender3D, and the final result obtained on Unity Engine.

Be warned, in this movie you can see the end of the first act of the game, so watch it only if you are interested in the technique or if you have already played the demo.

And so I come to the end of this update, I wish everyone happy vacations and lots of relaxation in the place you prefer, whether it's mountains, sea, countryside or home, have a good time and see you next time.

Happy vacations to all.

I had hoped to finish this level more quickly, but that is not the case.

This is probably also due to the fact that I have refined the way I think and work, so it happens that I already find myself imagining possible errors that might come up and I find myself solving them even before they can arise.

In this way, by devoting more attention during development, I am going to save time during the testing phases, thus avoiding retaking portions of logic to be modified.

It then happens that at times when I do not feel the urge to continue, I go and make some changes to earlier levels.

For example, in the home screen, the one where there is the menu to set options or start or load a game, I went to replace the old title with the new one, and I implemented a function, which is launched in the options when you change the language of the game, automatically a part of this title is replaced in the chosen language.

That way if the selected language is Italian, you will see Teresa Moontyners L'antro della belva, selecting the English language instead, it will change to Teresa Moontyners In the lair of the beast, and so for the other languages.

To achieve this, I thought of separating the title into 2 parts:

The first part we will call "Background" will be the one that does not vary including the text "Teresa Moontyners" and the background graphic.

The second part we will call "Title" is the one that is gradually replaced with the one inherent in the chosen language.

To do this, I have prepared multiple renders of the "Title" in the various languages, and when the language changes, I ask the program to do a check on the current language and go and replace the title with the correct one.

Here is the result obtained.

Now the rooms in the base are all available and many cutscenes have already been done.

Everything follows a path, some items to retrieve and dialogues to deal with will lead to the next stage of the level that will unlock new items to locate and other actions to take.

And as mentioned in the previous update, abiding by these rules will accompany the player to the final stage of the level and the end of the game.

Completing this level will take time, and automatic saves will come in here as well so that for any unforeseen setback, you have the ability to resume the level at a more advanced point than the beginning.

In creating the rooms in the base, I had quite a headache about the lights, let me explain; each room has its own switches that give you the ability to control the lighting in the room, so you will be able to decide to turn the lights in the room on or off.

However, having a lot of active lights leads to an exaggerated consumption of performance with the result of seeing the game run jerky, to solve this problem I created for each room its own group of lights, and the moment the player exits this room, I move the group of lights to a distant point of the camera, memorizing whether the lights are on or off.

So I get the process of the game not going to compute the lights and I don't lose in execution performance, moreover by memorizing the state of the lights, the moment you enter the room again, I reposition the group of lights to the state it was in when the player exited.

This I have explained, will not be very important for those interested in the game, but it might be useful for those who want to try their hand at game development and like me are at the beginning.

I leave below a video I created some time ago in which you can admire a few points of the base while running the game.

I do not want to say anything except that at the moment I am oriented on creating an ending with some action, and to achieve this I have introduced these 2 characters that will be useful to me to achieve what I am looking for.

Here you are Mike and Andrei, they will not have a main part, but they will be extras.

I give you an appointment with the next one, I wish everyone a good weekend.

Here I am,

I started with the development on the last level.

After finishing models and textures, I reopened Unity and started to set up the 2 scenes related to the endings.

I faced first the development of the "alternative" ending, because it was faster to complete, in fact in a few weeks I was able to finish and test it.

This ending will be a sort of ear-pulling to the player, nothing direct, but for those who come to view this movie, the question may arise: "...who knows why I didn't do that thing...".

Now I am in the development of the "official" ending, which takes place in the installation area, this is a bit more lungho to conclude, because logically consists in redoing the whole scene of the game similar to the previous ones with logic, variables, hotspots and company, so a lot of work not indifferent.

But I do not give up and accomplice my hard head, I carry on this idea that now begins to see the end.

I do not give anticipations on what you will find but only this level will be a mixture of moments to watch and moments to play, so continuing in the story, you will approach slowly to the end of the adventure.

