Why I'm Doing This
Recently, I've been bogged down by a lot of personal issues, and while I'm still working my absolute hardest on Midnight Animal, a lot of time and energy has been wasted alone on the struggle to constantly vacillate between the independently difficult tasks of maintaining the quality of my game and fending off personal crises. Right now, my main objectives are primarily to get the gameplay functioning to the best of its ability, and to finish up the script, and begin integrating it programming-wise. Consequently, this leaves me little time for some of the other aspects, particularly level design; and because of how little energy and effort I'm able to spend at the moment on level design, my creations have become redundant and the idiomatic writer's block has begun to really show off. So for both the sake of helping the mod progress as a whole, and for the perseverance of my sanity, I've decided to let fans submit their own content.
Guidelines
- You can submit your levels to me either here in the comments, or in the relevant Reddit thread which I'll link later.
- Levels should be created in the level editor. For most of you, this goes without saying, but for the one person who decides to create it in GameMaker, I appreciate the effort, but please don't.
- DON'T POST LINKS TO THE LEVEL EDITOR FILES UNTIL YOU'VE BEEN PERSONALLY APPROVED! I don't mean to come off as scummy or as an asshole, but the last thing I need is a bunch of Dropbox links cluttering up the submissions feed.
- Submit at least four screenshots through imgur (one of each floor in the overview, and at least two screens in-game) or screenshots of each floor along with a video. The floors go without saying, but for those who don't understand the in-game shots; they're to let me know how well the maps will look 'on the ground' and in action. A video is the most preferable means; but if you can't or don't want to, screenshots, will suffice.
- A description of the level - what it is, the story behind it, why the player is there to begin with. Try to be unique, and as descriptive as possible. The more attention to detail, the better. Bonus points for the following kinds of levels:
- Art museum/gallery.
- Shipping yard/construction site.
- Any kind of minimalist corporate structure.
- Skyscraper penthouse.
- For characters, it doesn't really matter who you choose; just make sure you don't limit it to one mask, and make sure the map is flexible in that it can be approached through a number of different playstyles.
Deadline
The deadline for this set for the end of this month (31 January 2016) but is pretty flexible, and if people continue to be interested, than I'll continue to accept submissions.
Some tips
More enemies =/= better or more difficult maps.
Keep in mind that the player character in Midnight Animal moves, attacks, and reacts much faster than pretty much every character in the Hotline Miami series.
Enemies are also a bit more responsive, and react faster.
For inspiration for the corporate levels, look to Mirror's Edge, Syndicate (2012), and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
For the more urban environments, check out the example screenshots below:
Music submissions
If you're a musician interested in the Hotline Miami series or this mod and you'd like to submit some tracks, I'm opening up for submissions. If you can, please convert them to .ogg format first, so I can test them in-game without having to convert them myself. In particular, I'm looking for more calm and peaceful ambient tracks. For more action-paced tracks, I'm looking for dark, heavy tracks, along the lines of M|O|O|N's Paris, and artists like Carpenter Brut and Dance with the Dead.
I think this song would work as a calm and sad ambient:
its called The Moment of failure by Perturbator:
Sorry, meant "The Prise Of Failure"
I actually already have this song in the game right now; I've already reached out to Perturbator and his record label asking for permission to use it, but in the event that I don't get permission, I'd like to have a backup just in case. Thanks for the suggestion, though!
Wow that means the soundtrack is going to be even more awesome if that does happen. Keep up the good work!
Maybe if possible you plan on doing a end credits scene similar to Showdown, maybe you could use Minuit by Perturbator?
Ideally the songs are on the same "level", and have more or less the same feeling.
Mega.nz
Mega.nz
How about these?
I've always wanted this as a track of hm2. Soo
the level design of your levels is perfect! only the third one is a bit "hard" to see the level itself
Got some ambient music for some intermissions between levels that might fit in pretty well:
Player.spotify.com
Soundcloud.com I made this one. check it out, and tell me if you would like to have it in the game :) if you do so, please like this comment so spncryn's attention will be grabbed ;) And please be kind when giving feedback, it's the first track I ever uploaded.
sincerily, Darky (eMaReX)
@spncryn I uploaded it in .ogg format so if you think about including my song in the soundtrack, just text me and I will enable download for you :)
Hey what's up, my name is Nigel otherwise known as The Encounter. One of my fans told me about this contest so I figured I'd throw my hat in. I make dark sounding retro tracks on my Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/theencounter
Here are a few tracks that I've already done that might interest you:
Deep Groove -
Soundcloud.com
5 Minute Window -
Soundcloud.com
I'm also available to work with you on original tracks if need be :)
Thanks,
Nigel / The Encounter
Well that's two. @spncryn looks like you don't have to do just Pertubator and Gesaffelstein :)
Checked out your SoundCloud, lots of good stuff there! I'd be interested in using Deep Groove, Five Minute Window, and Revenge! If possible, could you make versions which have slightly heavier basslines, and more distorted synth parts (if this is unclear, I apologise, my musical vocabulary is quite limited, Ha Ha)?
@spncryn I got you! I'll work on them tonight. Shoot me an email at nigeleckzdee@gmail.com and we can talk more there since I barely use ModDB!
Dweeb123.bandcamp.com I made this a while back and i was wondering if you would consider this song i think it needs a little improvement though. its also a free download and is available in ogg format
*UPDATE* I uploaded the final version of the song to my bandcamp
Dweeb123.bandcamp.com , You can add me on steam and send me feedback because i use that the most and i almost never check anything else. Steamcommunity.com
I also just finished a song with an ambient feel so feel free to check this one out if you have the time Dweeb123.bandcamp.com
Youtube.com this song seems good
Soundcloud.com
Soundcloud.com
Digitalism - Miami Showdown
you. I like you.