Meanwhile in Romania ...

[elanaiba]

... I'm selling these fine leather jackets!

Actually, no! I'm working on a game, and since my friend Neal and Subsim have always been good to me, I thought maybe people are interested? Its the first time I'm breaking the news :)

Last December, after a short 1 year detour via City Interactive, I started work in earnest on a indie project. This is something I wanted to do for a while but with the wages of game development in Romania making no money in the bank and having a young one running around the house, it was hard to take the step.

With me there are a couple of other guys, most notably and most committed, Pintea - the helpful dev that sometimes offers advice in the SH5 modding forums. Or at least he used to.

So what are we building? A small strategy game, called Door Kickers.

Right now (very WIP graphics and features missing) it kinda looks like this:
http://www.inthekillhouse.com/shots/tempcreenshot1.jpg


Its inspiration comes from the original Rainbow Six games, specifically the planning mode in the pre-Lockdown games. Get a situation, plan the assault, see how it plays out. Fast playing in some levels, but involving in order to get it right. Very satisfying stuff.

Of course, we have a few tricks up our sleeves as there's plenty of room to improve on the original. Also as counter-terrorism is a fave subject of mine and I have a few contacts in the domain, I'd say that given time we'll be able to shape this into a pretty deep, realistic tactical sandbox.

If you've enjoyed games such as Jagged Alliance, XCom, Frozen Synapse, you might find ours interesting, though we're definitely not on the same creative page as any of them.

So I guess this would be it for now.

Cheers,

Dan

P.S. You can keep in touch with us over Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/KillHouseGames or maybe we'll actually manage to have a real site up soon :) http://www.inthekillhouse.com/

[Takeda Shingen]

Yes. I used to plan and run the missions in Rogue Spear and Raven Shield all the time. It was my favorite part of those two games. Color me very, very interested.

[Arclight]

Indeed, right up my alley. :yep:

[Cybermat47]

It doesn't look like an indie. More like a kick-ass game with several million dollars behind it.

[Red October1984]

I loved the old Rainbow Six games. I still have the original with Eagle Watch, Rouge Spear Black Thorn, Covert Ops Essentials, and I have some of the newer console versions.

Rainbow Six 3, Black Arrow, Vegas 1 and 2...

I love these games. I can't wait for your game and Rainbow Six Patriots

[Dowly]

Looks good! :yep:

[Herr-Berbunch]

It does indeed look good :up:

[Onkel Neal]

Nice! And it's really cool to see early info on it from the dev. :up:

[elanaiba]

Yeah, its like world exclusive or something :)

[Hottentot]

Oh, the AAR potential...

Looks very cool indeed. I especially like the visual style in that screenshot: if those graphics are WIP, then I'd love to see the final version.

[Julhelm]

That looks awesome, Dan! Does give off a little Hotline Miami vibe being top down and all.

[MH]

That might be cool idea but you shloud go with isometric view if you can to turn more people toward this game.
It is concept that might work better for for tablets or mobile devices..though...

[Dowly]

Problem with isometric view is all the extra work though. Every frame of unit
animation needs to be rendered 8 times if you go with the usual N, NE, E, SE etc. angles. :hmmm:

[elanaiba]

There are pros and cons to the isometric view. With the current top down its easier to get your bearings and establish fields of fire, paths, etc without having objects or the perspective get in the way.

As for the mobiles / tablets - sure, in time, we'll get there :)

[BigBANGtheory]

When it comes to isometric view I'd recommend you follow the example(s) laid down by the Syndicate video game series or Games Workshop boardgame titles like Space Crusade and Space Hulk. If you could translate that into a modern PC title with the counter terrorism theme I think you're onto something.

Again quality is the key here IMHO, show off something slick on a small scale to wet the appetite of the masses.

Perhaps you should display fire arcs and Line of Sight?

[Cybermat47]

You got yourself stickied! Good job mate!

[Gargamel]

That master bathroom is huge! Such a waste of space.....