After all this, I will start with the corrections of the texts, after which it will be time to export a .csv file containing everything that is written in the game, so I can translate it into English, I'm starting to ask for quotes for this translation, but at the moment the prices of those who answered me are out of my budget, so ... in case any of you feel like proposing a price that we can agree, is free to contact me at info@1monkey2brains.com to get more information and discuss in more detail.

With this request for help, I greet everyone and I give appointment to the next update leaving below some images taken directly from Unity inherent in the final level.

And so we come to another game news.

I try to better explain what I wrote in the previous update about the possibility of the two endings.

A friend of mine who played the game told me: "I finished the game, but I didn't have the option to choose one ending or another".

That is correct, this is because I explained myself in an unclear way, and from the way I told it, it seems that at a certain point of the adventure, the player has the possibility to choose.

I apologize and I will explain better how it works; the adventure has an ending that we will call "official" and another "alternative" ending, and avoiding to give information that could be a spoiler, here is how it works:

Depending on the way of playing, it may be that a player, without knowing it, undertakes the variant of the alternative ending, which will not be dictated by a deliberate choice, but rather by the way this person has of playing.

For example, if you are a player that in graphic adventures, frantically clicks on the mouse button avoiding to read the long texts that the developer has prepared with a lot of effort..., or if you can't wait to continue avoiding to get wrapped up by the plot and the setting, it is "probable" and I repeat probable, that you could make a false step, and this will lead you to the alternative ending.

Conversely, a good adventure player, who respects the timing of the game and stays focused on what's going on, will almost certainly enjoy the official ending, and then as in my friend's case, will be wondering why he didn't have a choice.

Here is explained the story of the two endings and always reconnecting to the previous post, that's why the automatic save that will be useful in the case of the alternative ending, this way you will not have to replay the game from the beginning, but just reload it from the point where you can still make the choice "correct".

That said, we come to the progress made in this period.

During the modeling of the three-dimensional environments of the last chapter I had a lot of time to think about how to propose it, this is because during the modeling phase, I can keep my head free and then I start to imagine how the character will arrive at that point and what might happen.

At the moment I have finished almost all the rooms of the installation that will be:

1)The main entrance (which was already present in the initial chapter).

2) The corridor that leads to the other rooms, equipped with a hot drink dispenser and a small relaxation area.

3) The infirmary (in an installation scattered in the middle of the mountains there must be the possibility of being able to provide care in case of accidents).

4) The dormitory (room with 4 beds for researchers who reside at the installation).

5) The laundry room which is a room with sinks, toilets and showers and everything necessary to be able to wash and dry the clothes used.

6) Loft a room in which all unused items are crammed (which I have already shown in the previous chapter).

I still need to create the Kitchen room, and a few items to be placed in the hangar outside adjacent to the installation.

After I finish modeling the missing meshes, I'll develop the adventure this way:

If you will face the "alternative" ending, all these models will not be visible, and the player will be faced with a final Cutscene prepared around that "false step" I mentioned a few lines above; it will still be an ending, complete with music, dialogues and credits, so I guess it can still be satisfying to enjoy it.

If instead you face the "official" ending, then you will still have the opportunity to play within the installation, thus arriving at a different ending from the "alternative" one.

Now I come to a request for those who follow this "blog", I thought at the end of development and after solving the problem of translation, to put the game on the online sales platforms like Steam and company.

From my little experience, and for the titles I've developed previously, all the people I've worked with have always told me that the cover of the game is the store window where a likely customer looks in and evaluates if the product you're proposing could interest him.

And so I redid the cover that originally looked like this:

and now it has become this:

Now I'm here to ask for your opinion on this cover, I think it's more intriguing than the first one, and I think it's a good fit for the title In the lair of the beast, I deliberately used two colors, red and blue, to create that contrast between hot and cold, but I'm waiting to hear some of your comments, and I'm asking you to kindly find a few minutes to respond, any feedback is fine, I won't necessarily take what you write as an absolute rule, but knowing your thoughts will be useful to try to improve.

I will say that a user has rejected the fact that I divided the title into two parts, did not like the "Teresa Moontyners" divided from "The lair of the beast", too confusing, and then another thing that I did not like is the font used, I was advised a font Typewriter (which I am evaluating).

