Chapter 2: Chapter 2
I started by creating the default character models, it wasn't the same models from the game since it didn't matter. I created 2 male characters and 2 females, both created by getting pictures of random people online and slightly editing them.
As I was designing the playable characters I got an idea, something that would net me more money in the future. Microtransactions, not the shitty pay to win ones, but for cosmetics for equipment and the player.
Players will still be able to buy some of it through accumulating money in the game, but this won't detract from my income too much since they would have to use in-game money to buy equipment as well and some stuff would be exclusive. That was for the future though, first I have to create a working version of the game.
Phasmophobia was a first-person game, while I had the idea to make it 3rd person as well, it just wouldn't fit the atmosphere of the game so I dismissed the idea. While some people wouldn't spend money because they wouldn't be able to properly see their character, I would still add methods to see yourself like mirrors and photos so there would still be sales.
The creation process wasn't instant, some things took minutes, hours or days to sculpt and texture based on the size. Luckily each model didn't even take an hour on its own, though that hour I couldn't use my pc really since my CPU and GPU wasn't that impressive compared to my previous world's.
Now it was onto the next phase of the development, making sure the actions of the player model would work perfectly. So I created the rig(Skeletal animation) so that I could animate the character models.
So I launched google and looked for the proper animations to use and let the AI of Vortex handle it, turning those videos I got from the internet into proper animations for the player models. This took time as well, not as much as the sculpting though but afterwards, I did some rendering which took hours.
This time I used it for my breaks or going to the gym. I still didn't have that much of social life, since I was so preoccupied with the game. Plus I gained all the social needs by bullying a few kids and adults on my Xbox 360, I didn't have enough money for the new Xbox 1 or ps4 and even if I did, I wanted to spend it on things that would get me more money in the future.
After the rendering, I went to create a home base for the players of my future game. I chose to just go with the original garage base of Phasmophobia and added a few more minigames to it since it could be quite annoying having to wait for the people in your lobby to finally be ready.
I spent two days working on this part, most of my time went into optimising and fixing bugs. I was happy though and I finally moved on to the UI. This was easy to create, though sometimes it takes longer if you are a perfectionist, something I thankfully wasn't. I still tried to make it as nice as I could, I didn't just want to make a copy of Phas, I wanted to improve it as well.
Moving on, it was finally time to create the first maps. Phasmo was a ghost identifying game so I needed to get some unnerving maps and models, I would only create four maps at the moment since I feel it would be fine for the first stages of the game.
Two small ones and two big ones. So like with the previous time, I got the photos and video footage of a hospital, asylum, a modern house and a farmhouse from the internet; and let the Vortex AI begin creating the assets, from items like furniture, walls etc. While I worked on importing it into my game engine.
The amount of time I had to put into the project was a bit terrifying if I was going, to be honest, but quitting was never an option. Even with the easier 3d modelling, it was still a pain to do since even the AI could have bugs then I had to manually help it and I had to make sure the things could be interacted with by myself.
Sound effects, were an important part of the game that I have ignored until now and I planned to change it right now. So I either got sounds from the internet that I edited or commissioned for them.
"Maybe I should have started on Minecraft, this project will take months if I am lucky," I said as I drank some coffee. I stood up and checked my phone. Going through my lacklustre contact list, I quickly arrive by the name Jessie. Without further ado, I called the number.
"Hello, who is this," She asked.
"It's Noah, your brother. I need a favour," I got a new number so I wasn't surprised she didn't recognize me.
"You didn't need to clarify who you were, I don't know any other Noah's. Stil what do you need,"
"I am busy with a project that is making my pc inaccessible to me for hours on end, I want to borrow your laptop," I said. I needed to do more work and another pc will help me work more while Vortex is busy either rendering or creating things.
"I don't know, all my important things are on it," She replied.
"Come on. You are on a school break, plus I could pay to rent it," I said. My sister liked money so if there was something that would convince her it was that.
"What are you offering," She asked. So we went on to haggle before finally settling on 50 dollars for the month, leaving me just enough money to pay my expenses. It was sad, but hopefully, I could turn this into a profit.
By the end of the day, my mother drove to my apartment and delivered me the laptop which was nice since I wasn't the biggest fan of cabs and walking with an expensive laptop was asking to be robbed.
"Why do you need this anyway," My mother asked me as she put down the laptop in my living room. "Did you break your computer?"
"No, I am creating something that would hopefully net me some money in the future," I replied and turned on the laptop. "So I can't really use my pc since it's slowed to a crawl because of all the work I am doing on it,"
"Really, what money-making scheme are you up to?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I am going to try my hand at creating games," Was my reply.
"Really I didn't know you could create video games," She stated. Well, this previous body host couldn't but it wasn't like he ever brought up the topic so for all they know I could be a master at creating games.
"You know I like them so I thought why not learn a thing or two about creating it in my spare time," It was actually the truth well at least \ in my previous life.
"As long as you enjoy and believe in yourself, I am sure you will accomplish whatever you try to achieve," She replied. If she keeps this up, I may turn into a young master. I spend some time chatting away with my new mother before
When she finally left I booted up the laptop. My sister already created a spare account that I could use so I was set. I already transferred all the software I needed onto a hard drive and all I had to do was plug it into the laptop.
