clout_games

2024 update

Hello Patrons! Happy New Year everyone!

Today we want to talk about the current state of the game, the team and Patreon.

Lets start with the most important. Is ILL a scam?

If we were't actually developing the game we would have publically announce that LONG time ago. We understand how frustrated it might be to see active Patreon that earns money with no updates whatsoever. But we are in a situation where we chose partly crowdfunding approach at the beginning, but then realised that the game is planned to be big, that we need to follow more "classic" approach for marketing and release road map. Therefore all we do is under NDA. All we publish here will spoil elements of the game and it's story. And that's cool to do for people who invest their money here. Unfortunately there is a risk of these material being posted elsewhere. I'll try to collect some materials and show in the following post Today or Tomorrow.

I have an idea to just turn this page into "ILL creator fund". All money goes to creators who make ILL related stuff. Music, animation, art, toys. Not concepts or tracks that made for the game based on the strick brief, but more creative approach. "Abstract traditional painter drew his vision of the world of ILL" "Animator made PS2 style scene in ILL's setting"...etc.etc.  Results would be posted here first and the on socials. This might be fun! But first we need to finalise the deal with the current partner, which we will talk furter.

But what about development progress? The team now has 25+ people and we are actively hiring. Development finally went to different streams, art team, dev team, animation, narrative... and we have progress in every department. Finally, the story of the game has been written, it will be higly story driven game with different characters, exiting events and cool setting/place where the protagonist will encounter all the horrors. The horror itself will be based on a non typical concept. Besides that we just finished a new trailer!

For the past year we always been promising "big news soon", but this "soon" more sounds like "never" by now. We want to make public anouncement, release new footage and share our plans, but while some legal stuff are still in works we can not share much publically. It should change within the next couple of months, but it is always hard to predict. We hope for your understanding.

Thanks againg for your support! Just like you, we can not wait untill we share more of ILL!

P.S. I am (Max) always very busy and don't have time to check here or Discord server often, so if you have questions, please TAG @verehin on our Discord server

Update

Hello Patrons!  

We want to announce who we signed with and how development is going, but we still in a process of paperwork and this announce is postponing continuously!

Developmend is going great,  there are tons of progress regarding combat mechanics and enemies.

We progressed significantly story/lore wise, now we have clear vision of the location the game will take place and the tone of the story. 

At the moment we are focused on the vertical slice and preparing big trailer that we will release in the near future.

Thanks!

News+mob concept

Hello dear Patrons,

Our team is in the midst of significant transformations. We're shifting our office location and we're also in the process of actively hiring to expand our team. Unfortunately, we're not in a position to reveal our new partner's identity yet. But rest assured, as soon as all legal matters are settled, we promise to keep you updated!

Attached to this post, you will find a concept for one of the game's common enemy variations. We're excited for you to take a look and hear your thoughts!

We're also thrilled to announce that we've established our page on Steam! Although we don't have any new promotional materials to share just yet, we're working hard behind the scenes and anticipate having fresh content to show off as we get closer to autumn. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1757350/ILL/

As always, thank you so much for your continued support and patience during this time of transition!

What is up!

Hello!

We understand that you were promised a big announcement. Rest assured, it is on its way. However, in collaboration with our new partner, we have decided to make it a more substantial, official announcement, accompanied by additional materials and information than initially planned. Please bear with us - the news is coming soon.

We are also in the final stages of finalizing our game design document. Our focus is to lock down the mechanics, enemies, weapons, etc. on paper, which will guide us towards the release and keep us undistracted by spontaneous ideas such as, "Hmm, should we include a water gun that squirts acid?" This way, we can progress steadily and confidently towards our launch date.

Again, attaching some early stuff from the game, thank you for your patience and continued support.

News?

Hi everyone!

Great news is expected to arrive in the next week or two! In the meantime, we have another preview of an animation for a game cutscene. 

So far, ILL features 4 weapons:

TT Pistol

AKSU Automatic Rifle

OTs-20 Gnom Revolver

KS-23 Shotgun

+some melee weapons.

