Blogs - joure

Hello everyone. I felt it was time to update my page somewhat and I figured I'd do so while promoting an E-book about a behind the scenes look of making STARDROP. This will be a weekly endeavor where I will add one page.

I started it last week but more will be added as we work towards the release. You'll be able to keep up to date when I post the latest page on our website which you can find here:

STARDROP - Production Report

I've been working on STARDROP for quite some time now. Most of it's behind the scene stuff. Setting up gameplay systems and pretty much building the game from the ground all by myself. But the real concern from me were it's characters.

They are one of the most important factors in a game. They convey the story and they are what you're going to be caring about if I do my job right. Having a good story is important of course, or else these characters fall flat no matter how they act, ook and sound like.

This was such a big concern for me up until I found Mixamo's Fuse app. By god how I appreciate having this in my arsenal. They lifted the game's development up from pretty cool to OMG, yesss. (well, at least for me personally) It's amazing to live in a time where one developer can do so much on their own. I bought assets from the Epic Marketplace. Found some cool sounds and music online for free and also the UE4 community for sharing some of their free assets.

So yeah, I just wanted to share a bit of behind the scenes info here.
Now onto some screenshots from the development process of making Aryn Vance:

DEVELOPERS BLOG #2

An Evolution In Detailing

Hi, it's me again. A few days ago I started to cover Contagion via my own personal dev-blog. I didn't really know what to write at the time but I did know I wanted to write about my personal experiences. The pitfalls and whatnot. Today's topic is detailing.

In this blog I'll be using a level called Aurora Estates (cx_AuroraEstates) as an example. I've learned a lot of technical stuff from working on this map but I'll refrain from any techy mumbo jumbo since I'm not writing a tutorial here. The fact that this map has been in production for over a year should give you an idea of the amount of time, work and dedication that goes into each level. Mind you that it's not the only level I've worked on. That would be insane, but I treat my levels as works of art, and as a good wine, it tastes better in time.

There are a few rules I go by when creating a level. One of them is telling a story through visuals. It's a simple rule that a lot of designers use. I constantly ask myself questions about the place that I'm are creating. What is the story behind this area? If I add a painting that's slanting on the wall I ask myself: how did this happen? For instance one of the houses in my suburbs map is chuck full of little visuals like that.

A couch has ben overturned creating a barricade between the people that where there and the zombie(s). You'll notice some bullet holes in the wall next to it. The owner of the house probably shot at a zombie and he missed? Then on the other side from where the shots would be fired there's a bunch of blood on the wall. Oh my, was that the person's blood? Did a zombie get him? Good chance that's the case.

My second Rule I use is that adding just enough detail to a map in just the right places without overdoing it. This particular rule can be very tough to implement because on one hand there's my imagination and on the other hand there's a very real limit to what I can do. I believe that detailing should be done with a good amount of thought behind it. For instance, when I add, let's say, a simple trash can I can just simply put it there and be done with it. Which is totally okay.

However, if I just put the same trash can everywhere then it looses it's appeal and it then becomes just another prop. So, after I place it I rotate the prop around it's z-axis a little so that it feels like someone put it there. In the real world, people don't really care how a trashcan is placed on the street when they put it out. They won't measure it and make sure it's on a perfect 90 degree angle. So let's say I put a second trash can in the level. I place it there and also slightly rotate it, so it also looks like it's been placed there by someone.

Fine, done, I got my two trash cans in there but wait. I'm making a zombie game right? During an outbreak no less !! There's a good chance that someone could be running away from a group of zombies trying to survive and he ran around that particular street with my trashcans and accidentally knocked one of the cans over. And there you go, I added a little story behind my simple trashcan that probably no one would ever guess, but that's ok. That happens in real life just the same.