[Penguin]

It looks like the picture is inverted - check out the mouse pointer. :03:

This looks good, I hope it works out financially for elanaiba and the rest of the team. I wish it to any developer to be able to stand on their own feet, without having a pesky publisher in the back.

I already dream of a spin-off. The planning stage would make it perfect for a revival of "They Stole A Million" or "The Clou!". I spent countless hours on both of them. I would probably buy this game if it is fun, however shooting people is great, but robbing people is also! :D

[elanaiba]

The green cursor is actually a WIP interface for the "aim in this direction" order you can give to your soldiers.

Re - stealing - sounds fun, of course :) You may want to look into Monaco which is not out yet but looks fabulous, and right up your alley as far as I can tell :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up7u2O5n9xg
http://www.pocketwatchgames.com/Monaco/

[kapitan_zur_see]

... I'm selling these fine leather jackets!

Eh eh :D I love the Indie game quote of Fate of Atlantis, well done Dan, it brought memories ;)

"mmmm... This X is..... A little to the south AND.... Slightly to the west!"

[Madox58]

Soo.....
:hmmm:
Your not really selling leather jackets then?

Someday a Leather jacket with your logo on it will be worth money.
(We'll talk about the percentage for that idea later. :03:)

I'm waiting with payment information ready now Dan!
:salute:

[Navuhodonosor]

I love these kind of games, it reminds me of old days when gameplay did matter,
and it looks great:up:

[Beardmoresam]

What are you coding in??
Cool looking game btw. There was a great tactical game I used to play, will have to dig it out of a cardboard box to get you the name, but it basically was a 3D environment rather than 2D but you command up to a troop of soldiers and have to think about cover and bound and all that sort of thing. Will post the name as soon as I remember it or find it. Might hold some good ideas.

[Dowly]

I love these kind of games, it reminds me of old days when gameplay did matter

Indeed. Kinda reminds me of Swat 2, mixed with a bit of Frozen Synapse. :yep:

How the gameplay exactly works? Make plan, and execute it in one go, or make plan
for one turn, execute and the plan again? :hmmm:

Will there be anykind of multiplayer option?

[Nippelspanner]

Ooohhhh, this is already one of my most anticipated titles of... ever?
We need stuff like that! I hope the development goes smooth for you guys... Now shut up, work and take my money!!! :stare:

[elanaiba]

What are you coding in??
Cool looking game btw. There was a great tactical game I used to play, will have to dig it out of a cardboard box to get you the name, but it basically was a 3D environment rather than 2D but you command up to a troop of soldiers and have to think about cover and bound and all that sort of thing. Will post the name as soon as I remember it or find it. Might hold some good ideas.

You're thinking Full Spectrum Warrior maybe?

Re: coding - We're developing our own engine - crazy / ambitious programmers :)

@Dowly: Plan, execute, but can stop and adjust the plan at will as it goes. There are no turns, not even in the sense that Frozen Synapse uses the term.

You can also give some orders to soldiers on the fly, but of course you can only "manhandle" only one soldier at a time and that makes planning very important.

Re: multiplayer - not for a while, at least. There are some neat ideas that we're thinking of exploring, but a strong SP is the primary focus at the moment.

[Arclight]

Purely handcrafted maps or generated? Possibility for user generated maps? :06:

[Sufi]

Right now (very WIP graphics and features missing) it kinda looks like this:
http://www.inthekillhouse.com/shots/tempcreenshot1.jpg




Looks promising! Kinda reminds me Counter Strike 2d and Hotline Miami... but with much better graphics. I don't know if you need cash for Your project, but if You'll place it on e.g. Kickstarter, I'm sure you will get proper attention :) Salute to all members of Subsim :salute:

[Nippelspanner]

^
Welcome aboard, bilge rat! :up:

[elanaiba]

Purely handcrafted maps or generated? Possibility for user generated maps? :06:

At the moment all map backgrounds (locations) are handcrafted, while objects and AIs are placed in a simple editor.

