[ RELEASED] Dreams in the Witch House

[TheFrighter]

This is the reading room where you can study for your exams, or study maths and occult (the really powerful occult books are stored in the basement and you need a permission to examine them). You can also study in your own room, but there might be strange disturbances which can break your concentration... At the right edge is the card file, where you can check the location of the books in the library. After you know the book's location, you can go and find it, and borrow it from the librarian. And behind the door is professor Armitage's office. So this is a place you will be spending quite a lot of time.

What about a little side research off the main route?


_

[rongel]

Hey, it's Groucho Marx!

If you mean the librarian lady, I didn't see it first, but now that you said it... We'll fix it!

This can turn me on or off depending on the feel of the place.

In this case I look forward to spending time there so job well done!

Great to hear that! It was somehow quite difficult to design that room, because there needs to be a lot of functionality. I hope I have some time to add few extra decorations there.

I love everything about this project.

Thanks! I'm a fan of your work too!

What about a little side research off the main route?

Well, actually I forgot to tell that Walter is working on a theory, which combines magic with science. So you can also work on that (your occult and math skills add to your theory), and if you manage to write a proper thesis, you can publish it in the University newspaper, and get some pocket money!

[mkennedy]

Will this game be taking place during the prohibition? It might be an interesting play through if Walter were to blow off his classes and spend all his time in speakeasies and pool halls, though I imagine if he gets arrested or expelled that would probably bring the game to an early end.

[rongel]

Will this game be taking place during the prohibition? It might be an interesting play through if Walter were to blow off his classes and spend all his time in speakeasies and pool halls, though I imagine if he gets arrested or expelled that would probably bring the game to an early end.

Yes, it's set in unspecified year in late 1920s or very early 1930s. There is a puzzle dealing with getting alcohol through shady methods. Maybe alcohol also restores sanity/warmth for a while, but I've not yet that far in the game. Probably no pool halls though...

[Mandle]

Probably no pool halls though...

Awwww...But stereotyped purplely-written lowlife thugs is an awesome Lovecraft trope!!!

(While working on Chronicle Of Innsmouth I had so much fun writing the lines for the smugglers, making their slang piratey terms just ridiculous enough so that it might feel like something HPL himself had penned...He seriously had no idea how any real person below his own social level talked...)

[KyriakosCH]

Sorry it's been a while since the last update! Good news is that I've been busy working with the game and made some progress.

I wanted to show you something bit different this time. This background is still a bit work-in-progress, but I wanted to share it with you before the Christmas holidays. It's one of the dream scenes, a very alien place with a strange geometry and physics.



Actually it's a mini-game with several stages and parallax scrolling, and this is the first part of it. It's been a lot of work figuring this out, and because there is a lot of animation going on, it will probably be the most resource-heavy scene in the whole game (I hope that it runs smoothly with older computers...). Anyway, I hope you like it, and happy holidays!

This will certainly be a very stylish game. Looks awesome

Btw, Platonic solids=Cthulhu.

[rongel]

Awwww...But stereotyped purplely-written lowlife thugs is an awesome Lovecraft trope!!!

Agreed! But don't worry, there will be at least one tough street kid hanging around in Orne's Gangway, and hopefully also a band of muggers. 

By the way, nice work on Chronicle of Innsmouth, I was naturally very interested to see how it turned out!

[Surdy]

Can't wait Please, hurry up

[rongel]

Hello again, just realized it's been over a month since last udpate...

Anyways, now it's time for some announcements:

First of all, the game has a sound designer! Antti is a very talented sound designer, who's been working mostly on television and movies. We have also worked together earlier, and he's a great guy, so I'm very happy that he's onboard. Now I can focus more on the other aspects of the game, and don't have to worry about the audio that much. 

Secondly, the game has a composer! Drum roll...

Troy Sterling Nies has agreed to compose the music for The Witch House!

I had the pleasure of meeting Troy at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival last year, and I'm thrilled that he was interested in The Witch House. Troy has worked on several H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's projects, including the feature films The Whisperer in Darkness and The Call of Cthulhu. You can listen Troy's music on his Bandcamp-page: https://troysterlingnies.bandcamp.com/

I couldn't be happier about our little team! So no new screenshots this time, eventhough the game has progressed nicely lately. And also thanks for the people who have contacted me and offered their help in the audio department!

[KyriakosCH]

Any new eye-candy screens? ^^

[rongel]

Any new eye-candy screens? ^^

There are some new backgrounds, but most of them are missing final tweaks or characters, so I won't show them yet.

But okay, here's one, maybe not the most visual or exciting background, but it shows one section of the Miskatonic University's library:



Good luck finding your book!

[KyriakosCH]

Very nice!

[TheFrighter]

Nice, even if a library of an university have to be some sort of classification (numbers of books, order by author, order by argument etc.)

_

[rongel]

Nice, even if a library of an university have to be some sort of classification (numbers of books, order by author, order by argument etc.)

Sure! The six(!) library rooms are separated by the genre (fiction, occult, biology, physics etc). Currently the system is that you can hover over the books with the mouse cursor, and it will automaticly give you the first letter of the author. So that way it's relatively easy to spot the book you want. But you need to know what you are seacrhing for the book to appear.

[Mandle]

Troy has worked on several H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's projects, including the feature films The Whisperer in Darkness and The Call of Cthulhu.

That is indeed amazing news because both of those movies were incredible but especially the all-important music in Call Of Cthulhu. Being a silent film and all the music was a main star instead of an extra and I remember it being awesome.

[Dragatar]

Release date?

[rongel]

Release date?

I wish I knew! Unfortunately I'm not able to work on the game full-time, so there will be gaps in the progress. For example right now I have some other projects to finish, but I think I can get back to the game in a couple of weeks.

Let's say that the release date is sometime in 2019!

[rongel]

Another screenshot!



This is the Miskatonic University's basement, where the Special Collection is temporarily stored. Reading these special tomes will give Walter knowledge of the occult at the cost of sanity.

So the game is now progressing again, slowly but surely...

[Pinback]

I'm so late to this thread but I gotta say - the dream sequence animations look FANTASTIC!

Great atmosphere in general too!

[TheFrighter]

Good lights!

Maybe the Necronomicon book should look more mean...
_