And this brings me to my third rule. Very, very little people will actively think about their surroundings like this when they play a game. And you know what? That's totally fine. I'm merely painting a canvas here. It's my job to make them feel emersed in the game and when people are not complaining about these kinds of things it means that all these small little details combined created a strong enough atmosphere for people to get lost in. Also, there is an unspoken context to that knoecked over trash can. The player is well aware that there is a zombie apocalypse underway. They clearly understand that situations like these can easily take place and I do not need them to verbally or audibly provide them with a context, it's a given. The player concentrates on having fun and he or she emerse themself in the level without much or any effort at all because the visual design was strong enough for them not to be bothered by a lack of atmosphere. And this is one of my many responsibilities.

Next I want to show you how a good level gets better over time and why I am so gratefull of my boss that he permits me the time to go back on a map and still tweak, add and change things to make it better.

So here we have one of the earliest incarnations of the suburbs map. There's not that much detailing going on and the lighting is, well, there...

The lighting started to take shape thanks to input from the rest of the team. We all throw ideas at eachother all the time and we all thought that dusk was a good choice.

It looks okay, not really refined enough, but it's a start. Then we tried another approach. Early dusk. I worked very hard on getting a more reddish and yellow color tone to work. I liked it a lot, but we felt that it just didn't work out, not for this map at least.

So we shelved it and went on to initial idea. I worked my ass off on this one and everyone felt that this is what the map should look like. The atmosphere is great for a zombie game and it just felt right. This is how the map now looks and I'm still very proud of it.

So there you have it. A little more back story to the Aurora Estates map. I hope you enjoyed it and I'll try to come up with some more interesting topics. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Now I'll go back to work, cause i'm crazy busy with our Kickstarter project and our impending release of the game.
Joure

(originally posted on Pixlbit)

ALl right it's been ages since I've posted something up here. And while I could go into what I have been up to the last few months, which actually since two days ago is going to be something I WOULD love to talk about since it's related to what I love most, creating mods/games, I will not for the sake of it being just far to early.

I can tell this much, Ep2 is on hold and I am uncertain what I will do with Ep1, basically I have dropped development for that as well for now.

sooooo, having all that covered, here is something I felt the need to share, so yeah, have fun if you haven't seen these yet :

Have fun guys :D

Since I have a little bit of spare time atm I figured why not reflect on some stuff. I'm pretty sure anyone reading this knows that 1187 is out. I've seen so many mixed comments about it that it sometimes confuses me a little bit.

Looking at the overall score that's currently a 8.3 I think I can safely say that Me and the rest of the team made something that's been enjoyed by the majority of the people that played it. I know that it's not perfect, there's a lot of things that I would've done differently. But I have to remember myself that this is the first ever game project I did.

Perhaps I should have waited and gained some skills before attempting a mod of this scale, but it wasn't my intention to create something of this proportion. At least not when I started work on it. Which makes me wonder also about how people nowadays look at mods.

A lot of gamers have been put down by quite a number of design choices. Say for instance the start of the mod which basically has the player wander around the apartment complex not really knowing what to do. I always found it interesting whenever I got the chance to explore a game in a way that wasn't forced.

So as the mod grew I learned new ways to use the sdk, learned tons of features that I could use in terms of entities and the way to trigger events and such. Because of that the first few maps in retrospect are pretty poorly designed and I spent a lot of time not only redoing most of the triggers but also a ton of scene revamps and graphical changes to update the visual aspect of those maps.

Let me demonstrate that by showing a screenshot of one of the first version of the first map.

As you can see it's ugly, really damned ugly compared to the released version. It wasn't until I started work on maps 7 and onwards where I really started to get the hang of Hammer and it's entities. That in turn made me come back to older maps and update them. Because I wanted to do the best I could in creating a fun experience.

So, then there's John. John was my personal experiment to create a npc and try to make him enjoyable. It's a hit and miss when it comes to John. People either like him or hate him, but that's to be expected, as with everything in this mod, it was my first go, and I grew from working and designing him as the mod evolved.

I guess that in the end I sometimes do feel that I let people down, one of the reasons I never really tried to hype this mod was for the fact that I wanted to let the mod do the talking. Word to mouth imho is really the best advertisement you can never buy. And it does hurt when people put down something you spent 3 years of your life into crafting it.