And still on the subject of the cover to a user, the image is not liked, saying that makes you think a horror game and would prefer to see a moment of normal scene (even nice) in which all the characters are present in the adventure (but on this I do not agree).

So thank you in advance for your participation and don't hesitate to write me what you think.

Third act finished, conclusions, news and preface fourth act.

And so taking advantage of these days of vacation, I finished the third chapter of the game, finally the adventure will now continue outside these dark caves to lead the player to the end of the adventure.
I have added automatic saves, so that at some points in the game, the progress made up to that moment is stored (now the player will have 5 slots for their personal saves, plus there will be a 6th slot dedicated only to saves made by the system).
I've inserted as first loading screen of the game a short animation of the 1Monkey2Brains logo, that will be displayed only at the first startup.
Finally I've been able to implement the volumetric lights, with the possibility to enable or disable them directly from the options menu, where you can also access the resolution and the graphic quality, this to try to allow even to computers a little dated, to run the game with less jerks as possible (in the end it is a 3D game and remains slightly heavier than the graphic adventures developed in 2 dimensions).
Still on the subject of performance, now the scenes are loaded into memory at the time they are used.
Unlike before where the adventure was loaded completely at startup, now only the scene in which the game takes place is loaded, so we have a faster game startup and less load on the hardware memory, resulting in better overall performance.

What you will find in Act 3:

The temple level will take much longer to complete, this is because in addition to explaining to the player the core of the story, it will bring him in front of several riddles and puzzles that will require cunning and in some cases even a little patience to be solved.
One riddle in particular will put you to the test, but I prefer not to explain anything and leave the pleasure of discovery, I say only that those who have tried it have struggled to find the correct solution to move forward.
At some point in the level, the way to play the adventure, will take the player to take one of two endings, I spent a lot of time trying to implement this possibility, and then like a bolt from the blue the idea came, during one of my tests I happened at a point in the level where I could insert this "crossroads" if I can call it, and I must admit that there could be no better solution.
And here's why the automatic saves and the slot dedicated to them, in this way, you can reload the game from the point where you can still decide the ending.

Conclusions on Act 3:

Unlike the previous levels, where I had to fight with my inexperience, in this chapter, I finally managed to get everything I thought and to reproduce it fairly faithfully, character animations, special and particle effects, camera changes, dialogues, puzzles and riddles.
I'm very happy with the result and rightly in some points of the previous levels I went back to put hands to improve what I had done some time before.
I replayed the adventure from the beginning a couple of times to test that everything worked and spun in the best way, I noticed several errors made and fortunately other errors have made me notice the people who have kindly had the desire to test, I thank them very much for the support; that as for the artists of the music used, I dedicate in the credits a page with their names, logically after asking their permission.

Fourth act "return to installation".

This will be the final chapter of the game.
The group will be able to return to the base ... yes, but how? this will all depend on the type of ending you have undertaken in the previous chapter.
For this level fortunately I already have some three-dimensional models ready, which are those of the first chapter, but other models are missing (the interior of the installation) that I avoided to insert at the beginning of the adventure and that now may be necessary.
I write "might" because at the moment the idea of the ending is a draft that I'm buzzing in my head, I have some ideas, maybe some twists, but everything is still vague.
As in the game, I am at a crossroads, I have to choose how I want to present this final level.
At the moment I have 2 ideas:
The first is to develop the level like the previous ones, so the player will control the character, some puzzles will be presented to solve until the end.
The second idea is to present the level as a cutscene, where the player will only watch the story continue until the end, like in a movie.
I am very conflicted about this choice; even the opinions of those who have played it vary, there are those who were satisfied with the 2 endings of the third chapter and therefore expect to see only one end of the adventure, and those who would still prefer to face another level to solve.
So at the moment I'm in the balance on what is best to do, and in the meantime I'm modeling the necessary objects.

Thank you for having the patience to read all this, and I'll see you at the next update.

Hi everyone, I'm just popping in to say that I've finally got the nerve to add volumetric lights to the game.