I immediately entered Vortex and searched for the most popular anime girl. I planned to sell the models I create on this laptop to a 3D marketplace and if anything was going to sell it was some anime girls. I usually disliked weebs but I could always depend on them as well since a lot of them would spend money on the most inane things and when it came to their 'waifus', their money handling skills would plummet even further.
I created my account on the 3D marketplace and started creating the girl. Usually, it would take me days to create such a character but with Vortex doing most of the work it only took me a few hours with the rendering taking another few hours. I rigged the model as well since I didn't like half-assing things. I wasn't there for most of it, just continuing to develop my game or going to work and after that making sure everything was fine with my model
By the end of the day, I uploaded my first model and priced it at $50. If no one buys it in a week, I'll maybe lower the price but compared to the prices I saw in my previous life, I felt I was being generous.
I planned to create a new model everyday day while I still had the laptop. This would also build up my portfolio so I could do freelancing on this world's equivalent of Fiverr, which would be more stable than just selling it on the marketing place.
By the end of the week, I sold my first model for $50 which wasn't much on in the grand scheme of things but for me it was nice. My salary was $1200, my rent for my one-bedroom house was $900, food and the wifi was $200, so that left me with $100 for myself.
Now that I thought about it, I wanted to sigh. Why was I living here and wasting money when I could just live with my parents. Oh yeah, I wanted to live with my girlfriend and had her share rent so it wasn't that bad.
"Hey, mom I was wondering if I could move back into the house.," I asked as I used my phone to call them.
While a large part of me liked the thought of living alone, I didn't have the financial capabilities for it. I have been so obsessed with making the game that I ignored this easy avenue of cash for the last few months. Maybe it was my pride who ignored the situation, after all, who wanted to move back into their parents' house after moving out.
"Sure, honey. When do want to start,"
"As soon as possible, I haven't paid rent for this month so I move back in without wasting money," I replied. I didn't have a lot of things in my apartment so it would take me a few days, maybe less, to move out.
~~~
"I didn't know you were going to move back in, so I took over your room," Jessie said as I arrived home. That is unfortunate, can I kick her out? I doubt it, so I will have to deal with her pink room for the moment.
Jessica was a brunette with a slim figure, from all the yoga stuff she did with mom. She had my brown eyes and was a few inches shorter than my 6'1.
"It's fine, I plan to move out as soon as I get my bearings," I replied. While I would prefer my room since it was bigger and was good for recordings.
"So will you still be using my laptop or can I have it back," She asked and I shook my head.
"Nope, I paid for a month and I'll get my money's worth,"
"It was worth a try," She said with an exaggerated sigh.
"Funny, now help me unpack," I said and put my pc and monitor in my new room. Next was my clothes; then my Xbox and tv. I had to sell most of my furniture since I didn't have any place to store them
She gained a thoughtful look at my request, probably trying to find an excuse on why she couldn't help. She must have failed since she just sighed. "Fine but I have to take a bath soon, not everyone likes being unclean,"
"I hope you aren't referring to me, woman. I may be a dropout but it doesn't mean I can't whoop your ass," I said. I wouldn't really, but it was fun to banter.
She stepped towards me and took a sniff. "Definitely referring to you,"
"I was at the gym before this and didn't have the time to shower. Even then I don't smell bad" I said and smelled myself. Yeah I had a nice scent, she was clearly messing with me
She continued talking as she helped me unpack. I took a shower afterwards before getting back to my computer. I spent the next days creating the ghost models and setting up some animations for them.
Afterwards, it was time to set up their AI. I was going to implement 15 ghost types with the first release and I wanted them with their own unique behaviour, strength and weaknesses. For example, the Demon will try to hunt the player more frequently than other ghosts and will have a rare secret ability like hunting whether you have full sanity or not.
Speaking of sanity, I had to implement that as well. With most ghosts, if you reach 50% sanity they will be able to hunt you, there were exceptions like the Demon that could normally start a hunt from 80% sanity or if it used its special ability it could hunt from any sanity.
Your sanity would lower with different amounts if you would stay in the dark or a teammate died. The only way to increase your sanity would be sanity pills with is an item that you can buy with in-game money, though you could only use a certain amount a match.
I went on to create the ghost investigations items like the UV light to see fingerprints and the EMF-Reader to find the ghost or detect when it was using an object. After that, I went on to let the ghost and player interact with me animating a few death animations.
I was casually relaxing in my brand new chair thinking about new ideas. As I sat there I thought of recording some Devlog videos that I could post on YouTube. It would do well for marketing in the future.
So I bought myself a capture card to record my screen as I worked. I already made a few hundred dollars by selling some models so it wouldn't hurt me to spend some money, plus most of my expenses went down when I moved back in with my parents.
My next goal was to create some scripted and non-scripted horror ghost events, from a ghost coming out of the TV or mirror, to it destroying the lights in a single room. There were many more and it took me several days before I could finally move on to sounds.
The sounds I got from either horror movies, commissioning for it or trying with my own microphone. Now I just have to set up the objectives and make them functional then I can start playtesting.
"Oi brat, I need your help," I yelled at my sister from my room. I bought myself a new computer so I already gave hers back. The game was close to being launched, maybe a month or more. I would need to do more bug-fixing; editing and adding commentary to the videos I recorded. Then there were the cosmetics and designing the trailer for the game.
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