Hypertension: Harmony of Darkness

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Corbin
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Hypertension: Harmony of Darkness

Post by Corbin »

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Hypertension is a psychological first-person shooter by my team Isotope Softworks and being published by Goat Store Publishing, LLC, for the Sega Dreamcast and PC. They are also publishing a game I am producing called SLaVE, using the same engine I maintain and program for (3DGE).

It was based on Blood and actually started its life as a remake project in 2008, here actually. The game has gone through a dozen rewrites since its inception, each time moving further from Blood, until we are where we are at now.

Take a look at the original 2008 trailer that debuted on Joystiq, etc.

All of the publicity we received, negative or positive (even Game Informer covered it) led to a publishing deal for the game.


(This trailer was released by Diehard GameFAN.)

But two years later we were burned out by it (and Atari seizing the game too hampered our efforts) and decided to start fresh with a different project called SCOURGE. That happened in 2011. That project was going great until we were ordered to halt and move back to Hypertension by GSP (no deal with Atari went through as expected). Since 2013 we have been reworking the project and it's now completely original, only related to the previous version by program code left in from so long ago, and all of the levels (which we were allowed to keep since they were original designs).

We were flown to the Midwest Gaming Classic to show off the project early in the year (I did not attend because my flight got delayed past the point of the presentation, so that's why my team member is so nervous and holds a clipboard in the video). The game, at the time, was chosen at the last minute because of technical problems we were having with SCOURGE. As such, the MGC trailer looks very rushed/incomplete and still has Blood placeholder content in it, but it was clear we were moving to replace everything (storyline, characters, enemies, etc). It was received well but people were still a bit confused since we halted the project for so long, and brought it back with almost no explanation. Since it was a surprise and well received, the publisher demanded we work on and finish HT first.


2014 Midwest Gaming Classic trailer from earlier this year

So, present day...I just released a new teaser trailer to our fanbase showing off some of the stuff we've been working on, which is what I'm going to show below. The game has been in development since 2008 (that's 6+ years) and has come a long way since the early days, but this is what it looks like now. I'd love to hear constructive comments about it. But keep in mind that this is only a small fraction of the game I'm showing off, and rough at that. Everything in it is our own work, except for the portal at the end, which still uses what Blood placeholders are in the game (which have since been removed). Since the game kept the entire codebase, removing Blood stuff has often been a witchhunt since the previous version relied on the content.


Newest Development Build [section preview]

My team and I are working hard to get it finished by next year, also, David Firth (who created Salad Fingers) gave us his explicit permission to include SF after playing the publisher demo of Hypertension in 2012, and he's designing the section of the game where he will be most prominently featured in (and doing all of the voice work).

You play as a mentally scarred woman (in the promo materials) who watches her lover get murdered, and goes into a deep depression while battling demons from her past (and the present, stopping an occult leader). She meets the River Styx guide Charon, who tells her that she will give her one more chance to live, despite her not wanting to, and the journey to unravel herself and the occult begins.

The game deals with depression, loss, love, worthlessness, among other themes. It's directly based on my own life experiences (which, suffice to say, is why I'm currently depressed). We have a script being written by a former Ubisoft designer and I'm writing the screenplay. We have 3d modelers and animators (sometimes using the Kinect for Mo-Cap), the cutscenes will be pre-rendered, and we have a few really good voice actors. The engine is receiving an overhaul (which is why there is new 3DGE builds coming out with modern features) to reflect this.

You guys are also free to check out the Corbachu Youtube channel to look at various builds of the game through the years (we even planned to have live-action cutscenes which are shown a few times in the trailers).

I was forbidden from posting and talking about this game for so long from both community and publisher, but it's so far removed that I don't think it will be an issue anymore. Rather, it shouldn't be. If you are looking for history (and not specifically community drama) then the Blood Wiki article is a good place to start. When the game goes gold, one of the special editions will include a "Making Of" booklet that chronicles its course from 2008 to present, which has been both fun and painful to write.
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N0t_mINe
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Re: Hypertension: Harmony of Darkness

Post by N0t_mINe »

Corbin, it's gratifying to see you working on hypertension an allowing it to evolve into a horror /action game that stands on its own merits. Wouldn't this have been better placed in the general gaming chat forums? I just had a post removed for being, amoung other things, of topic. Why not avoid controversy so your hard work and intentions won't be misunderstood?

I'd love to converse about the mod in the chat forum. =]
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Corbin
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Re: Hypertension: Harmony of Darkness

Post by Corbin »

Ooops, wasn't thinking about that (haven't been here in awhile). Someone can move it if they want. ^_^
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Corbin
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Re: Hypertension: Harmony of Darkness

Post by Corbin »



New update showing off quick footage and a new rendering feature of the engine [caustics].
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dosgamer000
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Re: Hypertension: Harmony of Darkness

Post by dosgamer000 »

Well Corbin it is good to see you were able to still tinker about with Hypertension, in one form or another. What I've seen so far reminds me of such horror Doom mods like The Ghoul's Forest and perhaps bits of Unloved. Your current plot intrigues me but I do have one suggestion if I could make it. Screamers are, in my only opinion at least, are kind of cheap in a way that they DO scare you but it's mainly because you're being surprised out of nowhere/blasted with loud music/shown a terribly disturbing shock image, you get the idea. Ghoul's Forest did this and yeah I don't like it but still, everything else I don't have too many complaints. Wishing you luck on your endevours with this.
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