We are continuing the takeover of the PlayStation Blog, this time with concept art from inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood and the Sucker Punch Holiday Card.

First up we have concept art from inFamous: Festival of Blood. Emilio Gandin, our Lead Environment Artist, wanted to point out some of these pieces of concept art. We wanted to add a new area to the title and explored the idea of doing catacombs below the Cathedral. The dark gothic, claustrophobic catacombs fit perfectly with the vampire lore. Once levels featuring catacombs were playable, we started to explore how Cole would navigate through them. We wanted a way for Cole to quickly move through the space and we came up with the backstory of the catacombs being used to smuggle arms thus giving us a reason to include the rails that Cole can grind on.

In the spirit of the season we also wanted to share our Holiday Cards. This year Senior Artist Edward Pun, Artist Mike Haney, and Lighting Artist Jason Connell teamed together to create this Santa inspired Cole, delivering gifts to the kids of New Marais.

From all of us here at Sucker Punch Productions, we hope you had a Happy Holidays and are looking forward to the New Year. We look forward to talking with you in 2012.

Score:

• 14 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

The holiday season is upon us and we get to take over the PlayStation Blog for a day! We are going to start with a new trailer, yes after releasing inFAMOUS 2 and inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood some of us have had some time to play some of the user generated missions, as well as catch-up on Skyrim and Uncharted 3. This trailer shows off some amazing creations with UGC… perhaps your mission is featured in the video. If you find a cool UGC mission be sure to tell us in the comments below.

Later today look for our next blog post with some unreleased concept art from inFamous: Festival of Blood and our Sucker Punch Holiday Cards. Be sure to follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook. From all of us here at Sucker Punch have a Happy Holiday.

Score:

• 8 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood will be available on the PlayStation Store in just a few days. Before you can get your hands on the game, we had Billy Harper (Animation Director) and Ken Schramm (Marketing Director) pack their bags for a whirlwind three-day tour spanning 5,668 miles, two coasts, three cities, and over 20 interviews with press from North America and beyond. It was an amazing couple days of sharing the latest adventure in the inFAMOUS universe.

We have been pretty quiet about Festival of Blood, not really sharing anything since we teased you with a clip revealing Bloody Mary at PAX. Since then we have been hard at work crafting this next adventure, adding in all the last details, and finishing touches on this standalone game to make it the perfect purchase right in time for Halloween. This Press Tour allowed us to pull the curtain back and give one big preview before the game comes out next week. Billy and Ken covered tons of the new features in Festival of Blood, some of which we will cover here.

With a totally new story in Festival of Blood of course we had to give Cole a totally new set of powers. One power that fans have always wanted in an inFAMOUS game has been the ability to fly, and with Festival of Blood we thought it was time to give Cole the chance to spread his wings. Bat wings that is… With a new power called Shadow Swarm. While Shadow Swarm allows you to experience New Marais, in a whole new way, it does come at the expense of the innocent people walking around in the night as you must feed upon them to fuel your flight.

Speaking of Pyre Night, all of New Marais celebrates this hallowed night by shrouding the entire city with banners, fireworks, and pedestrians dressing up in the streets. Look the of Pyre Night comes from the City Team taking the summer dreaming up the spooky street party that with surprises around every corner. The abandoned subway lines of New Marais now converted to macabre, underground Catacomb. Stepping into these dark corridors leaves anyone unsettled, even more so when you find out that Bloody Mary’s minions have been crawling around them for years.

UGC is a big part of the inFAMOUS universe and we haven’t forgotten this feature with Festival of Blood. Over the last couple months we have been listening to your feedback and playing all the missions we can from the community and the one thing we have been seeing is the desire to create strong narrative missions. To help users tell their stories we are happy to add the new 2D Cut Scene Tool with Festival of Blood that allows you to create comic book inspired cut scenes in your missions. You now can create intro sequences, provide key story details mid-mission, or end your mission with a bang. Along with the 2D Cut Scene Tool, Festival of Blood brings a whole new set of gory assets to the UGC universe and you can now design missions with as many fiends and harpies as you want.

If you haven’t had a chance to read some of the previews we have them all listed below:

• GameSpot
• Shacknews
• Kotaku
• Examiner
• Examiner
• Destructoid
• IGN
• GamesRadar
• G4TV
• San Jose Mercury News

Be ready to download inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood on the PlayStation Store on Wednesday, October 26th across PAL for €9.99/£7.99. Play it with the classic Dualshock or try it out with PlayStation Move.

