Triptych is an artistic experiment in story telling set in the Lovecraftian horror genre, written and developed by C-zom. With a focus on imagery and atmosphere, the story itself only loosely describes - in reverse chronology - the death of a man named Jeremiah Stone. The first chapter explores the emotions of sadness and loneliness, and explains how he dies. The second chapter settles on revenge, with a foreboding vibe and grim story telling narrative. The final chapter explains why he was cursed and killed from his actions half a century ago, and absolute horror and fear are explored.
The first Chapter of three in the Lovecraftian horror series, Triptych, is released.
Posted by C-zom on Feb 2nd, 2012
After three months of arduous development, I am happy to announce that Triptych - Chapter I is released to the public! This release is the first of three entries in a horror/mystery series set in the early 1900's and late 1800's. In this Chapter, you play as Jeremiah Stone, a man fleeing from his home in pursuit of an amorphous, rolling creature which has hunted him for three decades. Jeremiah's past is reflected upon, and he confronts his fear once and for all.
Chapter I is around 25-35 minutes in length and is the first part of three in a planned Lovecraftian mystery series. Triptych uses a unique retrospective narrative, and this release is canonically the last of the chapters, but released first, for context. Chapter II takes place decades earlier, and Chapter III will be even farther back, explaining why he was cursed in Chapter I. All of Triptych is an experimental, artistic mod series and less of a conventional horror story than Worry of Newport was, and more of a polished and unique story-first experience, complete with a light usage of puzzles, levers, lanterns and keys--all things previously unseen in Cryengine 2.
Upon playing we implore you to leave your thoughts, requests, and feedback in review form upon completion of Chapter I. This is a canonical series, so your feedback is essential to perfecting the mythology as we continue.
Triptych is developed and written by myself, and is in association/published by Dark Craft Studios. But this is a one man show development wise; I am the only one working on it physically. I will be supporting all three Chapters extensively with patches if they need them, and when all Chapters are released and finalized, they will be bundled as a single continuous playthrough.
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Credits:
- C-zom: Lead Developer & Writer
- KillerTruffle: Jeremiah Stone - Voice Actor
- Ian Wiese: Dorian Caulm - Voice Actor
- James Dean: Lead Musical Composer (Original Score)
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I just finished chapter one and I liked it. I feel you used to many invisible walls nothing pulls me out of the story more then walking into a invisible wall and grinding my way around it until I find my way to the path. As far as glitches go lanterns not starting until I was right up on them, the fire after the first encounter started late and while descending the last set of stairs if you walk to the left kind of off the stairs your lantern goes out. I enjoyed the look and story I cant wait to play chapter 2.
The invisible wall thing is probably something I'm gonna need to supplement with more natural barriers (Wooden fences, railings, etc) but I had to get rid of a ton of them due to performance issues with tons and tons of fence assets. The firepit turns on only when you approach it to signify the flashback (The two chairs were where Dorian and Jeremiah were sitting, e.g) that isn't a glitch either.
I will look into your lighting issue on the final set of stairs and add it to a hotfix list for the next few days.
The lanterns start and turn off all throughout the game, they are guide posts--its a narrative technique that was in Worry of Newport, too. They dynamically fluctuate to tell you where to go. :) I assure you none of the lanterns are bugged.
Thanks for your feedback, I'm really glad you liked the vibe, story, and atmosphere of it. 30 minutes may not seem like much, but when its all said and done, and the mini-series is complete, it'll be ~2 hours.
I have no complaint of the size I understand shorter games but more of them over a short period of time can work and more then likely will make it feel like a grander adventure. I forgot to mention that at the very beginning of the game I was having flickering and by flickering I mean the building is disappearing for about half a second that might have something to do with the loading of the map itself.