We plan to expand our selection of weapons and would love for you, our patrons, to contribute your ideas. Please share your suggestions in the comments below, keeping in mind that the game's setting is the USSR during the late 1980s to early 1990s.

Welcomed guest

Hello patrons! Here's another sneak peek into our early development materials. As for the news, the main thing happening right now is that we are in discussions with a partner whom you all know well. We believe they will help us take the development to the next level and ensure a successful game release. We're not sure how soon we'll be able to share more about that, but we hope it will be soon! Thank you!

KS-23

Hello everyone! This is an in-game model for the Shotgun KS-23, a powerful and loud weapon capable of splattering brains.

What are your favorite weapons to use in FPS games, and why do you enjoy using them? Also, feel free to share any ideas you have for potential ILL weapons!

Special key

Happy weekends! Our team is doing well and we're hard at work on new updates and improvements.

We wanted to reach out and ask if you've had a chance to play Signalis yet. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the game and what you loved about it?

On a related note, we wanted to share a little behind-the-scenes look at our development process. The attached animation is just a joke, but it does give a glimpse into the tools we use to create our in-game animations. We use 3DMax for fast animation drafts and have a special system that allows us to apply animations to the player rig in-game right away. This helps us to be more flexible with adding a lot of context animations to make the in-game world feel more alive.

Thank you again for your support and we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon!

Some work in progress and answering questions

Hi all,

As promised, here are some WIPs. We will post more the week after next and will be more consistent with updates.

Due to spoiler and confidentiality reasons, we cannot post the freshest stuff we are working on right now. However, we might be able to figure out something in that regard.

As for the images above, the helicopter will not be a playable location in the game. It was one of the earlier concepts for the game.

The wrench is a melee weapon for the player, as well as a quest item (to knock off small padlocks from doors, etc.). It hits hard and makes metal noises.

Now, for some questions we have received recently:

"The rumours that this is a scam are getting too hard to ignore, I really hope you can deliver soon with a demo for the sake of the game. Best of luck!"

If we made the ILL Patreon just to make some cash, we would probably post way more often with some cool animation works saying this is a game. It would be so much easier than actually trying to make a game. But we understand the worries and want to be transparent that it is hard. We have had problems and will have problems, because game development is hard. If, for some tragic reason, we come to the conclusion that we need to give up, you guys will be the first to know (as of now, all is good).

"So you said that Ill is coming to consoles. Which ones will you release it on?"

With UE5, we aim for current-gen PS and Xbox.

"To be clear, what is the exact genre of the game? I've suspected it's going to be survival horror. Or will it be more "Doom-like", with your character clearing out each area? Perhaps a mixture? Or even something like a "walking sumulator" with some light combat?"

Survival horror with combat, definitely not "light combat", but not to the Doom degree of action.

"Is there a more fully fleshed out premise/story yet? I really like the one concept video where your character crashes your car and then wakes up being dragged through the woods. I'll understand if it is too early to say what will happen with the story, though."

Can't say much, but yes, the vision is there and it is not too far from what you've seen on the concept trailers. However, the setting is now the Soviet Union.

"I've mentioned this before, but sound is VERY important to me in a horror game. Is there anything else you can say about the sound design? Are there any exciting new technologies that you might be utilizing? For example, the team working on the Dead Space 1 remake posted a video about their audio design, titled Dead Space | The Sound of Fear Reimagined | Audio Developer Livestream (https://youtu.be/yMQOkpZO5eM). In it, they talked about not only 3D positioning, but also how different materials can change the character of sounds, like when they are from behind a steel door, a window, or around several corners, almost like the audio version of ray tracing in graphics. So, I'm just curious if you could maybe do a post that talks about your technology and design process. Like, are you guys recording yourselves walking barefoot in a bathtub full of cow livers? LOL! 🤪 But seriously though, I would LOVE to hear about ILL's sound design!"

We have a team that helps with sound design. Let me check with them for more details. But yes, sound design has HUGE importance in ILL.

"Speaking of special posts/updates, perhaps every couple of weeks or a month you could talk a little about a specific cool and nerdy design aspect that makes ILL special (or just damn cool! 😉)? Or maybe just do a short feature on each weapon? For example, something like, "Long barreled shotguns can be very useful, but are also unwieldy for the survivor on the go. If you can find the proper tools, shortening the barrel can not only make it easier to carry, but also make it devastating at very close range. However, this will also reduce its accuracy at longer ranges." 😉 Perhaps post a poll to see what interests people the most? 😊"

Great ideas! Yes, we will be more consistent with posts now and "every couple of weeks" is actually what we discussed internally.

Have a great weekends!

ILL Dev Journal #8

Hello everyone,

We hope you had a wonderful New Year holiday! We apologize for the lack of updates recently, but rest assured that we are actively working on the game. We have made progress with the procedural animations of enemies, have implemented new guns, and are in the process of implementing visual effects. Our sound design team has also begun to set the sound design in the engine. Using Unreal Engine 5 has presented some challenges for us, but recent updates have made it much smoother. This is good news, as we are planning to release the game on consoles as well. Optimization on consoles is crucial, and we are working hard to ensure that the game runs smoothly on all platforms.

Let us know if you have any questions. The following post will include some work-in-progress materials and will be posted tomorrow.

We know that many of you are looking forward to a playable demo of the game. Releasing a demo for a game of this scope is a huge commitment, and while we cannot guarantee that it will happen, we are not saying that it won't. We are currently reevaluating our marketing strategy and will have to make adjustments to our plans accordingly. We will keep you updated on any developments in the future.

We will try to actively post updates from now on, as we know that it is important for us to have the support of our patrons. We want to keep you updated and show our appreciation for your support.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Best regards,
Team Clout

ILL Dev Journal #7

Hello Patrons!

Apologies for being silent for so long. 

There are some complications that affected how fast things are moving. The situation in the world definitely does't help causing our employees to take life matters first. But the development still going, we actively prototyping game mechanics at the moment.

We will not promise specific dates when we will be able to bring significant news. Now the main thing is to build a solid game prototype in order to move on and grow the team.

Attaching a couple concepts of the locations you've seen in the latest teaser.

Thank you very much for continuos support even when we are so slow with updating our Patreon!

Future Games Show key arts

Here are some screenshots we have prepared for the guys from FTS back in June.

Thanks for the previous post recommendations and opinions!

ILL Dev Journal #7 +Viola radio model

Hi all, short post today.

We are focused on the production of a playable episode. We are actively developing mechanics and level design, as well as writing a complete design document. We hope that we will be able to deliver more significant news for you soon. 

In the meantime, horror fans, tell us about some aspects of horror games you played that impressed you the most and made the game stand out from others for you. It can be game mechanics, story, atmosphere, jump scares...Some indie gems are welcome as well...

For me(Max), it was sound design in P.T. The feeling that there is someone behind you, following you, was implemented so masterful that I can say that this game is my scariest experience among any media product ever.

Future Games Show teaser and a game model from the teaser

Hello! 

Finally, the new teaser is up and running. Let us know what do you think?

ILL Dev Journal #6

Hello everyone, it's been a while..

Lately, we have been busy with a lot of things. Patreon is very important to us and it felt sad to not be able to post more often. We will try to make up for it with some bonus materials in the upcoming weeks.

We can not say that the situation in the world right now did not make any complications to our development process. It did, but likely nothing crucial. Development is well and active.

The transition to the UE5 was rough at times, but we have finally done it. The technologies that the engine provides are worth the effort! 

Recently, we have been busy with two significant things.

The first is that we have made major progress in procedural animation, enemies are now moving not according to strictly pre-recorded animations, but work as a ragdoll mix with animations. This will allow us to achieve variety in the visual behavior of enemies and will generate many random moments that diversify and enrich the combat. The player's body was also implemented, so we will be able to feel the joy of looking at the protagonist's legs!

Secondly, we worked hard on the new teaser, the guys from the Future games show gave us a place at the exhibition, so don't miss it, it will be interesting

Saturday, June 11
12:00 PDT / 15:00 EDT / 20:00 BST

Till the next time! Thanks for staying with us

Gun model

Here is a model of a players hand gun you saw in the first teaser

ILL Dev Journal #5

Hello all. 

It is time for an update. For the past two months, we have been growing our team, filling all necessary positions. We are still looking for a physics programmer and VFX artist, but they are on the testing stage and there should be no issues.

The development goes well, the recently joined level artist is doing a great job with the locations ILL will take place in. Dev team made a huge success with the master material that we are going to texture almost everything in the game, therefore our assets/props/level art pipeline is finally formed and launched in its most effective form.

Besides all that, we have been working on something cool for the community as well. 

As you know, most of the team is located in Russia, we have outsourcers in Ukraine. At the moment, the war has not affected the development in any way and we are ready to look for ways out of any problems that will arise due to the political situation. We all hope that this madness will stop soon,

Stay safe!

Let's talk about the first teaser.

Greetings Patrons! We hope you all had a great holidays!

Team Clout wishes you all the best in 2022!

As you might saw already, we released the first gameplay teaser on our social channels. The gameplay was captured in real-time in Unreal Engine 5 with the demonstration of some of the game's mechanics.

If you have any questions about the teaser- please ask! We are happy to answer.

(In advance: PS5 Xbox- we would love to release ILL on these platforms, but it is too early to tell in detail. Release date- sorry, we can not share this information, the team has its own deadlines, but we don't want to advertise dates, at least not for now. )

ILL Dev Journal #4

Hello people! 

Things are moving fast. Our team now ve 8 people working full time on the project along with outsourcing help. We got exciting news, the project has been transferred to UE5, the features like Nanite and Lumen are totally blow minds. The transfer was smooth, we have issues here and there, but Epic works hard to improve the engine every day and the full release won't take too long to wait. 

Thanks a lot for the continuing support Patrons, it helps a lot! If you have any questions, tag me on the Discord server, I m there to help (Max)

Finally, you should expect to see something from us pretty soon. Please, consider to be first to follow our YouTube channel

Until next time!

ILL Dev Journal #3 +survey

Hello everyone!

Things are going well. We have 7 people working full-time in the office. There are also a lot of freelancers helping us remotely. Yesterday we compiled a list of professionals that we will need in the course of development. We are trying to stick to the plan to make the game with a small team, cozy but effective development. Will see how it goes

I would really like to show something from the game early, but we have to follow the plan and not spoil any important information.

Many people ask if there will be more trailers before the release of the playable demo. We do not exclude this possibility....when - top secret)

The photo shows how we are testing our new mockup suit from Xsence. This thing costs a lot of money, but the animations made with it are very precise and with a minimum of clean-up work.

I have updated the tiers list, now, there is a way to get yourself a spot in the game credits. Some people ask, they got the investment, why should I support on Patreon? Well, you don't have to, just want to clarify that all money goes to the development, and Patreon part is actually not insignificant if you think of it in a long scope. Developing AAA games is actually crazy expensive in 2021.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the last survey about aiming in the game, lots of useful information. At the moment, the game has a system where we can concentrate while aiming, and to ADS- we have to press an additional button (something like HUNT has(their original system))

Question for today, what features in ILL do you anticipate the most? Or maybe there is something that you wish was there but we didn't announce in the concept trailers?

ILL Dev Journal #2 +survey

Hello everyone! 

The second month of full-time development is coming to an end and I'm hurrying to report how things are and what's going on with our team. 

At the moment we're actively working on an enemy design and have already gone through lots of options, trying to find the right balance between an interesting concept and a "realistic" reason for what's going on.  

Regarding the character modeling, we're still thinking about how to get the best quality without stretching our budget to cosmic limits. We will probably do it by ourselves, a good thing we have someone who can use their skills in this area. 

Mid-August a lead 3D artist joined our team on a full-time basis, whose job is to run all the technical modeling processes and supervise the freelancers. That's a total of five people in the team for now, on top of that, we've already got a few very skilled 3D artists working on a design of props and weapons. 

On the software side, we are actively working on prototyping the basic mechanics of the game.  

At the moment we are still learning how to maximize the efficiency of the development process. By attempts and mistakes, we are seeking the best model in which the development will bring the greatest results we are capable of. The lead programmer that is joining us at the beginning of September will be a big help in that.

We have also begun plannig our next public presentation of ILL. Where to do it and in what format. We have already arranged some calls with organizers of game shows, but for now, I can't tell you the time and place where our next presentation will be happening. 

As you can see - the jokes are over, the team is growing and there is more responsibility and commitment. Exciting times! 

Finally, I would like to ask for your opinion on weapon handling in games. There are different variants of aiming down sight in games. In Resident Evil you can not aim down sights, the right mouse button just makes you zoom a little and reduce the spread of the bullets. In COD the weapon is always in front of you (no relaxed position like in RE) and when you aim - you aim from down sights. In PUBG there are three modes: 1) Hip fire 2) Concentrated, more accurate hip-fire 3) aim down sights. In RDR2, you can toggle between aim down sights and just concentrated aim (also, there is a mechanic when you press LMB to reload a bullet between shots). We will be testing different options and we want to make an intuitive system, but maybe also bring a little hardcoreness to these mechanics. What do you think regarding that aspect, did you ever wanted/liked anything specific, or maybe you remember more interesting examples from other video games? 

Mobile wallpapers

Hi all! 

Here are some mobile wallpapers to grab (archive is in attachment). Next dev blog is coming soon...

ILL Dev Journal #1

"Almost there" is no more, and "there" finally here! Now we can finally share what will happen with the game (well, barring a secret or two: gotta keep the suspense!).

Since the release of concept trailers, we spent a lot of time "talking" to investors of all different kinds and stripes. We had good offers, bad ones, and just horrible ones as well. But the important thing was that the level of interest was through the roof: we had the privilege of choosing our investor(s) among the many who were interested in our work.

After a few months of deliberation and negotiation, we decided to go with a great partner who we have the utmost faith in, not only financially but also as a game industry expert. What followed were few months of paperwork (always a hassle) and on July 13 we signed the contract! For now, we won't name names, but as soon as we can share - you will be the first to know.

I guess wishes do come true: we are working full time on our dream project. Oleg, Vadim and Alexey are in the ''office'' working together as we all dreamed about. As for me, I'll be forever alone in Canada doing skype calls with the team every day. 

Guys' office

Robo Max

That's enough for today! I will try to give more updates later this week and share a little bit about our short-term plans.

Stay tuned,

Team Clout

Updateees

Hello Patrons, sorry for the silence. It's just we are almost there, but not quite yet. It literally just a few days before we start full-time production, we already got the office and waiting for the PC's and furniture to arrive. 

Stay tuned...

News May 25

Greetings! 

Next week all founders and our investor are meeting up in Saint-Petersburg for the first time. Gonna grab some beer and discuss about the game and development plan. 

Oleg and Vadim will be preparing their relocation and we will be looking for the office space as well.

Thanks to the Patreon's support we are able to work with a great team of lawyers who prepared the Contract.

Can't say much more at this point but I will update you on how it all went and what are the next steps!

UPDATES

Hello friends.
some of you are worried about the future of ILL, so I feel need to clarify what is going on.

Yes, we did choose the investment partner!

 The plan for the next 6-8 months is to make fully finished demo episode of the ILL. With that in hands we will be free to experiment with how to approach the full game development. Will it be pre orders, kickstarter or big publisher... time will show.

Next steps for us (currently in work). 

-Finishing game design document
-Finish investment contract, nda’s, etc.
-Register Russian office

Thanks for the support patrons, it really helps us!

More concepts!

More concepts!

indoor confrontation concept

Some concept exploration. More to come