Samuel Wilson - Game Developer

This page will be following the development of my final university project Helwyr

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Well, it’s been a long while, my last post was 26th May 2020 and that was the release of Helwyr.

Almost two years on, lots of covid and other projects started and given up and here we are. 

What have I been doing? surviving in this strange world we now have and working on a new project I WILL see through to the end... This new project is a demo of what I hope to one day be a full game, but for now it is focusing on mainly just showing what mechanics.

This project is currently an unnamed horror game in which the player progressed through an apartment trying to unravel the story and understand it for themselves via notes found around the world.

I how you enjoy the video above of what I have so far and if you would like to support me on the project you can follow my YouTube (and give me ideas or comments on things you may like tom see?) and I now have a Ko-fi which I will use for regular small updates. (https://ko-fi.com/soltsmaestro)

Let’s get this project to the actual finish line...!

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Released!!!

Okay so today is the day it has finally happened.

Four months of work on this project and it has released, and it is a crazy feeling having published a game on steam! here is the hope it is received well now...

It has been a long and grewling project with many ups and down having covid happen, passion be lost for the project and the regained, being ill. But it’s done and it’s out there.

I just want to thank everyone who has been on the journey with me and hope that the game is received semi well.

I will be continuing the project so maybe look out for further updates but until then.

Here is the early access of Helwyr!!!

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Update Week 17

This is it everyone the FINAL week of production has come to an end! The game page is live on the store, people are adding it to their wish lists it’s a weird feeling, but we made it 4 moths has come down to this.

So, what happened this week? Well I fell very ill unfortunately so not too much was done, don’t work it wasn’t Covid-19 just a sickness bug but I still managed to get a fair bit of work done and publish the ‘Final build’ to steam (That is in quotations as it probably isn’t but who knows). 

So, we managed to get a bit down with a whole level design rework of the town swapping out all the low poly houses for the derelict ones, this makes the town feel a lot more put together and now there is more exploration with more houses to enter.

Also managed to do a few bug fixes so now fingers crossed the whole games doesn’t break when people try to play it... but we added a few more enemy spawners to get game as 4 didn’t feel enough and now all the static items have been changed to spawnable ones as well as static broke the items.

The final big update was all of Old Man Tildy’s (Tic Tak) lines were changed as it didn’t feel the story was being portrait correctly.

That’s about it I guess...

Will I post here anymore?

Maybe, I will defiantly be doing one on the 26th for the release of Helwyr but not sure how much else there will be. The future is unseen for now.

But thank you all for being with me on this journey and make sure to check out Helwyr on steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1311650/Helwyr/

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Update Week 16

Wow what a busy week this has been with our first week of publishing.. So lets get old steam out the way first as it has been a nightmare. They still have not accepted Helwyr officially yet as they were saying the images were unrelated to the game so all these have been changed unfortunately, but we do have a trailer for the game now and the steam page looks very official it's a strange feeling but so cool.

What else has happened will the video goes over it in detail but a quick run down is: 

We have now got official audio sliders that adjust the sound of what you want with no hassle.

Sooooo much level design adding in little details like grass and rocks to places which is really tedious but looks good.

Weapon damage display as this was a thing people really wanted to see. 

New attacking animation.

Leveling up animations and sounds.

So many more sounds added it's crazy.

Enemies spawners on player death.

Essence retrieval fix.

Gosh that was a list, I would go into detail but that would be boring for you all and TLDR so i'd suggest checking the video if you want to know more.

Thanks for your time and here is to another week of polish then hopefully PUBLISH!!!!

Week Log Video Above ^^

Video Trailer Above ^^

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Update Week 15

Another week closer to release and oh boy it's a big one! We are now a steam developer and have an official steam page which is crazy to think of. That was the bane of my life but also so happy to have a page mostly set up and ready to be adjusted in the future.

As well as this beautiful thing we have also been doing a load of bug fixing to try and make the game more playable. This meant I had to do a load of balancing thanks to my testers; they informed me on things I needed to look at and I managed to get a lot of things sorted like the Essence drop amount from enemies as well as the cost of leveling being increased dramatically. The whole leveling system has had a rework on the stat values that increase but per level as well.

With all this complete we go into the polishing phase, this means that it's time to make the game look really pretty and finish off getting the assets in there a bit of optimization then a few more tests before release. 

This is now getting scarily real that university will be over in roughly a month and then it's the big bad world of game development. Hopefully Helwyr will be good enough to impress someone. :’)

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Update Week 14

So the first of two weeks of testing is over and gosh has it been productive for me. Not only did I have lots of testing done on my game I got to test my peers as well and they are smashing it well done guys!

But back to me, two of my testers were the most helpful, giving me about 30 bugs to work with. Not only bugs but some ideas for balancing as well which is one section I am struggling on as I have played it so much it seems fine to me but to get more pairs of eyes involved allowed me to see the start was waaay to difficult. 