So whenever I read that someone enjoyed the mod I am truly happy, not just because that I feel that I have not wasted my time, but also because I actually managed to bring some fun into another persons life. That's why I made this, not just for me but for others to enjoy it as well. So I truly do appreciate whenever someone steps up and tells me about the fact they overall enjoyed it. There's even been a few people that have become real fans of the mod, and that's something I am also grateful for, because these people picked up on the little nuances and small details I put into the mod.

It just feels that gamers have grown to expect something like a solid triple A quality from even mods these days. People love to put down games when they spot a glitch or when somethings not working right, and I'll admit I'll be cursing whenever someone finds a bug that I overlooked, even more so when it's a bug or glitch that shouldn't be there or something I actually have playtested myself and still ends up being there. There even been reports of glitches that simply didn't make any sense at all, and I have no way to fix those.

So yeah, I learned so much during these three years that once I start work on episode two, I am very able to create something that will be so much more polished and bug free that it'll be ten times more solid then episode one is.

Mod's have been around for a long time and of course they'll keep evolving and we've seen a lot of high quality stuff the last few years, but I'd like to remind people that mods like 1187 where created out of passion for games. Created by people that needed to create something to learn from. To do something they love. By not only playing games but be able to create one, even if it's a mod.

So yeah I guess it's time to wrap up this blog, and if you're still reading feel free to give me your two cents, I enjoy talking and discussing games a lot. So yeah that's my thoughts for now, tahnk you.
Joure

Hey guys.
I'm taking a small break atm from modding 1187.
I love to listen to games music as much as I do listening to regular bands.
Old skool games, the ones who grew up with them, like I have, will have a special place for them in our hearts. They evoke memories of nostalgia. A time and place that we where at in our childhoods when playing these games. Upon hearing some of these songs I'm sure some of us tend to go back and reminiscence about these times gone by.

So I have constructed my own small personal top 5 of all time favourites. But hey It's my personal list so don't get hung up on it. It's not my ultimate top 5, cause in reality I don't have one favourite song, they all mean something to me, and I there's tons of other songs that could be on the list. so yeah here you go, plus some other songs worth mentioning:

#5
I never had a MEGADRIVE / GENESIS but a friend of mine did. And I will always remember the times we spent beating SONIC 1. And the song of Green hill zone is a special one to me.

#4
One of the first games I got for the SNES where Mario World, Zelda LTTP and Street Fighter 2. Yeah just plain old SF2. I still prefer the songs from that particular game more then any remake. Yes i'm old skool like that. I love Chun Li's theme, Ken's, Vega and many more. But I've chosen Ryu's theme, because it's just that awesome :

#3
Starwing will always remain my favourite from all the others. Probably because it had such an impact on me when I was younger. The gameplay was amazing and the graphics at the time just stunning. and yeah, there was the music. The first song you hear playing this game is the corneria one. And what a bad ass song it still is today:

#2
And then there was the PSX. Always been a nintendo fan but I got me the PSX too. I played tons of WhipeOut 1 and still is my favourite one. Because WhipeOut was incredibly hard, one mistake and you had to fight your way all the way back to pole position. But seriously, Tomb Raider 1 was just amazing. Being a fan of Zelda OOT and having played that game a whole lot, Tomb Raider just was an amazing experience. And yes the music also helped quite a great deal.

#1
Portal... One of those treats you don't come by everyday. Everything about this game was just plain genius. It's one of the reasons why I think Valve is such an awesome developer. They had me with Half-Life 1 and 2 was an equal blast. The Episodes brought the franchise even to greater heights. and then they released Portal. I loved it and by the end of it, they gave you an awesome soundtrack, just to put the icing on the cake ... yeah, that cake ...

So there you have it. Some of my favourite songs, but not all of them. There's tons of Final Fantasy songs that I adore. And other old skool ones from old series like the TMNT arcade games, the megaman franchise and much more. Perhaps I'll post another one when I have some more free time. oh well, hope you enjoyed them.