I thought it would be more difficult, but it seems to work fine.

I'll let you guys see the result.

Here in Piedmont at this time of year, the cold weather is starting to make itself felt.

In the town where I live, which is situated just below the mountains, this year it will be very likely to return to admire the copious snowfalls that so amazed me when I was a child.

The 'magical' atmosphere at this time of year is unique, with snow-covered streets and avenues and everything shrouded in a mist that resembles cotton wool and that muffles all the noises of the city.

In this climate, among the snowflakes that slowly fall, you see the lights of the houses, and you find yourself imagining them as warm and welcoming places, and meanwhile you think of the warmth that will greet you when you return to your home.

And so it is with this image that I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and the start of a peaceful New Year.

Happy Holidays!

Today I am going to tell you about the last idea I had and which I managed to implement.

I waited before writing this post because I wanted to make sure everything worked, and it looks like I finally did.

I'm going to attempt to explain what I have planned, trying to avoid spoiling any information about the game.

I'll start by saying that I'm almost at the end of the development of the temple level, I'm still missing some graphic additions, a quite deep test to evaluate that everything works and the final cutscene that will be represented through the animation of the characters, I think it will be quite hard to achieve, also because in my head I already have everything in mind (as if it were a movie), but then when I put the idea into practice, I will surely come up against my limitations.

But having said that, here we are at the heart of the article; the temple level, as you may have read in previous posts, will be surrounded by several puzzles, which, as they are solved, will allow the player to continue the adventure.

I have come up with something a little more elaborate as a final puzzle; this puzzle will be divided into 2 parts, and one of the two will be based on speed of execution (like a Quick Time Event).

The first session of this rebus will be a chessboard to be filled with particular pieces that put in the correct sequence, will unlock the second session that will test your reflexes and reaction time.

I managed to create a mini-game (nothing exaggerated, but being able to get it and see it work, I'm satisfied with many efforts), which will start a timer, and in that time it will be necessary to give the right command to the right destination thus obtaining the solution of the puzzle and the beginning of the final sequence.

I must admit that I spent a lot of time on the logic and all the variables I used to make it work, there were some moments of discouragement with the thought of putting aside the idea and pretend nothing happened, but fortunately I had the perseverance to insist, and get the result I was looking for.

However, I must also confess that I have not yet been able to implement the possibility of continuing the story in one way or another, thus creating two possible endings.

I hope I'll be able to find a solution for this or, more than anything else, to have an idea that justifies the choices, otherwise I'll be forced to continue to the last chapter, excluding an ending and leaving the plot of the adventure to the initial idea.

I'll see you at the next update where I'll tell you more exhaustively what I thought for the final level.

I leave a couple of screenshots that I prepared for the social networks, in which you can see a rendering made in Blender of a glimpse of the puzzle I told you about.

A welcome back to everyone.

Today we're going to talk about Character Animation.

I realized, rereading the previous posts, that I had talked about animations, but I never went into detail about the procedure I use in these technicalities, so here I am to expose my experiences.

I'm going to use Teresa's character as a representative model, to explain how the skeleton works on 3D characters and their animations.

What is the skeleton of a character?

After modelling one of your characters, you will need to animate it, (walk, run, crouch and many other animations. Creating a skeleton or rig in more common terms, means giving your three-dimensional model a structure with which to move it).

I used this method to make all the animations of the characters, surely there are other methods; however, I got the effect I was looking for, and above all, I managed to make them work on the engine, which was the doubt that worried me the most.

So... let's cut to the chase, here's how it works in my case:

After having modeled a character on your favorite program (3Dstudio; Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D, etc.. etc..) you will have in phase of modeling, to position it with a defined pose, it deals with two types of 'pose': A-Pose ... or ... T-Pose (the difference consists mainly in the position of the arms of the man, if their position is inclined towards the bottom, we speak of A-Pose, otherwise if the position of the arms is parallel to the ground, it is T-Pose).

After having created the skeleton and having related your character to it, it will be possible to move the interested bones memorizing their position on a timeline, finally like for the cartoons, running the timeline, you will be able to admire the movement of the character, that is a walk a run or whatever it needs to represent.