With time we will do a proper editor, but even now anyone can do his own maps. While there are some tech issues (hosting etc) to be solved, our plan is to have a seamless way for the players to create maps and share them with other players, directly in the game.

As for actual generated maps, I'm pretty sure we'll have "generated gameplay" at some point. In other words, you could play the same map in different scenarios and different tactical situations.

Actually generating the environments (walls, rooms, floors, doors, etc) seems much more difficult from my point of view, but once we get some other features out of the way, we'll see what can be done. The issue for me is to not just throw stuff on the screen, but have it actually make sense.

I don't know if you need cash for Your project, but if You'll place it on e.g. Kickstarter, I'm sure you will get proper attention :) Salute to all members of Subsim :salute:

Salute!

Kickstarter is not available to us as we are not UK / US based. But we'll do some sort of crowdfunding, yes :) News to come the following weeks.

[Arclight]

At the moment all map backgrounds (locations) are handcrafted, while objects and AIs are placed in a simple editor.

With time we will do a proper editor, but even now anyone can do his own maps. While there are some tech issues (hosting etc) to be solved, our plan is to have a seamless way for the players to create maps and share them with other players, directly in the game.

As for actual generated maps, I'm pretty sure we'll have "generated gameplay" at some point. In other words, you could play the same map in different scenarios and different tactical situations.

Actually generating the environments (walls, rooms, floors, doors, etc) seems much more difficult from my point of view, but once we get some other features out of the way, we'll see what can be done. The issue for me is to not just throw stuff on the screen, but have it actually make sense.
Sounds good, the option to add content gives it better longevity. And you're right about the maps; just moving enemy positions around and maybe player point of entry makes for good variation. Frozen Synapse kinda gets away with "random" generation but the maps certainly don't make sense.

[elanaiba]

I don't want this to come bad about Frozen Synapse - which I absolutely love and have played a lot and gifted to a lot of friends :)

I think their maps make a lot of sense in their SF lore and with their chosen visual style. Also because a big part of their game is about quasi-competitive multiplayer, having an even playing ground is perhaps more important than having a believable one.

For us, of course, its a different.

[Arclight]

Oh no, that's no slight against FS at all; the maps are perfect for that game. But I think that if you're going with a more realistic feel, like you seem to be doing, a randomised map doesn't make as much sense. You can create a lot of interesting tactical situations by crafting an environment that might only rarely show up in environments generated on the fly. Different games can take different aproaches and work equally well.

What I mean is, I think you got your heads on straight. Looking forward to seeing more of this. :yep:

[elanaiba]

Here's another little screnshot, with more WIP interface and another WIP level .... some sort of house :)

http://www.inthekillhouse.com/shots/tempscreenshot3xcrop.jpg

[Arclight]

News seems to be spreading. :yep:

The Flare Path: Curious Rover (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/08/the-flare-path-curious-rover/)

[Herr-Berbunch]

Rainbow Synapse :har:

I'd be chuffed with what they've written, Dan.

[elanaiba]

Yeah i've been running around like a little kid, pleased with myself and basking in the news. Or something :)

Whats interesting is that we absolutely did not contact RPS yet, so Tim Stone found out about our game on his own, probably through either this forum or simhq.com or wargamer.com

Power to gaming communities :)

[Dowly]

Great to see you guys are getting noticed. :up:

[Jimbuna]

Looking great Dan :cool:

[whyme943]

I thought it would be news about Ubisoft romania, possibly a new game. But this is good too :)

[Dowly]

Actually generating the environments (walls, rooms, floors, doors, etc) seems much more difficult from my point of view, but once we get some other features out of the way, we'll see what can be done. The issue for me is to not just throw stuff on the screen, but have it actually make sense.

What about adding few different furniture layouts for some of the larger rooms?
At the start of the level, the game would pick one from 3-5 layouts? :hmmm:

[Pintea]

What about adding few different furniture layouts for some of the larger rooms?
At the start of the level, the game would pick one from 3-5 layouts? :hmmm:

Hi (I'm the programmer :) ). I thought about generating random missions some time ago, and from an "architectural" standpoint is not really a problem. Like you said, we could have some prefabricated rooms/small layouts that we try to fit coherently into a given space and many other "tricks" done in such situations.

