Recently I made a post
on over in the Help subforum, but was kindly prodded to move my request on over here. Since copy-pasting my post is boring and I'm trying to kill time at work, you'll all get a new post with similar information.
Feel free to skip to the bottom for a TL;DR. If you want a bit of backstory, keep on reading.
What is Distilled Seas?
First off, I'll try to quickly explain what Distilled Seas is. Distilled Seas is the fourth in a series of small slender-esk games created in Blockland under the
"Blank" label. Blank originally set out to be a multiplayer version of Slender: The Eight Pages built within Blockland, but ran entirely on the event system. As such, there were many limitations to what we could do. These limitations however grew onto us, and while it kept a rather slenderman appearance we developed our own monster - the Blankhead.
Now at the time, having multiple enemies and having them move while staring them face-to-face were just our ways to make teleportation and movement happen, but the gameplay really grew onto us. Being chased down by multiple Blankheads just to have one walk through the door you're trying to escape to really added a suspenseful edge that the Slender games up until that point never had.
Our first game, simply titled
Blank took place in a forest, much like Slender - The Eight Pages. The map was completely original and had a lot of space to wander. In fact, we started development of this right before the shader update - which ended up being one of the best updates for the sort of game we were making. With the Blankhead no longer being glow-in-the-dark, its encounters are more sporadic. In this game, one of the endings hinted at 3 more games to come...
Our second game
Blank 2 - Fear of the Indoors took place in a mansion. This time we went crazy with features and really turned the game into our own. We added a spawn hub with various gamemodes to choose from, an opening cinematic, a new Blankhead behavior, various endings... And the map itself took on a new theme. While Blank was extremely flat with a few buildings, Fear of the Indoors took place inside of a 5 story mansion, each floor spanning at least 192x192 studs. Inside the mansion there were features such as hidden passageways that opened for a minute at a time, trapped notes, and the new Patrol AI kept things interesting by roaming the hallways.
Then hole bots came along and killed both Blank and Fear of the Indoors. However, while this killed backwards compatibility, the new bots created a little something special for time to come...
Our third game
Blank 3 - Fallowed Fields took place on a farm. While this one cut back on some features from the second game, it made up for this with the atmosphere. If you've ever wondered how to make yourself paranoid, you should play with the amazing new addition to Blank - the Stalker. The stalker AI was added with hole bots since it was easier to create custom behavior when you can just hard code it into the bot. While the Follower and the Patrol AIs from the previous two games relied on line of sight, the addition of the Stalker made no place safe. The Stalker would see you through walls, follow you across the map, all while only playing sound to the player they're stalking.
Here's a video for the Stalker AI in early testing.
And now, we're on to the fourth game:
Blank 4 - Distilled Seas. Distilled Seas takes place on a rather large cruise ship. While Fallowed Fields was a spiritual successor to the original Blank, Distilled Seas is taking everything we've learned from all games up until now and throwing it all together to make the best horror experience we can manage.
However, historically speaking, the building process of the maps has taken the longest.
So instead of attempting to build a functional cruise ship alone as I have previous maps, I'm reaching out to those of you here who would be willing to lend a hand. While I likely will still be eventing on my own, making the map come to life is the most important step.
How can I help?
I have a small blueprint that I'm working on for the layout to the ship. We've completed the lowest-most level of the ship, and are planning on having it be at least 3 floors and the deck. So there are a few ways that interested people can help:
- Suggestions as to what should be on each floor of the ship
- Players willing to build rooms
- Players willing to accessorize rooms to make them feel more alive
- Players willing to help cut brickcount wherever possible while keeping a visually pleasing amount of detail
- Players with a high imagination who may think up of something crazy that we can add
- Players with a bit of add-on knowledge in case we come up with some brilliant idea and want to see how it plays out
- Players with some background knowledge with gamemodes so I don't cry myself to sleep experimenting when there's some other solution that I was too sleep deprived to think of
- Players willing to test, cry, test again, and scream with us as we bugtest the game throughout various iterations
Now that's more or less listed in order of importance. Right now, we really
really need some additional builders with compatible building styles. If you're interested in building with us, either send a PM to me stating your interest, any relevant background information, and some links to images of builds you've worked on in the past, or drop the same information on this thread if you want to show off a bit.
Why should I help?
You'll get to see the behind-the-scenes as we work towards the game, playtest the game many times before we make the game public, take part in the gloriously hilarious distractions that happen during build sessions, and also get the Blockland equivalent of PTSD when a Patrol opens a door right in front of you! Additionally, you'll be credited within the build itself in the credits room, be part of the creative process, and give sour looks to people we didn't invite in who know the server's password.
TL;DR: Do you wanna help build a cruise ship interior for a Blockland horror game? Yes? PM me with pictures of builds you've worked on, or post pictures to this thread and I'll get ahold of you for external contact and to integrate you into the project.