All these animations are imported on unity, I think there are more ways to set and use these movements, the one I use is through a controller, which automatically switches from one animation to another following the values of some variables, for example the transition from walking to running, occurs when the variable speed of the character is greater than a certain value and vice versa for the transition from running to walking.

Below is a small video I made where you can see the walking and running animations created in blender, and then imported into unity and in action in the game.

The summer period is coming to an end and slowly we all go back to our regular life or at least this is what we have been hoping for a couple of years. I allowed myself a few days of holiday trying not to fall into the temptation of starting Unity and Blender and taking some time to think about the best solutions to propose in the temple level. Then, as per my nature, as soon as I had some good ideas, I threw myself headlong into modelling and inserting what I had thought into the engine. So I'm going to reopen this appointment on the development of the game by telling you about the first puzzle you'll encounter in this chapter. As I mentioned earlier, the first puzzle is based on a kind of memory game, a sequence of characters to be entered in the right order, which, when solved, will allow you to proceed to the next section. To introduce this puzzle, I started by modelling a scene representing a small cave in which our protagonist will have to interact with a panel full of buttons, each button will illuminate a symbol, and the choice of the sequence of these symbols, if inserted in the right order, will give the possibility to continue.

With the help of my trusty modelling program Blender, I created the various three-dimensional meshes, which I then cut along the correct sides to be able to represent them on a two-dimensional plane and thus have the possibility to colour them, achieving this result.

After this, I exported these objects so that they are ready to be inserted on the Unity engine, logically taking into account that it is not possible to export the whole scene in a single block, but depending on the use of a certain object, this will have to be exported separately from the rest (for example the panel has a number of buttons and each button will be a separate object, this is because when one of these buttons will be pressed, only it will have to change its position, its lighting, its material, while the rest of the buttons will have to remain unchanged). After setting on Unity the scene previously created with blender, and creating hotspots for each button, I can finally move on to the logic of the puzzle.

To do this, it is necessary to have a clear idea of how the puzzle is intended to work, to create variables, and to start with a fairly painstaking job of assigning each button press its behaviour, resulting in a sequence of instructions that will be processed when the button is pressed.

What you are looking at in the upper picture is the sequence of instructions that are executed:

-disable the button hotspot
-lock the movement of the player
-change the material of the button to an emissive one (so that you can see that it has been pressed)
-change the position of the pressed button
-execute a sound effect (the typical "click")
-Using a check, I make a check on a local variable, to see if the button pressed is the correct one, restoring the material of the button and its position in case of a wrong answer, or keeping everything and going to modify the local control variable so that it can be ready to be compared with the button that will be pressed next. It seems quite complicated, and I admit that the first few times I tried it I had my headaches to orient myself and remember all the steps to follow, but then with practice and perseverance, I began to organize myself by following the steps noted in order to minimize the possibility of error (even if many times you make mistakes, and then sometimes you have to spend hours to find them in the middle of everything). In any case, I think I'm lucky to have the possibility to manage the logic through this graphic interface, which helps me a lot, unlike having to write lines and lines of code of which I have no knowledge. As I said before, Adventure Creator gives me the possibility to do all this without necessarily being a programming language expert, just by replacing the written code with this window representation. I test all the possible combinations, making mistakes several times, inserting random sequences, trying in every way to create situations that bring to light the weak points of the logic that I have devised, and most of the times I notice errors that had not been foreseen, forcing me to take up the sequence of instructions again to modify it. But at the end of the day, when everything works as it should, the satisfaction is great, and seeing the puzzle work, which a few weeks earlier was only an idea sketched on a sheet of paper, makes up for all the time spent creating it.

Here we are in the middle of July, many people suspend their main occupation to start organizing their summer holidays and I step in with a new update on the development of the 3D graphic adventure: Teresa Moontyners - In the lair of the beast.

I'm not going to bore you with yet another story about the problems encountered during the development and how I thought to find a solution.

But only with a very quick overview of what you will encounter when facing the new chapter of the adventure.

