Reasons for the Change
The reasons behind the title change are simple.During the writing (or rewriting) process, it became necessary to refer to the original materials. Primarily, this reflects on playing as one of the three main characters. Hence, essentially going back to its roots, its origins, and adapting the game flow to its new course and direction.
Because the course of each character eventually converges, many parts of their storylines backtrack to the original plot concepts for previous incarnations in the planned Paranormality series. Thus:
[su_list icon="icon: book" icon_color="#800"]
- Jack Urban's quest for finding his missing sister (from Darkling).
- Anna Carrera's journey through the Otherworld to revisit parts of her life and decide whether to change their course or not (from Nexus, the original idea for this game).
- Swan's past in the form of flashbacks as she travelled between worlds. (This was originally conceived for Portals, the final game in the Paranormality trilogy, conceptualized but never realised).
(Although development on these titles ceased, I merged their plots and stories into Otherworld: Origins.
Smile Game Builder Tie-In
As many of you know already, I have the honour and privilege of beta-testing the Smile Game Builder. Because it's still beta until its release date on 8 September 2016, I'm unable to give too many details on its inner workings. That is, apart from what they've already shown publicly.
However, Otherworld SGB: Through the Veil (the working title for the Smile Game Builder game), is an indirect tie-in with Otherworld. It references many events occurring in Origins, as well as ideologies that won't make it into the game.
Otherworld SGB is a 3D first-person thriller. It's essentially a "dungeon romp", where the player must navigate the mazes of the Underworld. The goal is to find the portal to the Otherworld and, ultimately, freedom. Along the way, the player meets all manner of people and creatures. Some will hinder the player, some will help them.
That's the basic concept for the early beta/sample game.
Obviously, it needs a lot more work done to it, notably on fleshing out the plot more. But, in time, this will slowly take shape.
For a sample game, my aim is to create a simple version of the officially released game. And then, after beta-testing development, I'll create a new projects subdomain specifically for Otherworld SFB. Updates will primarily include progress on development. Some updates will include tutorials on how certain effects in Smile Game Builder are achieved.
These will then be placed on the main RPG Maker Times blog.
