Big Phantasmagoria Progress Report, 12-12-23 news

Howdy again. Progress has been pretty consistently steady with the project. I've been updating the images tab as frequently as I have stuff to show. However, this is a substantial full progress report for all aspects of the project.

To start, the basic lore of the project has been changed. The summary at the top of the page describes it in detail, but a few new elements include that the year of the mod's setting has been changed from 2272 to 2276, giving several more years with some of the new basic lore I have written. For a more detailed summary, Here is a summary on the new base lore that my projects will run with. This lore is based on the generally accepted consensus of the Carnivores Continuum, using Legacy as the base, and using Carnivores 2 and its addons, Ice Age, Cityscape, Triassic, Mandibles, Cordelia, Triplex, Fallen Kings, Far North, Antipodes, and Ancient Archipelago as canon to the story, out of both appreciation for the mod's creators, as well as the level of quality in these mods. For any creators of these projects that do not wish to treat Phantasmagoria as canon to their story, this is entirely fine. We're no longer in the age of the Canon Wars or Plutyrian Cycle, but these are the projects that I just personally consider part of Phantasmagoria's larger universe. The new waiver will also give some insight into the larger universe and lore behind this project.

Onto actual content updates. The first map, originally the Ancestral Everwood, now the Everautumn Weald, has been remade mostly from scratch. The original heightmap has been edited, all textures have been manually reapplied, objects have been re-placed and retextured, and there is now a greater variety in the map's physical appearance.

Where it was once almost entirely yellow or green, now there are different shades of yellow to orange throughout on the ground, and the trees are not as blindingly saturated as they were originally. The Forest in the middle now has a layer of fog across its lower sections, making hunting there more challenging, while also somewhat lessening the visual strain of all the bright purple trees. There is still lore elements hidden in the forest's depths, but different now that Hadesium has been changed and the mod is ofc no longer related to Plutyrian Cycle.

While learning AltEditor 2 has been a process, I think I have a decent grasp on it generally now. Additionally, the Menus have undergone a complete restyle as well, taking inspiration from Carnivores Cordelia in their presentation, with menu text with a cynical, excessively corporate capitalistic tone based on Cruelty Squad and Ratchet and Clank. The aesthetic retains the 'purple' vibe from the original New World project, but toned down dramatically into a softer, pale violet color. The text display regions have been given an analog computer visual style, inspired by Alien, using the same font as well. Dinosaur mortal zones are displayed in the menu images, though every species will have a special "hidden" mortal zone in order to encourage creativity with shooting them. Use your head and think of where vitals might be accessible according to the animal's design, and pick creative angles and approaches to tracking them down (a hint- a lot might be high or low on their bodies).

The next major steps for the project are to make the remaining mortal zones and menu images for the default animals, but these are waiting for some of them to have remodels and remakes. Additionally, the weapons will need to be reskinned. In the initial release for Phantasmagoria, the weapons will predominantly be publicly available models by Murtburt and Cactus, used with permission, and reskinned to fit the style. For instance, the original Agua Fria revolver has been replaced with the R44 from Triassic, reskinned and renamed to the DinoHunt .454 Classic, with an engraved skin that's a lot more pleasing to the eyes. In general, the weapons are all being rebalanced, along with the animals in the mod to account for mortal zones being present now, as well as an entire rework pass on the mod's economy and grinding. A major critique of NW was that it was far too grindy, which I agree with in retrospect, and will adjust to be, while still more than your typical Carnivores game, nowhere near as bad. In terms of equipment, the radar will also not be unattainable, but will be the most expensive item, costing 2000 points to use. It will be an endgame reward to assist hunters in finding the perfect trophies, after they have mastered the game's mechanics of properly hunting down their prey.

I will share each weapon as I make their skins and menus, which will be one of the steps coming up soon. Alongside this, the sound effects for the animals must be made, as that is the last major step I need to do for the rework of Area 1 to be complete, a new pass on ambient SFX. Following this, I will be learning how to use Blender to make more custom and unique assets for the mod's second map, Kaireimori. Kaireimori is going to conceptually remain similar to its original idea, a beautiful map of greens, pinks, and blues, cut by heavy water and mostly inspired by Japanese aesthetics with things like Sakura trees. With the MEE now allowing map-specific huntables, the original Japanese species of Mihunekisaurus and Fukuiraptor will now also be exclusive huntables on this map.

For those wondering about the "Bleeding Rose Feathered Dragon" aka Hadesiutyrannus, that is being scrapped and reworked entirely. The core idea will remain the same, but rather than an overpowered monster on the level of Gojirasaurus, it will instead be a more mystical, dragonlike animal that is a rarely spawning cryptid. There will also be other cryptids, but they will not be discussed or unveiled until they are included in a release. Hadesiutyrannus, which will be renamed, is being openly discussed as I've already shared it and it was sort of the poster boy for everything wrong with PC and NW in particular.

Phantasmagoria's first major release will come once the entire main roster is in a presentable state with proper sound effects and mortal zones, all the base weapons are skinned and properly sounded and balanced, the grind, score values, and general gameplay smoothed out and made significantly less grindy and long while still being challenging, and finally, once Kaireimori is complete. The goal with this release is 2 complete, full maps to explore, to begin to understand the mod's story. Things such as refining maps further, adding unique exclusive endemic species, etc, can still come later even if a map is released. For instance, once Kaireimori is done and the mod's first actual proper Beta is released, I will be going back to the Everatumn Weald and update it with some more objects related to the story, as well as some new easter eggs.

My original plan of making a stable release then moving onto another project has changed as well. Unless circumstances change, Phantasmagoria will remain my primary project until a sizeable amount of it has been completed. I will continue to post more progress here, but in the Carnivores discord is a link to my personal project server where I post WIPs and allow discussion and suggestions for features, species, etc.

I am not sure how often I will do progress reports, and I will not promise any specific date until everything is ready. But, until the next one, thank you for reading.