At the moment as I thought, the beginning of this act, you will be catapulted into a cave (not a novelty), where you will be in a position between Hot and Cold (Lava and Ice), you will make the acquaintance of Yoragh, the creature born precisely from the fusion of these two elements, will be explained why this creature is so tied to our main character, and you can see the animations in which this being, will be very useful for the continuation of the adventure.

At the beginning of this chapter, you will observe a kind of introductory film in which at times you will be spectators and in others you will be able to interact with what surrounds you, all this will lead you to the first puzzle; I have prepared a special room in which the player can test his memory, in fact what will be presented will be inherent in the memorization of the position of the objects on the screen, a kind of memory, but slightly modified.

In conclusion, without wanting to spoil any further aspects, I wish you a sparkling summer, which will be fun and will give you the right relaxation, my appointment is for September, where I will update on the logic used in the creation of puzzle games or more simply Rompicapo.

Happy holidays to all.

A warm welcome to everyone with the usual appointment on the status of development of the game.
Let's start by saying that the end of the second chapter of the game, introduces our heroes to an unexplored level of the caves.
This choice was decided during the development of the final of the second act, when in the correction of known bugs I said to myself: "why not continue the adventure inside the cave?".
And so it was, it was enough to model a new mesh that prevented the exit outside, review the logic of the characters and their reactions, so our story is now ready to continue to the heart of the cave.

This choice has been a bit painful, because as timing of development I would have preferred to bring the player outside and propose the final chapter, but reviewing the gist of the story I realized that something was missing, and I decided to add a new level where our heroes are forced to continue the exploration inside the caves getting more information about the story of the game, and in this way, give me the opportunity to justify what I proposed until now.

What changes from the second to the third act?
In the second chapter, the difficulty level is based mainly on the exploration of the caves and the use of some objects that lead to the resolution of the level, while in the third chapter, I thought to present puzzles in the form of "puzzle game" (this will give me the opportunity to face and learn the logic behind these puzzles), and the resolution of them, will advance the player to the next puzzle that will be slightly more complicated.

What will happen in this level?
Surely, the successful completion of this level, will lead the group to be able to leave the mountain, and to face the last level (I am sure of this); I will tell the player the reason why this Temple is located inside a mountain, all the story that accompanies it and, I will finally insert Yoragh with all the explanations of his interest towards the main character Teresa; I have in mind some cutscenes where the player will have freedom of choice, and this decision will lead to different consequences.

I started thinking about this adventure about 10 months ago, unaware of all the problems that could arise, especially not aware of the amount of work that needs to produce an idea like this alone, but I'm really happy to have the courage to face it, and today, I can really declare that this commitment I'm facing, gives me experience and knowledge that will surely be useful for a future starting point.

The development of the second act of Teresa Moontyners - In the lair of the beast it's almost finished.

I'm still missing a couple of graphic assets to put the last touches to the level assets, after the accurate tests performed by trusted people, I can finally declare closed the second chapter of the game.

What happens in the second episode:

If you've played the first chapter of the game, you probably noticed that Teresa, at the end of it, didn't fare very well; in the second chapter, I introduce Teresa's entrance into the cavern and give her the chance to start investigating inside the caves.

You will have to deal with increasingly narrow tunnels and moments of discomfort... imagine waking up inside a cave, not knowing why you are there, but knowing you want to get out at all costs. Here comes into play your survival instinct, you will use the lighter to illuminate the darkest places, and everything else to try to resolve the situation in which you will be. .. but alas, this will most likely not be enough, leading you towards the end of the chapter to deeper and unexplored depths.

With a bit of research you will be able to confront some characters with whom to interact and get some help to proceed in your adventure.

What I learned from this level:

During the development of the second act of the game, I got to know the "canvas", a graphical interface that interposes itself between the player and the game, basically a layer that is displayed during the execution of the game without interrupting it.

This canvas has been very useful for the compass, at the moment not necessary yet, but the player starts getting used to it for future needs.

I also refined the dialogues with characters met during some of the scenes, essential to obtain more or less useful information during the game.

