#outsideparties — Public Fediverse posts

Last chance, if anyone’s willing to “beta test” the story for my #Playdate horror scavenger hunt game and read through the script document. It goes to recording soon.

OUTSIDE PARTIES is nearing release! #IndieGame #HorrorGame #horror #gameDev #OutsideParties

Every audio signal to find in the massive panorama of OUTSIDE PARTIES gets added to a list called the Log. These 30 icons indicate the status of each signal. What really matters: white boxes are open targets (or groups of targets) to find. Anything else is NOT something to find (usually because you already did so). #GameDev #IndieGame #HorrorGame #OutsideParties #Playdate

What is this strange yellow device you found on the ground one night? Maybe don’t pick it up. #OutsideParties #Playdate #HorrorGame

Horses will eat anything.
#OutsideParties #HorrorGame #Playdate

Paravultures. Do not feed.
#OutsideParties #HorrorGame #Playdate

CALL FOR TESTERS for #OutsideParties, my #Playdate horror game. A “hidden-picture”/“Where’s Waldo”-style audio/image scavenger hunt (no time limit) across a large panoramic image you can zoom & pan. Not suitable for small children: scary sounds/images/vibe, some violence, and a slow pace requiring lots of gradual exploration of the image. The pieces are coming together towards release at last!

(Testers must promise not to reveal any spoilers to others.)

Teaser trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoV-zXigJtg&t=88s

Exploring the Other Side calls for high-vis gear. Yellow is ideal for all equipment. Always remember your three reality-test questions: Who am I? Where am I? How did I get here?
#playdate #horrorgame #OutsideParties

Italian physicist Cristina Roccati (1732–1797) developed a method of astral travel via an intricate throne that extracted human blood, processing it using refracted sunlight and carefully crafted runes. She discovered a vast eldritch realm she called “l’Esterno”: “the Outside.”

Abandoning her work late in life, she began obsessively making images of “le sfere nere”—mysterious “black spheres” that terrified her. What are the sfere nere? We may never know. #playdate #outsideparties #horrorgame

18th century Italian physicist Cristina Roccati made endless sketches of “le sfere nere”—strange “black spheres” that terrified her. Her occult secrets were buried with her (literally). But they didn’t stay buried. The secret organization that claimed both her methods and her name used the sfere nere as their emblem. The Cristina Roccati Institute still exists today, exploring things better left alone. But to this day, even the CRI doesn’t know… What are the sfere nere? #Playdate #OutsideParties

I wanted to add a little grain to OUTSIDE PARTIES (when fully zoomed in). I didn’t want a fixed unchanging texture, but nor could it be random (which would “sparkle” when you crank). Solution: slice up the noise image in a deterministic way based on the view coordinates and current zoom. Modulo (remainder) does the trick of choosing a pseudorandom flip for each slice.

Here it is, with a test “doodle” added to better show the slicing. It only LOOKS random.
#playdate #outsideparties #horrorgame

Here are some FX when you find a target object in my upcoming #Playdate horror scavenger hunt OUTSIDE PARTIES.

Note the text at the bottom: as you crank the brightness to resolve the image, the audio signal for the next mission is also tuned to clarity. And the text transcript of the voice does the same: it transforms from a letter jumble into accurate words as you crank. Just a little extra help in case you can’t hear well or have the sound off.

#outsideparties #horrorgame #indiegame #games

Avoid the Outside entirely—but especially avoid the public transportation. Some scenes from my Playdate horror scavenger hunt, OUTSIDE PARTIES. (Release date not set.)
#Playdate #HorrorGame #Artwork #IndieGame #IndieGames #OutsideParties

This is probably fine.
#outsideparties #playdate #horrorgame #ferryman

I just lost my #Playdate in the woods in the middle of nowhere on a pitch black night. I thought, “I won’t lose it, It’s YELLOW! The plants covering it are yellow-GREEN, totally different! And I bet my phone light is just as good as a flashlight!” So I confidently walked away and left it.

Wrong on all counts. Happy ending: I did find it again in the end, AND proved I don’t have a heart condition!

This trailer for #OutsideParties better be worth it.

@tinyyellowmachine

Taking photos of some of my analog art for #OutsideParties, my upcoming #horror scavenger hunt game for #Playdate.

Here’s a new #OutsideParties devlog post outlining the audio system behind these recordings.

The #Playdate (“K5 Panopticon Receiver” in the game) is not meant to be a literal shortwave radio… but something mysterious that’s akin to that. I want it to feel real, #ARG-style.

https://devforum.play.date/t/outside-parties-horror-scavenger-hunt-across-a-1-5-gigapixel-hdr-image/9961/17

And here's a second recording, emphasizing the #Playdate procedural music generation I posted about earlier. Normally, musical "interval signals" are rare in the game, but I boosted their probability here. Both recordings were made off of Playdate hardware, using Panic's Mirror app (which does hurt performance slightly). #OutsideParties

A soundtrack recording (with visuals somewhat slowed by the Mirror capture) from my upcoming #Playdate horror scavenger hunt, #OutsideParties. There are 11 layers of sound, generated in various different ways, of which at least 2 (at most 4) are always playing at once. All sounds respond to the d-pad (panning in 4 directions across the massive "psychopanorama" to hunt for things), the A and B buttons (zooming in/out) and the crank ("phase" adjustment to bring out details in light or shadow).

Devlog update for #OutsideParties, my #horror scavenger hunt game coming for #Playdate. This post is about generating random creepy folk music.... which you will rarely hear! But... once in a while...

https://devforum.play.date/t/outside-parties-horror-scavenger-hunt-across-a-1-5-gigapixel-hdr-image/9961/15