Joure

It's been a while since I wrote something here. It's also been a while since I updated 1187 with info. The problem is I have so much I would love to talk about but a lot that I'd say would ruin the mod if I did. But there is a new news post coming up soon.

I've been so busy with the mod that I find hardly any time doing much pr work. The tricky thing with this is the fact that I've shown so much I want to stop. That's why the new update will be mostly about showing updates on what has already been shown before.

One thing I do wanna get off my chest right now is that YES, we're nearing the finish line. The end is in sight. Working on the final maps is fun. Story wise I am not pleased yet. I think many people will not get what's going on in the game's story, but I'm pretty certain that at the end of ep:1, people will get a good base for us to expand the story on in the next eps.

I love how Valve tells their story and I tried my best to go about in a similair way. meaning that yes there is a story, but it's not like it's really that obvious at first. I merely set tons of things in motion without really explaining why, an then later give plausible explanations for past events.

And of course leave a lot open to be explained in the episodes that will come after it. In addition I've created a few bonus maps that do give a itsy bit more insight of what happened or is happening during the main game.

Expect the final game have around 10 story based maps. 2 bonus maps that are linked to the main game. 2 bonus maps that I spiced up from the old demo and a crash course, to talk about the new feats in 1187.

Gameplay wise I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I just wanted to learn about gamedeisng and tell a nice small story that could possible fit inside the canon hl2 story arc. I think I've been able to come up with a good plot that covers the whole 3 eps plus smaller side stories. Have some interesting characters and plot twists.

What can I say it's fun. The team is a joy to work with and I am happy to have them with me. Well, that's it for now. I'm going to head back to the mod, and work off some more of my ass.

I still remember when starting on the mod. I had some ideas about how a citizen would run around recording stuff with a cam corder during the seven hour war. I was quite influenced after watching cloverfield. After that I started to work on a map, and edited with some video editing tool.

It was fun, and I kind of set the bar pretty high when it came to atmosphere. Because I edited in all the sounds afterwards I didn't know if I could do something like that. And I still don't know if I can now. Things changed for a great deal after that. I worked on the map a whole lot and out of that 1187 was born.

Right now I'm busy fine tuning the maps and I keep thinking to myself, what if people will hate it. How much feedback am I going to get, and what kind will it be. I started off with no real knowledge about the source engine and learned a great deal this one and a half year. Now I look at the maps and am thinking I should've done "this" here and "that" there. Ohh, I could've taken this approach when I started this map.

One of my biggest annoyance is the fact I screw up with some of the audio bits in the scenes. Sometimes john's audio goes pretty low, and it would take a whole lot of work to get them up to par. The fact is that when I play using my headset, it's fine. And I guess it's not that big of a problem as long as the audio is turned to a good level, but still.

The maps themselves aren't always what I wanted them to be, but I am proud of them anyway. But then I look at the team and realize that it's not even half as bad as I sometimes make it out to be. It's hard to talk about a mod that hasn't been released yet, and I really hope people's expectations will be fulfilled.

I guess my biggest concern is that people might expect too much from it, and that makes me want to do even better. Well, I do know that episode two will go much smoother. I'll avoid tons of mistakes I made in the past. I'll probably will have a much better rig at that time, which will make me be able to create maps at a much faster pace, let alone anything else.

To anyone who's reading this, although I am trying to make this as professional as I, and the team, can there are still small things that I just don't have a way around yet. The maps that I have now have been rid of any major bug, at least the ones we found, but I'm sure some will arise after release, which most likely will be fixed if can be.

One thing I have learned is that after episode one, I will take a big break and start on another project. An indy one at that. This time I'll write a whole new story that has nothing to do with half life. The whole project is going to be something very different from other fps'es. As muc has I love a good shooter, I always wanted to do something that is more laid back in terms of action. I grew up in a time where games didn't have to be about shooting. A time where it was more about adventuring.