Finally, I have practiced a lot with the variables indicating that a lighter is on, and consequently a lighting is active. In this way I can decide in which points of the game the player has the possibility to explore the environment around him and in which points a better or more powerful tool is needed.

Conclusions:

I started with the idea of developing a simple and very short adventure game, but during the execution phase, I found myself at a crossroads, and I decided to take the more complex route.

Developing this adventure I learned so much information and notions, that I would be disappointed settling for a trivial or rushed ending.

I'm aware of the fact that it will probably be a title without a lot of players, I decided to make the adventure longer, so that anyone willing to get to the end, will enjoy something original, with a nice and "complete" story arc.

That said, after finishing this second chapter I will start with a third, and that too will not be the end of the game, but the prelude to a fourth part.

I noticed, during the development of the adventure, that sometimes you find yourself imagining what would be the most correct way for a character to speak.

For example, Teresa is a woman in her fifties, she's an investigator; so she has to be attentive to details, quite knowledgeable about what's going on around her, but she doesn't necessarily have to be an expert.

For Samantha, the youngest of the group, I imagined a jovial character, sometimes impatient, an expert in her profession but still a bit immature, she loves music, she has a cassette walkman with her (in the 90s it was our ipod), and at some points in the adventure she will not fail to turn it on and start dancing.

Ham, on the other hand, is the expedition leader, an expert researcher, ready to give an explanation to everything that happens, based on his studies and impressions, always friendly with his fellow man, and willing to step aside out of chivalry and if the situation requires it.

And finally Jabert who, as I say at one point in the game is "the strong arm of the team", an ex-military man, trained to deal with the most difficult situations to survive in extreme conditions, those who have already played the first act of the game, advancing in the adventure, will have already met him, thus discovering some things that I avoid writing in order not to spoil anything.

And so, following these ideas, I try to imagine a certain situation and write dialogues and sentences that are relevant to these characters, with their beliefs and fears.

For phrases and dialogues, the tool I use for the development, offers me many options, starting a conversation with an NPC you will have the possibility to decide on a series of questions to ask or answers to give (as in the best graphic adventures), thus creating real plots of communication that can lead to useful information and in some cases the progress of the state of the game, or just end in a chat.

By setting up more cameras in strategic points, I can decide to change the shots giving variety to the conversation and importance to a certain sentence, maybe with a close-up on the character who is talking and then going back to a more distant view.

In conclusion, this experience that I'm doing, is teaching me a lot, in trying to get good results, I find myself thinking and learning about issues that are not strictly related to the development of video games, thus enriching my wealth of experience.

Implementing the compass for my inexperience, it was quite problematic, but in the end I managed to get a result that satisfies me.

I start by modelling 2 objects; the compass case and the pointer, I need them separate because the pointer must be inside the case and move with it, but its rotation must be independent.

For the in-game display of the compass, I thought of doing the following:

when the player clicks on the compass icon, Teresa stops and performs the animation of pulling it out and looking at it, and at the same time the image of the compass with the pointer rotating towards north appears on the lower part of the screen, clicking again on the compass icon, Teresa will perform the animation of putting the object away, returning to the idle animation ready for the next input.

For the logic of the compass operation I reasoned in this way:

during the moments when the compass is active, I take the rotation on the vertical axis of Teresa, this is also the rotation of the compass case; while the pointer acquires the rotation from another object that is not seen in the game, which I called "north point", in this way the pointer will always point in the direction that I have set the object "north point", while the case of the compass will have the rotation of the player, some tricks on the camera that frames the compass so that it displays the stationary case (because it actually rotates the same degrees of rotation of the player), and instead leave the freedom to the pointer to indicate the correct point.

In this way, looking at the compass I will have the exact position of the north point, which I can decide from scene to scene by simply changing the rotation of the object that is not seen as the "north point".

This week I’m back on the blender 3D program, to start the work of modelling the caves. The second act will take place all inside the mountain; and it will start with a movie that will be the link between the end of the first chapter and the beginning of the second one, in order not to perceive an abrupt change with the player that could ask: “why am I here now?”. Here are some screenshots of the work in progress and a final render made with Blender 3D of one of these caves, already finished and textured. See you at the next update.