The difficult problem would be generating a coherent gameplay situation, a scenario that actually makes sense, with preferably non-linear flow, and probably Dan can point out more issues here.
But we like a challenging problem so we're probably going to look into it some time in the near future.

[Dowly]

Finnish Dome.fi released a short article too:
http://dome.fi/pelit/ajankohtaista/silent-hunter-simujen-tekija-vasaa-rainbow-six-meets-frozen-synapse-taktikointia
(in Finnish obviously)

:salute:

[elanaiba]

Wow, nice :) Thanks, Dowly, I presume you had some role in this?

[Dowly]

You have no proof!!

*Runs away*

[Arclight]

The Flare Path: Broach And Clear (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/15/the-flare-path-broach-and-clear/)

Good stuff.

[Madox58]

And the heat is on!
:rock:

Just spent most of the nite playing the Alpha and I'm hooked!

If this is the first Alpha?
All I'll say for now is "I'm a buyer!"
:D

[elanaiba]

Our Crowdfunding is LIVE - Preorder and get the Alpha! http://www.inthekillhouse.com/

http://youtu.be/bM_Ev7Ks8_o

Also vote for us on Steam Greenlight: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=133208652

Have a good one! It's hectic!

Dan

[Dowly]

Awww yeah! :rock:

[Ducimus]

Nice! If that comes out on steam, ill preoder that bad boy!

edit: Just added my vote on steam greenlight

[Jimbuna]

Nice one Dan :cool:

[CCIP]

Acquired! I'll have some fun with this as soon as I can, looks like a blast though :D

Best of luck to you! Hope the funding helps!

[edit]

Gave it a really quick try, and so far I'm really impressed with how intuitive this is! Hopefully it keeps up as one of those really easy to learn, really hard to master kinds of games.

[Dowly]

The Flare Path: KillHouse Rules (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/22/the-flare-path-killhouse-rules/)

:salute:

[Madox58]

So where's a nice thing on the main SubSim page?
:hmmm:

I think the 'KillHouse Devs' earned one myself.
:yep:

[Madox58]

Nice front page splash.
:yeah:

[Jimbuna]

Nice front page splash.
:yeah:

LOL...you on commission now? :)



:O:

[Madox58]

LOL...you on commission now? :)



:O:
:haha:
:hmmm:
:D
Nah.

Just believeing in a few friends and trying to help 'push' things.
:up:

[elanaiba]

Wow I just saw the front page ad for our Greenlight push ... nice!

Thanks very much Neal :)

[Krauter]

Just bought the 30$ Package. Downloading now and looking forward to playing.

Edit: My only regret is that I cannot run this on my laptop which is all I have on weekdays :( Otherwise I would probably be playing this constantly

Cheers!

[elanaiba]

Thanks, Krauter!

Are you sure it doesn't work?

[Krauter]

My laptop is a Mac so yes :O:

From what I'm seeing so far this game is awesome! One suggestion that I would make is allow User Created maps and someway to upload/download them so that people can create and share their own maps. I believe this has been mentioned on the ITKH forums but I just wanted to re-iterate.

Awesome game and kudos to you and the team.

[elanaiba]

Have you seen this thread? http://www.inthekillhouse.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=26

[Krauter]

Yea took a look at it but for some reason I can never get things running through Wine.. I will give it a try though.

[Sonarman]

Over at the highly respected game review site "out of eight" James Allen has given his thoughts & suggestions for improvements in a video playthrough (http://www.outofeight.info/2013/04/door-kickers-alpha-impressions.html) of the Doorkickers alpha build.

[Nippelspanner]

$7.99 well spend - thank you, it is great fun already! Can't wait for new features.

Most likely, I'll even upgrade to a higher tier version, games like that need support.

What I loved the most was the fact that everything is "open". Sound files, music, textures/objects, damage tables...

This game will make it's community happy for a looong time! :salute:

[elanaiba]

Even before working on Silent Hunter I knew the value of modding, there's no question for us we need to support it!

Thanks for your contribution!

[Herr-Berbunch]

Just played the first couple of rounds. Excellent game, much more fun and playable than FS.

Thanks Dan and co. Just a shame I missed out on the early bird - that'll teach me to wait until payday.

:yeah:

[elanaiba]

Meanwhile and after some delays we've launched Alpha 2:

http://youtu.be/mjQY4vp7ubk

[Jimbuna]

Looks good Dan :cool:

[elanaiba]

Alpha 3 is out with some smaller but important updates, but also Mac / Linux support.

And we have a Lite version out for free, like a DEMO:
http://inthekillhouse.com/buy/

Direct download for Win version - here:
http://inthekillhouse.com/demo/DoorKickersAlpha_Lite_Setup.exe

[Herr-Berbunch]

I'm sure Dan will be along soon, but in the meantime -

:yeah: It's now available on Steam! :yeah:

Nice one Dan and Co. :salute:

[elanaiba]

Wow, just came here to post ... :) :) :) Thanks!

It is indeed available on Early Access:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/248610

[biosthetique]

I bought your game on Steam. It is an outstanding game by it's simplicity and it's efficiency.

Thank you for your performance!

I am AKA on SimHQ as GunnyHighway.

[Krauter]

Oh man. Alpha 0.5 is AWESOME. Kudos to you guys in Romania. If you haven't done so, I highly suggest you check out Doorkickers.

[elanaiba]

thanks :)

[Madox58]

An Ohio interest other then me. :D
http://www.blackfootstudios.com/news/

[Arclight]

Grats on the release. Yet to get back to it myself, but Mr. Stone is certainly gushing all over it:
During the making of this Wot I Think, 379 doors were unceremoniously breached, 546 flashbangs were artfully lobbed, 19 timebombs were hurriedly disarmed, 61 suspects were roughly handcuffed, 501 hostages were ingeniously liberated, 6362 hostiles were liberally ventilated, and 1 player was royally entertained.http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/10/21/door-kickers-review/

[Tycho]

Bought this game yesterday, and after only half a hour of playing I'm very impressed. Very good tactics, and real fun.

[Trevally.]

Some youtube test/review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq5PLNWz1cA

Looks good:yep:

[Onkel Neal]

In case you were wondering, this game was released some time back and was a real smash hit. I'm so proud of Dan and his guys, they really know their stuff.

Really cool easter egg, KillHouse drafted a young version of my dad as one of the SWAT team :yeah:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/picture.php?albumid=994&pictureid=9036

[Sailor Steve]

:rock:

[Jimbuna]

:yeah:

[elanaiba]

So, long time no speak. Haven't been to subsim since forever, it seems.

Apologies for all the unanswered PMs :(

In the meantime Door Kickers has been out for a couple of years, and we have published a new game - a retro spin off!

Meet Door Kickers Action Squad:

https://youtu.be/0vMBTFei840

[Jeff-Groves]

:o

In really need to get out more.


Nice work Guys!!!

:yeah:

[Jeff-Groves]

As a side note to your post Neal about your dad?
They did my step grandson also.
He passed away from Batten's disease and they aged him and placed him in Game instead of my ugly mug.

I think it's Seth in game?
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/picture.php?albumid=1069&pictureid=9738

When that work was compared to his father? People were blown away at how close it was!

[elanaiba]

Oh Jeff, sorry to hear about your grandson :(

It was touching to read about him when we did that, and as a father I can feel these things much more than before.

But on the other hand, glad to see you alive and kicking, hope to catch a beer with you in the US in the next 10 years or so

[elanaiba]

Since I'm here anyway, here's what we've released last November :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1239080/Door_Kickers_2_Task_Force_North/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GE9gx5NqzU