Friday, February 22, 2013

Fan art take my soul

Holaquetal, we are being lazy, we aren’t working hard in the game. I spend all day drinking calimocho (Cola + red wine), so we haven’t any news or updates because we haven’t any progress at all....

Chico: What?! I was working like a psycho robot while you drink calimocho?!

Nah, I'm kidding. All the game dev. diaries are about how hard the people are working in their games, and I want to give it a touch of laziness. Speaking of which, I have some fan art here.



Chico: Wow! looks great!

I'm a graphic designer and in my career I have met some pals with great drawing skills, so I decided to talk to them for some fan art of Catequesis, not only with friends, also with some interesting artist in the Deviantart community. 

And one of them is Jante, you can take a look of her amazing art here:
http://kaktus-chan.deviantart.com
http://jantelaw.tumblr.com

I want to thank her from here for the work and her interest in the game.



Chico: Great sketches too... so, besides this fan art, there is no picture or update the game?

Eeeh, we are working really hard in the game, doing our best, to make the best game as soon as possible...

Friday, February 15, 2013

How many Demons do you need to change a lightbulb?


Iepa iei, I'm working really hard on scenarios and these are the results. Take a look, these are not final gameplay images, the lighting is still to be done.

A few months ago I started a poll in our website (www.catequesis.eu), the question was:
"Which creature do you find the scariest ?"
  • Vampires
  • Aliens
  • Demons
  • Zombies
  • Ghosts
First of all, I have to say that I forgot put an essential scary creature.

Chico: Yes! Where is the Chupacabras?!

Well, a lot of them like "Werewolves", "Witches" or "Chupacabras", but one in particular important, "Robots". Anyway I was curious about the results and and here they are:

TOTAL VOTES: 108
  1. Demons - 38 (35%)
  2. Ghosts - 31 (28%)
  3. Zombies - 23 (21%)
  4. Aliens - 11 (10%)
  5. Vampires - 5 (4%)


I have to say I understand the low fear about Vampires. Right now you can only think about a young guy with a casual pose and the highest toupee in the history. And you can dialogue with a Vampire, so, nothing is really creepy when you can convince him to not kill you. 
I don't really understand the 3rd place for zombies. I mean, ok, a zombie/infected is really dangerous, ugly and with bad breath... but to be in the third place? a Zombie is like a dangerous animal that want to eat you. Ok, it is scary, but you are smarter ( and sometimes faster), you can defend yourself.
Aliens are scarier for me, really more than Zombies, and more than Ghosts too. You know, a Ghost is a soul, they can give you a  fright, but usually it is difficult for a ghost to kill you. They only want someone that listen to their story...  but as Ghosts & Demons are linked with the religion, this is really interesting. 

Chico: Ok, I understand your points, so for you, which is the scary one? 

Demons, totally and without a doubt. A Demon is the worst possible nightmare. Not only can he kill you, he can play with you, he can trick you to think you are safe, he can transform himself in the scary monster ever only for your eyes, he can... I mean, it is like a mini evil god! He can do whatever he pleases, you can't escape nor survive, so is the scariest one for me.

Chico: And which one will be in the game?

A mix, dear Chico.





Friday, February 8, 2013

The rusty scenarios eat my pixels. Screencast #2


Buenas, like I promised I did my first video for Catequesis. It's about the scenarios I'm doing for the games and how I design the elements.

Chico: Oh, great... hey but do you actually speak in English?

I beg your pardon? I trained my academic English in the Royal University of New Hampshire and with several years of gatherings about philosophy at the Premium College of... Cambridge. So I have no problem speaking English any time.

Anyway, don't miss the Resident Evil moment at the end.


 

Friday, February 1, 2013

Sir, there are catechumens in my soup.

I promise, the next week I will do a video, or anything technical, about the pixels and graphic design or whatever, but today I will talk about the Catechesis.

Chico: Apuf, time to siesta for me....

Venga Chico, ánimo! This is a really interesting subject to talk, and maybe the readers can know some secrets of  the game.... I don't think so, but who knows.


The true is I loved the word "Catequesis" since a long time before the game, so when I talked to Mr. Max to make together a survival horror I knew the name had to be this, and when I had to structure my story I read about Catechism and I found some interesting things. First of all, in the ancient times, the word Catechesis hadn't exactly the same meaning.

Chico: zZz... Had the ancient Catechesis big creatures from the sea or dinosaur zombies?

Yes of course, plenty of them... well, the meaning of the word has not really change in the fundamental sense. Catechesis: (From greek κατηχισμός, “instruct”) Is an education in the faith which includes especially the teaching of doctrine imparted, generally speaking, in an organic and systematic way, with a view to initiating the hearers into the fullness of religious life.



But the big changes were in the phases of this instruct. For example, now the people are baptised when they are babies, but in the old times people were converted to christianism several times when they were adult.

Ancient Catequesis Phases:
  1. First Preaching: This is an introduction to the pagan people into the elementals of the chrisnianism. 
  2. Catechumenate: This lasted three years, where a godfather/mentor accompanies you and teaching you the doctrine and challenge you with tests. In this stage the catechumens can go to the church to listen mass from bishops. 
  3. Baptism: The catechumens are presented to the community and they receive the Traditio-Symboli, an official comunication of faith symbol. Basically you start to be a part of the religion comunity. 
  4. Mystagogy: Once you are baptised, you enter in the mystagogycal catechesis, where the bishop tells you the deep sense of the sacraments and rituals of the religion. 
  5. Eucharist: This is added by me, it's not a real phase of ancient catechesis, it is a sacrament. The eucharist is a communion with the religion, a weird ritual where you eat bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ.
Chico: What the f*ck! I have to admit that with all these weird names and rituals this can looks really amazing for... japanese people, for example.

Yes, and for me. Transform this phases in chapters and mix them with horror concepts, you got a story.