The Devil in the Details

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 of time to accomplish, and if I'm pressed for time, I'll have to ditch it altogether.

It looks like my cutscenes are going to outnumber my combat encounters by four to one. I have only two combat encounters in this module, neither of which are terribly difficult for a single fifth-level character. Actually, the final encounter will be easy if the player characters make proper use of the objects that they find in the module. Fifth-level characters that don't will probably be thrashed.

The scene of the final battle is shown in the picture to the left. I'm having second thoughts about using the visual effect that is shown here. If I can find something better in the short amount of time that I have left, I may replace it.

About the boss monster in this module, the only information I will divulge is that the creature looks absolutely freaky. I didn't create any new monster models. I simply used what is available in the toolset, but I used them in a way that made the boss creature look freaky. At this point, the only way anyone will see what the monster looks like is to play my module. Players won't have long to wait. Bouncy Rock will release the entire Halloween campaign in a few weeks' time.

Which means, back to work for me.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I would love it if you could do the voice acting. Problem is, not much time is left...which is, additionally, appaling since we've taken a side project and let it consume our lives! ;)

I'm really excited to see this creepy final boss you've got. Oh, there's something I have up my sleeves too...[insert evil laugh]...and I suppose we can trade abominations later.

(goes back to work, too)
October 9, 2008 at 9:12 AM
Frank Perez said…
Hi, Chaos Wielder. I decided to push through with doing voice work for my avatar. I just hope it won't sound too crappy. :P

I can hardly wait to see how the Halloween campaign turns out. It will be fun to give everyone's module a go. :)
October 12, 2008 at 4:26 AM
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