With these bugs stated I quickly begun working on resolving them as fast as I could and I realised how stupid I had actually been with some of them but none the less the majority of them have been fixed and now we have uploaded for week two of testing to commence. 

It feels like it has been a less productive week but when I look at the buglist produced and what has been fixed it has actually been very productive. 

Here is the week's video detailing what has happened!

Finally if you seem interested and would like to play test for me as well please drop me a message and I will happily let you.

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Update Week 13

What a busy stressful week this has been! For me it has mainly been a week of AI and bug fixes. I have found myself in preparation for the impending testing period approaching. So what has actually been done? well there has been AI reworks across the board pretty much,Level designing, new systems implemented, old systems updated. You name it, it's been done this week as I have been pretty much crunching to get this Alpha ready for people to play tests on.

If you would like to see a detailed breakdown of my rambling while showcasing what's been done please check out the video.

But where do we go from here you may be asking.. Well it's the scary time of testing, what this means is iI will need as many people as possible to test my game and pretty much break it finding bugs so that I know they are there to be fixed. 

Other than this I will continue to level design and tackle my biggest enemy as in Sound because that is near non existent really. But that is everything we now look onward to hopefully good times having people play my terrible game :’) Hope you all enjoyed the update and be sure to check out the whole video!

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Update Week 12

hese updates are going by quickly and the progression of Helwyr is getting there especially with only 8 days until we enter the testing phase it's getting more intense.

This week has seen the fixing of a lot of bug issues that were brought to my attention by my testers, not as exciting as usual but still a major update to allow for more functional fluid gameplay.

So what have i actually done? Well there is neither the start of a more combo weapon attacking system that still needs finishing but getting there, another enemy type, more of a mini boss but another to variety it up, inventory system and the biggest thing of a second campfire added with spawn point setting.

As well as all this there has been some work on audio to play about with voice lines and story setting dialogue but this still needs work and re-writing but overall it has been a very productive week!

To check out the updates please take a look at the video

I will see you all again in a week's time for another update!

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Update Week 11

Well would you look at that another week has flown by and another week of not leaving the house. Is it me or is isolation flying by?

So this week has been my least productive to date due to losing motivation after weeks of mostly non stop work and the release of the first grade from the project I thought screw it was time to relax a bit. With that said I still did 20 hours of work but that's a break really compared to the rest...

Now what did I do this week, well it was a combination of a lot of level design, audio and saving. Now for those that know me they will be shocked by Audio because you know how much i hate this but i finally started tackling this beast putting in sounds from feedback received off Jack (Thank you Jackie Legend). 

To think of it that's maybe why there was no motivation...

But other than that I learnt how much of a ball ache saving is and that this will be a menace to complete but it's a start at least as can be seen in the video.

Thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying seeing this game develop into something people will hopefully play. See you next week for Week 12!

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Update Week 10

So amongst the chaos of the world I am still plodding on in my little flat grinding out Helwyr for you all and boy oh boy has it been a busy one.

After the reconstruction of last week's terrain, it was time to go in and make her beautiful again so we have started by giving the spawn of our decaying forest some life finally. This really allows for a good feel of what the rest of the game has in store for the player giving insight to the world and now with an opening cutscene.

Yes, I know a ‘cutscene what?!’. Well, there is not only one but three now, they are very basic at the moment but definitely show where we will be heading with them in the future.

Finally the targeting... my nemesis. This thing has given me headaches and sleepless nights for weeks be we are finally getting a breakthrough. It's nothing special and very buggy but its a good start... right?

Thanks for your time with the project I hope you are enjoying and check back next week to see what's in store as we move onto week 11! 

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Weeks 8&9 Update

Its been a few weeks so its time for an update! What's been going on? Well...!

There is now a full leveling system that allows for the player to choose what attribute they wish to level (this is very broken at the moment making you almost invincible) a full tutorial area as well as a very interesting side quest for you to find and now an actual ending to the prototype of the game.

This week is also coming with a video that will showcase a bit of the work done in weeks 8 & 9 so you can all get an inside look at the project.

[samuel-peter-wilson]

Helwyr Game Development Weeks 1-7

So this is my first post 6 weeks into my University Final Major Project, a bit late? maybe but oh well I would like to share my progress as to date.

A little background, I am creating a game called Helwyr. This is a 3rd person action RPG that takes inspiration from games such as Dark Souls and Bloodborne. I have chosen a topic such as this as these games have always captivated me as I love the beauty and complexity of the games although I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one.

The first 6 weeks have been very intense going through all of the GDC as well as producing detailed documentation that fully describes the game. With the first assignment out the way (AE1) it's been time to crack on more with the project.

Here is a video that shows the progression from week one all the way through to week 6.

Week 1-6 Progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpHgCE6Z8CE

I will be aiming to do one of these informative posts each week as it progresses from now on with each one going into more detail about what has happened that week.

If you would like to find out more about the project please feel free to ask I am more than happy to share.

If you would like to follow the project be sure to keep an eye on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Helwyr1