http://www.knockindead.com/ Latest news from the Knockin'Dead's official website http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home After a few months without news, here is a quick message to let you know that Knockin'Dead is available for download as a prototype : Download Knockin'Dead You will hear again from us soon, and this time with a whole new website ! ;) Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:46:55 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home Okay, so we've been all very very busy these past few months, and there had been no one in here to update the English version of the website. So let me give some news of Knockin'Dead! There are so many things to say. First, everything is going rather well. Thanks to our team's competent members we have not been experiencing so many technical problems, and none of the bugs filling our Mantis tracker seems completely irreparable.  We've got less than a month left, and I can say we're working almost day and night, including holidays and weekends - and now we know what "crunch time" means. The game is now playable, and the team is working on balancing it this very week; there are plenty of parameters that need yet to be defined such as barricades duration, social interactions durations and so on. We've got less than a month left and the clock is ticking but as I said, everyone here's working hard! Last time we updated the English version of this site we didn't have the Conviction system, so let me introduce it briefly. When starting a level, every character in Knockin'Dead has a conviction - for instance, to leave the scene or wait for help, or how to complete the objectives, or sometimes, more ethical choices. Since they have different convictions, this will create confrontations, and these confrontations will end up, most of the time, in negative consequences - characters becoming nervous, getting on the verge of panicking, and so on. The player will of course be able to use a character to convince another, which will lead to interesting situations - but no one will be safe from changing their minds, even after having been convinced! This will really add life to Knockin'Dead, with characters automatically talking when they bump into each other, dialogues "popping" in the tabs, and so on. And since we were worried that all those conversations would make the game illegible, we defined several color codes for the texts in order to summarize the contents of what characters say so the player doesn't have to read if they don't have enough time - and as you know, time is precious in Knockin'Dead! Needless to say, we're all here eager to see that system at work! On the artistic side of things, the game is looking better every day. We have spent so much time with placeholders that we had gotten used to it but we're receiving, day after day, animations, characters, items, etc. The camera system is now in place and I must say the 3D view is really scary; plus, our very harrowing music now pleasantly accompanies the undead invasion during the game. We'll probably post screenshots, artworks and videos next week. It's frightening to see how everything's speeding up as we're approaching the release date, but it's also really exciting. So keep an eye out for web updates! ;)   Mon, 25 May 2009 22:54:49 +0200 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home Hello everyone! Created during the latest Supinfogame intensive week, the Knockin'Dead teaser is now online and can be viewed here. Plus, we're all very happy to announce that on next saturday, March 14th, will take place the Supinfogame open day in Valenciennes - day during which you'll be able to test Knockin'Dead! Then, the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of the Knockin'Dead (not so) short story are available, enjoy!   Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:21:23 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home This week was long, but constructive. The game design was refined, with the establishment of a flight (the fact of fleeing, not flying :p) system for the characters, and some other details. Plus, we have received the first part of the characters animations, and the least we can say is that it looks good! Of course, the 3D models aren’t done yet, but the photo-shoots with our actors are going fine, and a first character sheet was drawn. It’s the kick-off for our CG artists, who’ll craft, we're sure, superb characters! As well, the production of the 2D resources is going smoothly and the game, little by little, is gaining an exciting visual identity. We’ve got sketch effects, textures and filters in matching shades; the objects are being created and we’re all impatient of seeing applied on their 3D edges, until now rather conventional, the cell shading we chose for the game. What’s wonderful with that job, is when you see all the front lines moving forward at the same time. I mean, coordination, timing. A musician works alone to make us a piece of music while a CG artist is drawing icons, while a sound designer is creating footsteps, etc., and of course, perusing these creations is very pleasant, but it’s nothing compared to the satisfaction one feels when all those small pieces become visible together. This is where we realize how much road we’ve travelled, since the first words scribbled on a sheet of paper, to the moment the characters are actually moving, talking, fighting and all the rest, and where we think, “okay, here we are”. For Knockin’Dead, this day is coming fast, and for us it is of vital importance to keep moving. But the anticipation of the satisfaction that we will then feel – and the confidence that players will enjoy the game – is enough to keep us motivated! Last word, here’s the third chapter of the short story, available in the news right below. Read well! Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:53:46 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home Vue du ciel, la cité a l’air à feu et à sang. J’indique au pilote de ne pas monter trop haut. Des gens courent dans les rues avec des armes de poing ; d’autres errent, ahuris, et vu d’ici ils me font penser à de grands insectes ivres. Des officiers de police tirent sur des groupes d’ombres avançant vers eux ; ajustant mes lunettes, je vois distinctement une berline faucher une femme qui traversait la rue. Elle est projetée au-devant du véhicule et roule sur le goudron avant de terminer sa course dans un caniveau. Elle se relève.   Détournant les yeux, je ne peux m’empêcher de penser à Barbara, dont j’ignore la position et si elle est encore en vie, et à ma chère Infork, à laquelle je m’apprêtais à accorder l’émancipation, et qui va vivre ce soir un terrible traumatisme. Va-t-elle y survivre ? Existera-t-elle encore au lever du soleil ? Nick ne m’a donné aucune nouvelle : il ferait mieux d’être mort, ou lundi matin, il sera au chômage. Quant à moi, je sens que la nuit va être longue. ... Donwload chapter 3. Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:47:47 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home Cela fait maintenant quarante-trois minutes que je suis assis dans la salle d’attente de cet hôpital. Quarante-trois minutes passées à faire tourner mon cerveau à vide. J’ai compté les affiches de prévention, compté les paragraphes des affiches de prévention, compté les lignes des paragraphes des affiches de prévention, compté les mots des lignes des paragraphes, … et maintenant, je joue avec les bagues qui ornent ma main gauche, en regardant les gens. Encore seize minutes. ... Download chapter 2. Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:46:46 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home While Vincent being away (be back soon mate!), here’s a very short news for this week… because we really are working a lot, because Knockin’Dead is a huge task, and above all, because we are getting late on the project’s time schedule. Late, to the extent that it is now clear that the prototype will not inlude everything we had planned. Was killed, amongst others, the contamination system, meaning, in certain cases, a long and ineluctable agony followed by a quick return to non-life, with all the consience matters this implies with the other survivors. But be assured that we have already thought about other ways to simulate this aspect of Knockin’Dead, and I don’t mention the others things under development… but you’ll know more soon enough. Promise ;) Meanwhile, don’t forget to download the second chapter of the short story, available in the previous news!   Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:46:27 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home By way of introduction for this third news, we’d like to wish to all of you a very happy new year by giving you a small Knockin’Dead e-card… We enjoyed our vacation and fully recharged our batteries, so beware: heavy update today ! So, what’s new on Knockin’Dead? First, a presentation for the end of the pre-production has been given in early January in front of a jury belonging to SupinfoGame, presentation attended by all the school’s students. Generally speaking, everything went well, the main feedback was that our game seemed clear and well balanced. Our objective seems completed, the main unknown remaining the way characters will interact with each other, and the impact on the rest of the game system. Of course, we’ve already got quite a quantity of ideas about this matter, and we’re confident! We also had our second milestone with our “editor” (understand, the teacher). Again, we had very positive feedback and comments. In short, it’s all good! It’s been a week since the second iteration, dedicated to the moving and actions of the characters, has started. Global design is going well, and we still have three weeks to produce most of the elements. Besides that, in the last news, I told you about a short story in the universe of Knockin’Dead… Well, you can download the first chapter since today from the previous news! From now on a new chapter will be available at every update. Finally, we created a “Game Developer’s Diary” system that’ll allow us to present all the behind-the-scenes processus. We’ll start with Arnaud who will tell us about the origins of the game… Then, in two weeks, we’ll talk a bit more about our progress on the character’s movements, and we’ll release the short story’s second chapter. Till then, read well!   Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:28:00 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home Knockin’Dead was, before all, a concept made for SupInfoGame. My first statement was that I liked the Survival Horror genre very much, but in the movies – meaning, the “zombies movies” – like in Cannibal Holocaust (Deodato, 1980) in which “civilized” westerners, isolated in the bottom of a virgin forest try to escape cannibal indigenes. What I thought was a shame with Survival Horror in videogames, is that we focused on characters that most of the time were armed. I mean, when I want to be in a position of survival, I don’t think the fact of having excessively equipped characters be very interesting. It didn’t feel like a situation of survival at all. So I came up with a concept in which the objective was truly to survive, that is to say the fact of staying alive for a given duration by using what’s available around you. Clearly, do plain time-attack or try to stay alive for the full 20 minutes didn’t seem that interesting to me – so I needed an additional time pressure, like, one would have to “buy time” (spend some time doing an action in order to save time for later) or waste time depending on their choices. And these choices, I wanted them many, and varied. Then came this idea of survivors in a closed room that you have to manage even if they don’t get along too well; in a nutshell, it’s all the elements you can see in movies like Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968), but applied to videogames. We use a point of view that’s more like the god-game’s than the adventure game’s, with a bit of human management on one hand, and item management on the other hand. All I have to do is survive with what’s in the room; I have but no means to defend myself. Then, another inspiration was the TV series Jericho. It’s a little “post-apocalyptic” series, in which nuclear bombs have exploded all over the American continent. We focus on the inhabitants of a small town, Jericho, who try to get organized in order to survive because they’ve lost contact with all the big cities. At some point in the series, irradiated people coming from these cities want to enter Jericho, which is evidently a problem because of the danger the radiations represent for the inhabitants, still healthy. So, in the earlier versions of the concept that was going to become Knockin’Dead, it weren’t man-eating zombies but survivors holed up inside an antinuclear shelter, and facing irradiated people – all in all, something closer to the Fallout series. The survivors struggle to maintain the irradiated outside in order not to get diseased. But this concept would have had many problems: nothing, no one (even not radiations) can enter an antinuclear shelter once the doors are shut. Or we would have had to come up with a complex system that would have managed irradiation, and that wasn’t the point. So I dropped the idea of nuclear stuff and irradiated people to redirect towards the good old undead, which is after all one of the imaginary monsters I like the most. In addition, it suited better to my partner, Edouard, who quickly joined me to work on the concept!   Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:24:31 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home Beware all the short story is only in French. Lawrence Caldwell Chapitre 1 : Le visage d’argent Le pommeau de ma canne roule entre mes doigts. Il est en argent et finement ciselé ; les lumières bleues du tunnel font scintiller ses traits. Je suis assis dans la pénombre de l’habitacle, goûtant quelques instants de calme avant la chaleur de la ville. Le cuir crème des sièges de la limousine craque sous mon poids. Dans la fine plaque de verre, parfaitement propre, qui sépare mon habitacle de la cabine du chauffeur, de petites formes en très haute définition s’agitent sur un terrain de football. Vivaldi couvre les voix des commentateurs, qui m’agacent. Soudain, nous sommes propulsés dans la chaude lumière du début de soirée. Le chauffeur ralentit, et le concerto s’ajuste pour se mettre en harmonie avec les bâtiments qui défilent. Nous traversons des rues orangées et emplies de monde. Des écrans holographiques verts clair, comme le terrain de football sur lequel la planète entière a les yeux fixés, flottent à la verticale, à quelques mètres des immeubles les plus importants. Des milliers, des millions, des milliards de personnes à travers le monde, les yeux rivés sur un seul et unique objet – une télévision. Conçue par moi. ... Downlaod Chapter 1 Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:20:23 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home Here comes a second news for our student project, Knockin’Dead! So what’s new since last time? We’ve entered the split-screen’s production phase, as well as the general interface’s, and even if this is definitely hard work, the whole is starting to look good. At the same time, the project’s scenario is filling out and the writing of a short story telling the events of the levels – those that will not be playable in the prototype – is currently under way. All I can say is that I got to take a look at it, and it’s pretty cool. We can’t wait to share it with you people! Added to that, the “paper demo” will definitely be ready for January. It’s a hybrid of a board game and a computer game, yes, but in what purpose? This will allow us to test the main game mechanics and check our game intentions without having to produce too many assets. A computer lets the Game Master manage the various actions carried out by the player; a countdown system informs him how zombie-damaged an exit is. Then, the GM lets the player know what character does what, or what door is going to give way. I must say that most of the people who played our demo ended as stressed as their characters… and oh boy were we happy about that. This concludes this second news. Everyone at Wall May Pulse! joins me to wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year’s eve. See you in 2009!   Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:50:08 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home In this first news (to be bimonthly from now on), intended to let you know about the progress made on the Knockin’Dead project, we’ll make a brief summary of the improvements that have been accomplished these last few weeks. So, where are we? Project’s pre-production is complete, and the first iteration started this very Monday. This first of December has also been the day of the first milestone with our "editor" (meaning, Supinfogame’s educational director, Didier Quentin). A milestone is a stage of the development during which we check we’re making headway accordingly to the project’s estimated planning. In a word, we make sure everything’s going fine! The purpose of this meeting was to get our estimated planning, the high level concept and many other things, validated. It went rather well and our “editor” seemed quite satisfied with what had done so far. We were also ordered a "demo". We’ll have to present it to the school’s various teachers in January. It was crafted by mixing elements taken from board games and electronic tools; we are currently balancing its rules and gameplay. Plus, this demo will become a production tool, and will be used for the global balancing of the Knockin’Dead prototype we’ll be carrying out along the year. In two weeks, we’ll tell you more about the progress made on the game’s split-screen system. See you then! As a bonus, here are two propaganda posters, one from SwitchNow and another from Infork . For those who wouldn’t know what this is about, please read the “Universe and Story” section on the Project page.                     Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:31:16 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home Before anything else, we’d like to thank the numerous volunteers that answered the calls for help we’d left everywhere on the web. The team is getting bigger, and we should soon have gathered all the competences we need to carry out the Knockin’Dead prototype. Which is obviously good news given the fact that the fateful date of the beginning of the production, scheduled for early December, is getting closer! This being said, we still have blanks to fill in 3D animation, Knockin’Dead being quite ambitious in terms of interactions, as much with the characters than with the scenery. So thanks, in anticipation, to spread the word around to your acquaintances and friends, every assistance on that level being warmly welcomed. Lastly, you can already find some wallpapers on the site’s media page, before welcoming the first artworks. Enjoy! Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:16:16 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home For those who'd like to get a clearer idea of what Knockin'Dead is going to be like, a concept presentation document is available for download on the project presentation page. Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:36:26 +0100 http://knockindead.com/knockindead.php5?page=home It is today, Halloween day, that the Knockin’Dead website opens its (virtual) doors! Please feel free to browse the various pages of the site, and to spread the word about the game in order to help us in our quest for external help. As well, don’t forget to visit us again in the upcoming weeks, as a great deal of new things will arrive shortly: a concept presentation document, artworks and other images, various texts and even a short story… In short, this site will remain alive as we’ll proceed through the prototype development steps. We hope you’ll enjoy this website! Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:53:38 +0100