Neofeud

[Fitz]

That is so awesome! I'm totally into this synth revival. Perturbator I do love, but the kind of dark intsensity is a bit overwhelming and I have to ease into it. But I'm getting there! Carpenter Brut pretty close, if a bit more dreamy -- and VHS Glitch completely sucked me into classic horror synth. And there's plenty of other things to pick from: more disco-oriented stuff like Scattle, neo-romatic Gunship, Lazerhawk with their cosmic tunes.

As for dystopian sci-fi, I love PKD for how he's sci-fi and not sci-fi at all, and his novels are first and foremost about people and their struggle. I love "Blade Runner" the movie, but the book blew my mind. Another one that comes to mind is Harlan Ellison -- who was actually more into the fantastic, but things like "Jeffty is Five" are so relatable on the most basic human level.

[SilverSpook]

Yeah I've been listening to a ton of this Trevor Something guy, as well as Lazerhawk, Renegade.  Whatever's on that Youtube "New Retro - Synthwave" playlist auto-mix thingy.  Power Glove is great. 

I'm thinking about asking Lazerhawk or one of those guys to do the Neofeud soundtrack.  That could be Epic.  I'm not sure if you noticed from the competition threads but I'm a big John Carpenter fan and a lot of the synth revival music draw directly from Carpenter's self-composed soundtracks.  Neofeud is not so much straight sci-fi or spec-fic, but more... kaleidoscopic (literally in the color palette sense and in the mish-mash of reality and fictional worlds, and kind of tongue-in-cheek) with a lot of retrofuturism going on, so I think that the synth thing would fit perfectly. 

Like the surface style of Kung Fury or Manborg but with PKD-serious commentary and critique underneath.  One can hope, anyway.

[Fitz]

Dude, are you my lost twin or something? I checked Trevor Something on NRW just yesterday -- and ordered Manborg DVD, which has been on my wishlist for a while now, literally five minutes ago (along with Wolfcop and Turbo Kid). And saw Kung Fury on day 1.

A synth soundtrack for Neofeud! Hell yeah! I agree, Lazerhawk's great with rhytm and atmosphere, which would be perfect for background music. Check out VHS Glitch, too. He has that same rhytmic prowess as Lazerhawk, more of that Carpenterian epic spookiness and intensity -- AND seems to be no stranger to the theme of technological dystopias.

[SilverSpook]

Wow that is some crazy coincidence or synchronicity or something!  Yeah Manborg is probably one of my favorite movies right now.  David Hasselhof's "True Survivor" music video from the Kung Fury soundtrack is the most awesome thing I've seen in my life probably. 

[selmiak]

Kung Fury is a lot more awesome than the music video for the one track of the Kung Fury soundtrack! Was there even hackerman in this vid?

[Fitz]

Yeah, Hoff was pretty cool -- but if you want awesome, you need to see THIS. Three words: claymation, Care Bears and Carpenter.

Oh and speaking of claymation, that's exactly what made me drool over Manborg. And there's something to the visual quality of the movie that instantly made me think of Neofeud. I like how raw it feels.

[SilverSpook]

@Fitz: That's also an awesome vid!  The VHS-superpower concept thing was pure genius!  I'll have to add that song to the Neofeud dev-playlist.   And yeah, Manborg is pure virtuosity.  It has that George Lucas before he was big or Wachowskis in Matrix I feel.  Young, hungry, courageous filmmakers doing something completely original and mindblowing on a shoestring budget, before they got famous and rich and lazy.

Kung Fury is a lot more awesome than the music video for the one track of the Kung Fury soundtrack! Was there even hackerman in this vid?

OMG, Hackerman does the True Survivor keytar solo, bruh!  Complete with hot magenta Highlander lightning coming out the fretboard!  Plus it's got all the best footage from the movie!  It's like all the best of Kung Fury distilled into a bite-sized, loudly colored, embarassingly hairstyled slap-on bracelet!



The best thing about the music video is the fact it's 63-year-old David Hasselhoff in 80's teen-wear getting out of the white Lamborghini and doing kung fu moves.  That makes it.  It's like the cyberpunk expendables, but better.

[selmiak]

gunship is cool. And the scene when the guy get sucked into the VHS player at 3:13 is totally this:
https://vimeo.com/116330714
and he didn't even give credit. But check out this guys vimeo channel, there are lots of these technoid neon worlds. Totally worth it!

[SilverSpook]

While we're on the topic of all of this 80's revivalism / retrofuturism, I'm looking for some other movies to check out if anyone wants to make a recommendation.  I suck at finding new stuff to watch.  It doesn't have to be retro-ish, it can be anything really, but things that might be in the vicinity of Neofeud in some way would be good for inspiration.

[Fitz]

Turbo Kid I've mentioned. Plus, you could try actual 80's movies. I saw Cherry 2000 only last month or so and it's a fun flick, with an interesting take on society. The classic Total Recall, of course. "They live" I don't have to mention to you, do I? 1998's Six String Samurai was weirdly enjoyable, too. "Fifth Element". And if you want to go even further into the cinematic past -- "Soylent green".