Well I'm going ahead of things. First I need to finish 1187 ep1, take a break. and then I'll start sometime after that on ep2. I'm not sure how long the production time will be, but it'll probably be longer then ep1.

Well, the last thing I want to say is thanks to my other team members who have been working with me on this project. When I started to realize I might need the help of others, I didn't see myself ending up with the bunch of talented people that I'm working with now. So thank you guys, thanks like a whole frickin bunch.

My last blog where I list almost every game I played ( found here: Moddb.com ) Got me thinking about my past. The other day I found about 5 mp3's from a time I was a drummer in a band. I have quite some fond memories of that time, although our break up ( Me forced out of the band ) was pretty emotional, I can't blame them. I was dating the lead singer and well, it was my fault for screwing up in a way, although I view it differently now. That put aside it just made me realise how fast time comes and goes.

I don't have any regrets, althoug hsometimes I wish I could still be in that band it did make me realise how we all must cherrish the good times we have. So because of that I decided to put up a song, a cover in this case. I hope you'll like it eventhough the quality is shit, it was one of the best times I had in my life. And I say this purely as a musician.

The song is a cover from the Police: Message in a bottle. It was a live recording using a sony camcorder. Yes this was recorded during one of our live performances, quality isn't that good, but screw it. Mind you I never had any lessons and this was before I got some decent skills. I miss my old band and I still have a fond memory to it, although our breakup was mehh. Oh well, atleast I been there, and we had a friggin awesome band.

joure Videos & Audio - Mod DB

Here are most games ive played..
Haven't updated it in a while though.

