First Update news - Cheeks Of Steel mod for Unreal Tournament 3

After just five days since Cheeks of Steel was announced, a considerable amount of progress has already been made, particularly with regards to power ups.

Before we go any further however, I'd first like to thank everyone for all their interest and positive comments towards both the test level, and the game itself. It's always great to see all that hard work that's been put into a game appreciated by the rest of the community. There were also a couple of early concerns to which I would quickly like to address regarding one of our selling points. Although Cheeks of Steel will contain a considerable amount of adult humour, this does not mean the quality of gameplay or in-game narrative will be sacrificed. As stated,

"The concept, including the Backstory and Setting are designed so that the game could easily support itself with no adult humor whatsoever, and still be a great, enjoyable platformer."

To support this, as an added extra to this week's update, a copy of the backstory may be found at the bottom of this update, or with the rest of the concept overview here.

So moving on... Here are the updates.

The most notable update is the new video below, showing a test of each power up, created using Unreal Kismet. The initial purpose of this video was actually to fulfil a requirement set by one of our university lecturers, aimed to show that the power ups used in Cheeks of Steel can be created if need be using methods other than programming. As a result, I'd like to point out that neither the pickup itself, nor the function of each mechanic in this video are the final version, merely prototypes.

Additionally;

- All textures for both the pickups and power ups (shown last week) have been now been completed.
- All 2D Maps of Levels in Illustrator are complete, and have been started in Unreal
- Several Animations for Harry
- First Draft Completion of major documents (GDD, Production Doc, Art Bible)
- Draft of several Music scores used in game
- Detailed Plot is complete with Narrative Script underway

With alot still to complete nevertheless, work for the upcoming weeks continues to expand, with an overall milestone aim of creating a new test trailer, containing both power ups and a working character mesh of Harry. This is hoped for the end October - early November.

Thank you for your time and keep an eye out for our next update within the next fortnight.

Backstory
There are many myths and beliefs pursued by humanity in hope of finding the truth. One of them is the legend of immortality. Whilst numerous theories have been suggested over the centuries, none have proved successful. However, there is one scientist who claims he has found the key, and the secret lies in Hamsters! How or why is unknown, but ever since it was discovered that hamsters hold a greater potential for experimentation than rats, the scientist named Dr. Edward Seek believed that the source lies in their short life span. The only issue of extracting it came from the small functionality of their brains, which caused their bodies to shutdown before experiments could be complete.

As a result, Doctor Seek figured that the only way the experiments could work, was if the mind of a hamster became more capable. Therefore, he decided to create a simulated environment within a cage that would resemble that of a typical human town, believing that living like humans would help with the necessary evolutionary process.

Nevertheless, even if this was to work, there was no way it would help every hamster exposed to the simulated civilisation. It would only have an effect on a small percentage, most likely those hamsters already with slightly more capable brains. In order to identify the more intelligent hamsters, a series of challenges were set up to see which ones were capable of completing them. These challenges were created and isolated in specialised ‘themed cages', which the hamsters would have to discover in remote locations of their primary, ‘civilisation cage'. Of all the hamsters exposed to the civilisation cage, those that managed to complete the tasks or excelled over the rest, were then selected for chemical testing. The subsequent testing involved combining hamster DNA with various chemical formulas and injecting them back into the host. Thus far, this testing has resulted in a 100% death rate.

After several years of failure however, the experiments were deemed ‘unethical' and ordered to cease operation. Doctor Seek agreed, to the public eye at least. His research became private and hidden to the world, having to settle on using any hamsters he could get his hands on. With no progress and a severe lack of high quality hamsters, it seemed that Seek had finally lost it. Like many scientists, the research he was working on became his life, and had taken him over. Desperate for results, he decided to take some serious action, making his experimentations even more extreme and out of control.