I'll look into it, thanks! Sounds like something easily fixable in the viewdistance/LoD properties. I expect I'll have a small list of hotfix bugs, with a patch released on Tuesday. :)
have you considered moving to the cryengine 3... it's much more optimised than cryengine 1 and the fact you don't need crysis installed is also great. Considering it's very similar to cryengine 2... porting the next chapter(I would never ask you to REMAKE everything) would be cool. I'm gonna try this though... where did I put my crysis dvd.
keep it up ill wait for the complete pack once its out and mentioned flaws fixed , peace
To be completely fair the only actual flaws he mentioned were slightly restrictive invisible walls and a shadow issue on a lantern at the end, and some lod stuff. Those couldn't be any more micro issues. Doesn't hurt the experience at all.
Everything else he mentioned was misinterpretation of game features or narrative designs. I assure you, Chapter I is quite the polished experience all in all.
But still, waiting for the complete pack is viable--for those who don't like waiting for mini series installments, like Sam and Max or Back to the Future, and would rather just wait for the complete packs. It makes sense.
Sorry but invisible barriers does hurt the experience it did to me, if you are concerned about performance then try to plan the paths and terrain in a way that doesn't make the player feel like they can go other way, use more obvious paths, prevent the player from going astray with rock/wood/plants barriers (you can disable collisions on the visible barriers to save on calculations and then use a simple invisible barrier in front and very near to the complex visible one to prevent the player for going trough ), don't use non important visual cues, like for example house models in the distance because that attracts attention and the player will want to go see what is inside.
that was the big problem I had and when you are getting the shovel you can walk around and see that the back door is open and when you walk to the door bam invisible wall. I guess I should clarify that there aren't enough bugs to destroy the experience the bugs that I mentioned are minor and are soon to be fixed.
The invisible walls being kind of irritating will be freed up and fixed on Tuesday. I'd patch it now but Moddb is off on weekends. Promise.
Congratulations with the release! There is an error in the title of the aricle though ("chater") and now that it's frontpage-slider news it wouldn't hurt to fix it right? ;) Anyway I'd like to give this a try once I get home, it's been a while since I've played a (good) Crysis mod!
I'd fix the typo but it'd deauthorize the news post (any editting does) so I sent a support ticket into Moddb for them to fix the typo. Amusingly its the weekend so its probably there to stay for a while.
i have no idea where does my desure keeps installing my mods, but defenetly not the right dir.
When you install through Desura there doesn't seem to be a shortcut on there, they probably need to fix that. Right after install though, clicking "launch" works--you just need to type map chapter1 in the console for it to launch.
Looks awesome, but I'm already stuck :(
PM me where you're stuck at and I'll help you through. :)
Ah nevermind, I was stupid and didn't know one thing. I finished it and it was AWESOME. Can't wait for the new chapters
And yeah, the invisible walls were sometimes in kind of strange places
A mod worth trying that ain't STALKER, And a reason to install Crysis again, I'm looking forward to trying this, Congrats on the release.
if only my computer would run crysis on low at a legible speed.
who am i kidding? im gonna play this mod all the way through anyways. looks too good to pass up.
yeah I'll play this when I'm free...
Hi, can you help me out ? Very nice mod, but I am stuck at the part where I get to Albert's house, am I supposed to climb into from jumping on it from the shack neighboring it-or is there somewhere else I had to go ?
Everytime I go in, I can't get out.
There is a box you can pick up and throw blocking you from entering Albert's Shed. You have to pull it down, drop it, then enter and the game gives you the shovel and the story continues. :)
Hi, thanks.
Very well done, ending gave me chills lol.
The ending is my favorite personal part of writing Chapter 1. So it really warms my heart to hear it creeped you out. Its sort of an, "Oh good lord" moment and really brings the confrontation to a symbolic head.
You should make a trailer/ sneakpeak of chapter 1, I'd would've liked to seen a short vid of the mod before downloading it (but thats only because right now I'm halfway out the door). Gonna bookmark this and try it later :)
Somebody's fabulous.
I was overjoyed when I read about this mod. The best game engine and one of the greatest authors of all time. Is it based on an actual Lovecraft story? Or just set in a Lovecraftian universe?
It is a brand new story, I am a writer first, developer second. It is merely set in Lovecraftian fiction. You should check out my last mod, too, The Worry of Newport -- its much longer and more Lovecraftian. :)