Another code (DS) - FINISHED
Brothers in arms (PC) - FINISHED
Brothers in arms 2 (PC) - PLAYING
Beyond good & evil (NGC) - FINISHED
Burnout legend (PSP) - PLAYED
Call of Duty (PC) - FINISHED
Call of Duty 2 (PC) - FINISHED
Chrono Trigger (SNES) - FINISHED
Duke Nukem 3D (PC) - FINISHED
double dragon (GB) - FINISHED
double dragon (NES) - FINISHED
double dragon 2 (NES) - FINISHED
double dragon 3 (NES) - NOT FINISHED
Doom Ultimate (PSX) - FINISHED
Doom3 (PC) - FINISHED
Doom3 R O E (PC) - FINISHED
Eternal Darkness (NGC) - FINISHED
F.E.A.R (PC) - FINISHED
Final Fantasy 7 (PSX) - FINISHED
Final Fantasy 7 - Dirge of cerberus (PS2) - PLAYING
Final Fantasy 8 (PSX) - NOT FINISHED
Final Fantasy 9 (PSX) - FINISHED
Final Fantasy 10 (PS2) - NOT FINISHED
Final Fantasy 12 (PS2) - FINISHED
Flashback (SNES) - NOT FINISHED
Gargoyle's quest (GB) - FINISHED
Gran Turismo 2 (PSX) - PLAYED
Gran Turismo 3 (PS2) - PLAYED
Halflife (PC) - FINISHED
Halflife 2 (PC) - FINISHED
Halflife Episode one (PC) - FINISHED
Halflife Episode two (PC) - NOT FINISHED
James Bond: Golden Eye (N64) - FINISHED
Metal gear solid (NGC) - FINISHED
Metal gear solid 2 (PS2) - FINISHED
Metal gear solid 3 (PS2) - FINISHED
Metal gear solid : Posrtable Ops (PSP) - FINISHED
Mario Land (GB) - FINISHED
Mario Land 2 (GB) - FINISHED
Mario kart (SNES) - PLAYED
Mario kart 64 (N64) - PLAYED
Mario kart DD (NGC) - Played
Mega Man (nes) - Finished
Mega Man 2 (nes) - Finished
Mega Man (gb) - Finished
Mega Man 2 (gb) - Finished
Mega Man X (snes) - Finished
Metal slug X (arcade) -
Metal slug 2 (arcade) -
Metal slug 3 (arcade) -
Metroid Prime (ngc) - Finished
Metroid Prime: Hunters (DS) - Playing
Mortal Kombat 2 (gb) - Finished
Mystic Quest (gb) - Finished
Need for Speed (pc) played
Need for Speed: Underground (ngc) - played
No one lives Forever (pc) - Finished
No one Lives Forever 2 (pc) - Finished
Oblivion (elder scrolls III) (pc) - playing
Probotector (nes) - Finished
Probotector 2 (nes) - Finished
Pac Man (atari 2600) - Played
Perfect Dark (N64) - Finished
Quake (pc) - Finished
Quake 2 - Finished
Quake III Arena (pc) - Played
Quake 4 (pc) - Finished
Resident Evil (DS) - Finished
Resident Evil (ngc) - Finished
Resident Evil 0 (ngc) - Finished
Resident Evil 4 (ngc) - Finished
Robotech Battlecry (ngc) - not finished
Shadow of the Colossus (ps2) - Finished
Super Mario bros (nes) - Finished
Super Mario bros 2 (nes) - Finished
Super Mario bros 3 (nes) - Finished
Super Mario World (snes) - Finished
Super Mario World 2 (snes) - Finished
secret of mana (snes) Finished
Soul Calibur 2 (NGC)
Soul Calibur 3 (PS2)
Star Wars: Dark Forces (pc) - Finished
Star Wars: Jedi Knight (pc) - Finished
Star Wars: Jedi Knight II (pc) - Finished
Star Wars: Jedi Knight II academy (pc) - Finished
Star Wars: Republic commando (pc) - Finished
Star Wars: battlefront 2 (ps2 / psp) - Finished
Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (pc) - Finished
Solar Jetman (nes) - played
SIN (pc) - Played
SIN episodes: emergence (pc) - Finished
Silent Hill 2 (PC) - PLAYED
Silent Hill 3 (PC) - PLAYING
Soul Edge (psx) - played
Soul Calibur II (NGC) - played
Soul Calibur III (ps2) - played
Sonic (smd) - Finished
Sonic 2 (smd) - Finished
Sonic 3 (smd) - Played
Street Fighter 2 (snes) - played
Street Fighter 2 Turbo (snes) - played
Street Fighter 2 EX plus alpha (psx) - played
Samurai Shodown III (arcade) - Played
Samurai Shodown IV (arcade) - Playing
Tomb Raider (psx) - Finished
Tomb Raider 2 (psx) - Finished
Tomb Raider legend (ps2) - Finished
The Thing (pc) - not finished
Trans formers directors cut (ps2) - Playing
Tetris (gb) - Played
Tekken (Arcade) - Played
Tekken (psx) - Played
Tekken 2 (psx) - Played
Tekken 3 (psx) - Played
Tekken 3 (psx) - Played
Tekken 5 (ps2) - Played
Tekken - dark ressurection (psp) - Played
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (arcade) - Finished
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (arcade) - Finished
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament fighters (snes) - Played
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (nes) - Finished
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (nes) - Finished
Legend of Zelda (nes) - Finished
The Legend of Zelda 2 (nes) - Played
The Legend of Zelda (snes) - Finished
The Legend of Zelda (N64) - Finished
The Legend of Zelda: majora's mask (n64) - Finished
The Legend of Zelda: windwaker (ngc) - Finished
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight princess (ngc) - Finished
The Legend of Zelda: Link's awakening (gb) - Finished
The Legend of Zelda: oracle of ages (gbc) - Playing
The Legend of Zelda: oracle of seasons (gbc)- Playing
Whipeout - (psx) - finished
Whipeout2 - (psx) - finished

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MOD's and TC's
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Rocket Arena 2 (q2)
Bid for Power (q3a)
Rocket Arena 3 (q3a)
Urban Terror (q3a)
Red Orchestra (ut2k4)
Star Wars Troopers (ut2k4)
Counter strike (hl)
Day of Defeat (hl)
natural selection (hl)
revolt (CoD)