Still, I would love something new that'd draw from the retrowave aesthetic directly, with magenta lights and all, like Kavinsky's Odd Look video. I love how the guy's face is always tinted teal, in the spirit of Mario Bava's cinematic style.

[Darth Mandarb]

Okay okay... I've let this go for a bit but we're getting WAY off topic now.

Let's get back on-topic (actually talking about this game).

[SilverSpook]

Sorry!  My bad, I was leading them all astray for my own benefit. 

I have been a metric ton of animation of late, so there's not a lot of showy hot new concept art to drop, but I do have this particular little pyramid scheme here to show.  A sort of inverted Illuminati symbol / Blade Runner reference.  The golden icon will become a major bit of Neofeud-universe symbology, methinks.  I'll need to do a new banner/cover image at some point as well.



Yes the wallet is made of Duct-tape, yes that will wind up being a game mechanic.

[SilverSpook]

I keep art process pics not for fun but evidence for an insanity plea in any future court case.

#GiveUpForTonight

[Blondbraid]

Wow, that background looks less than halfway done but still looks great already! Well, truth be told it looks like a pretty disgusting kitchen, but the filth looks nicely drawn anyway. Especially love that robot tree with microchip leaves!

[SilverSpook]

Thanks!  Yes this will be a very ghetto apartment, inhabited by very ghetto robots, essentially.  It will be slightly less cacophonic once I throw out some of the ideas that don't stick, like gum under a restaurant table.  But still a very low/free-rent sort of place!

[SilverSpook]

SUNSHINE APARTMENTS - A Mixed-Species, Mixed-Income Community

-1 bedroom, 1 oil bath.
-Fully furnished prosthetics casting furnace
-Lathe and metal cutting bandsaw included
-Stove converted to Power Box for convenient recharge
-Copper / plastic / silicon forging OK for sentient humanoid occupants. (YOU MUST POST "HAZARD" SIGN DURING MELTS FOR NEARBY BIOLOGICAL OCCUPANTS)
-No pets, and absolutely NO ELECTRIC SHEEP!
-Rent variable commensurate with income, species, and substrate.

"Yeah, we uh, ran outta actual drywall and cement and stuff after that fire came through when the Crunk lab exploded downstairs. Burned half the building. We gotta upcycle whatever junk we got lying around, can't afford fancy-schmancy mint materials, know what I mean? So we got these old ancient beaters, a bunch of soda cans and other trash, welded it all together. Ain't pretty, and we ain't exactly gonna flip this place on Gregslist, but it keeps the elements out."

[AnasAbdin]

Wow I like how this came along. Seeing the progress is really interesting to me The detail level in your backgrounds is just amazing man. Gives a lot of puzzles opportunities.

[SilverSpook]

Thanks AnasAbdin!  Yes the background has come a long way.  That's a good point about the puzzle opportunities.  Now that I'm looking at it, you could spend at least a good thirty minutes clicking on all of the gizmos and curiosities throughout the place.  (You won't HAVE TO though, promise!) 

That's been a thing actually in the game design process, trying to figure out how much an average player who might eventually pick this game up might want to spend on any given area before getting bored.  How much they'd tolerate reading or being read to?  The way I'm going about it is making a small-to-medium set of necessary actions to solve the puzzles and make forward progress in the game, which give you just enough background on the world and backstory on the characters to make the story make some kind of sense.  Then, if you REALLY want to delve into the 'canonical' lore of Neofeud, explore the sordid cyberpunkian-political details of the emergence of this bizarre 20xx dystopia, then you have the option to click on the "extended" item and object descriptions.  These would be the equivalent of the newspapers and email files in Deus Ex or the dossiers in Technobabylon -- they don't carry that much weight in terms of getting through the game for those who just want to have some casual fun, but are there to color in the world for people who are all about "Dat Story tho!". 

From what I gather, there are basically two kinds of people in this (Adventure Game) world.  Those who come for the fun puzzling, and those who come for immersion in a deep engrossing story.  So this way, if you're player Type A or Type B, you should get your fix, and not be unreasonably irritated by either over-wordiness or over-puzzliness. 

I'm trying to get a really solid substantial piece of this game together then I'm hoping to test this concept out with a select group of testers in the near future.  (*wink hint nudge)  I was hoping to have much more of it done by now (by October actually) but I've -- as per usual -- misunderestimated the amount I could get done as a one-guy team doing the art, programming, writing, game design, all that jazz.  But soon!  I promise!  Because I really do have a hard deadline at this point due to financial reasons. 

[SilverSpook]

Yes, Neofeud will be full of these over-the-top, insanely detailed animations, whether they kill me through insomnia and arthritis or not. 

I can't help myself getting carried away with blowtorches and Retrofuturism, Nintendo Powerglove cybergadget awesomeness.

[selmiak]

sweet. Though I'd give his legs one more inbetween frame for the bottom one.