Stay tuned to infamousthegame.com and join our forums on SuckerPunch.com for future updates on inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood. Also follow us on Twitter, @SuckerPunchProd, and check out our Facebook Page.

Score:

• 83 Comments 5 Replies
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

Greetings from the deck here at Sucker Punch Productions! As many of you may have heard we had an excellent panel at PAX Prime last weekend about creating our 2D cutscenes. Those lucky enough to attend got a sneak preview of a cutscene from inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood, and a free inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood t-shirt to boot. We can’t wait to share more details about Festival of Blood, so here’s the sneak peek. Let us know what you think in the comments!

If you want to know how we created these sequences you can read our detailed summary of our PAX Prime panel, A Panel on Panels: Creating the Comic-Inspired Cutscenes of inFAMOUS 2, over on SuckerPunch.com. For more updates, be sure to follow us on Twitter, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.

Score:

• 27 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

Welcome to the world of mission design! Jumping into the deep end and figuring it out on your own can be fairly daunting, but Sucker Punch has been listening to feedback gathered from your experiences in inFAMOUS 2 and we want to make mission designing a breeze!

Check out the introductory video below and, if you want to learn more about User-Generated Content (UGC), take a gander at our UGC Tutorial Video series that details everything from how to create waypoints to the best use of triggers.

Tutorial Video 1: Getting started with inFAMOUS 2 UGC

This tutorial video is a good place to start if you’ve never experienced inFAMOUS 2 UGC before. It covers the basics: entering the UGC Menu, creating missions from Templates, and playing missions from within the editor.

Tutorial Video 2: Logic Boxes and Smart Text

Logic Boxes and Smart Text are the bread and butter of inFAMOUS 2 UGC. Once you figure out how to use them effectively, you’ll be able to turn New Marais into a rich, lustrous city teeming with mission objectives and unique experiences.

In this video, we cover: Introduction to Logic Boxes, how to connect Logic Boxes, and the dynamically updating smart text.

Tutorial Video 3: Groups

Did you know that setting up individual Groups within your inFAMOUS 2 UGC mission can infinitely increase the possibilities of what you can create? They’re crucial to keeping your mission nice and organized. Parent Groups add another layer of control and organization, so view on, faithful inFAMOUS 2 mission designer.

In this video: How to effectively utilize Groups, creating unique Groups, editing Groups, and the function of Parent Groups.

Tutorial Video 4: NPCs and Paths

Moving an NPC from point A to point B is simpler than it seems. You can create an NPC’s path and even choose his movement speed with just a few logic boxes. After viewing this tutorial video, you’ll become the puppet master of NPCs.

In this video: creating paths, placing NPCs, and placing and connecting the logic required to move NPCs.

Tutorial Video 5: Waypoints

Waypoints are a great way to tell the player where to go. With just a few logic boxes you can determine how and when they appear on the player’s mini-map, and when they disappear. After viewing this tutorial video, players will never be lost within your missions again.

In this video: how to create and remove waypoints with the Object Modifier, and how to assign waypoints to Groups.

Tutorial Video 6: Triggers

Triggers allow you to create a sense of randomization within your mission, and allow you to alter individual objects within the same group. They’re great for fine-tuning your mission and for providing you with a larger degree of control.

In this video: what a trigger is; how to utilize triggers with Volumes, Monitors, and the Object Modifier; Trigger Groups; the Selector logic box.

Tutorial Video 7: Switches

Want to build a Karma Moment? Switches allow you to change up your logic connections based off how the player plays your mission. After viewing this tutorial video you’ll be able to create drastically different endings to your missions, and control in which order the player completes your objectives.

In this video: how to use a switch to enable or disable connections between logic boxes.

Tutorial Video 8: Play Testing and Publishing Missions

Play testing is something every good mission designer needs to do—in fact, it’s something you literally MUST do before you can upload your inFAMOUS 2 UGC mission. Everybody wants to be Famous, and this tutorial video will help get you on your way by providing some tips for what Sucker Punch looks for when picking Featured missions.

In this video: tips on play testing and polishing your UGC missions; the “Play to Publish” feature; how to upload and update your UGC missions.

Score:

• 14 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook