Faithless: The Making of an NWN2 Module

Atop a hill in Eternity's End stands the Temple of Kelemvor, a place where the records of the dead are kept. Those who have played Mask of the Betrayer may remember this temple because it is one of the few places in the Fugue Plane that are featured in this game. The design of the area was certainly adequate, but it could have been better, in my opinion. As is my usual practice, I ripped this area from MotB and attempted to improve on it. Taking a cue from Anduraga (a.k.a. Josh), who did a marvelous job of giving the Basilica of Lost Hope a face lift, I laid out the area using the RWS Pocket Cathedrals hakpak from Robinson Workshop. I changed a few placeables and visual effects here and there and applied the same lighting that Anduraga used in the Basilica of Lost Hope. The result is a hauntingly beautiful piece of work, if I may say so myself.

It has been a long time since I last posted in-game screenshots of areas from Faithless. It's high time that I end this hiatus by presenting pictures of Eternity's End in the grip of war. Although I kept OEI's original design of this area mostly intact, I made a number of significant changes to it. As mentioned in my previous post, I replaced a few houses with burnt shells. I also replaced two of the buildings with piles of rubble. Aside from these cosmetic changes, I put up a number of makeshift barricades along some of the pathways. These barricades are made from whatever the locals would conceivably have on hand -- crates, wagons, pieces of wood nailed together, those sort of things. Characters may attempt to destroy these barricades, but they stand the risk of being mowed down with missile fire while they are at it. Perhaps the most striking change that I did to this area was to put a very large crater in one of the streets. In the Forgotten Realms, things that go boom...

Making the Halloween module that I submitted to Bouncy Rock took a lot out of me, so much so that I decided to take a week off to relax a bit. Well, I'm back in the saddle now, plugging away at the toolset once more, this time for Faithless. The next area that I've chosen to work on is Eternity's End, which I ripped from Mask of the Betrayer . In MotB, Eternity's End looks dreary but pristine, nothing like one would expect from a war-torn city. I decided to roughen it up a bit by replacing some of the houses with burnt shells. Of course, the ground on which the houses stand must look sooty. Normally, a modder would create this look by coloring the ground grayish-black. In Eternity's End, however, the houses all stand on city curbs, which are placeables just like the houses. The only way to make the curbs appear sooty is to re-texture them. I didn't want to do this because not all houses that stand on the same type of curb will be burnt. Hence, the parts of the c...

Yesterday, I submitted my Halloween horror module to Jclef of Bouncy Rock. A few hours ago, he sent me feedback on my module. Here's what he had to say about it: Dear Frank, Played through last night with no bugs/issues. The module had an intuitive system, and the gameplay was scary and fun. Oh yes... they will scream. Frankly, that was frankin' amazing - Great work, buddy! I felt really good about Jclef's feedback, particularly since I poured a lot of effort into my module. I was worried at first that it might be too frustrating to play, but Jclef dispelled those concerns. It's especially good to know that my horror module is actually scary. Trying to elicit chills and thrills without resorting to splatterpunk gore isn't easy, but it can be done even in a computer game. Here's hoping that the Bouncy Rock Halloween Campaign will give us NWN2 players a fun and scary experience. Now that that's done, I shall be working on Faithless once more.

My little contribution to Bouncy Rock's Halloween campaign will be the first (and perhaps only) module that will feature me as a voice actor. Since my alter ego, Elysius, will be greeting player characters at the door, there was really no question as to who would lend his voice to the role. Of course, I could have settled for having all conversations play silently, but I felt that my module would have made more of an impact if it had actual voice overs. Over a span of three days, I recorded, edited, and finalized thirty sound files to be played during the conversations with Elysius. It wasn't easy. Each sound file is the product of several recording takes, from which I chose the best segments to splice together. To make matters worse, I have an awful voice and a bit of an accent. I wasn't too worried about my accent, which I felt may lend an air of mystery to my character. It was my voice that needed fixing. I wanted Elysius to sound sinister, but my voice normally sounds ...

My Halloween module is almost done, but there seem to be a million and one details to take care of before I can declare it completed. There are bugs to be squashed, placeables to be retextured, sound effects to be added, and who knows what else. I've playtested the module repeatedly, and each time, I find something new to add to my list of tasks. Considering that I've been working on the Halloween module for about a month, I find it somewhat appalling that I can play it from start to finish in a matter of minutes. At the start of my Halloween module, player characters will meet my alter ego, Elysius. This NPC resembles my avatar at the official Neverwinter Nights boards. I'm seriously considering recording a full set of voice overs for the conversations with Elysius. The advantage of this NPC's costume is that his helmet hides his mouth, which means I won't have to worry about synchronizing his lip movements with the voice overs. Nevertheless, voice work takes a lot...

This is my third post on the Halloween module that I'm making for the Bouncy Rock campaign. Yes, it's the third successive week that I haven't been working on Faithless, but it looks like I will be able to finish the Halloween module by the end of this week. After that, I'll be plugging away at Faithless once more. Although I've made several rooms for this module, I'm showing only a couple of in-game shots in this post. I'd like to keep the rest of my areas under wraps if only to retain some element of surprise for players. The picture on the right is a view of the kitchen, one of the most important rooms in this game. Anyone who hopes to complete this module must know their way around a kitchen. Those who can't tell a potholder from a panhandler need not worry. There will be recipes scattered around the house, all of which will be simple to follow. The design of this module is similar to those of adventure games such as The Longest Journey and Syberia ...