Development & Design
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Key Points:
- Announced on 11th October 2013, SOMA has been in development since 2010 and was released on the 22nd September 2015;
- SOMA is Frictional Games' most ambitious project to date;
- It's available for Windows PC, Mac OS X, Linux and the Sony PlayStation 4 console;
- SOMA is Frictional Games' first console release;
- SOMA is the first game to use Frictional Games' own HPL3 engine;
- The sophistication of character AI is comparable to that of the enemies in Amnesia: The Dark Descent;
- The problem of maintaining immersion in the event of player death has been readdressed in SOMA;
- The underwater and indoor environments have each been given their own unique soundscape.
Development History
2010
2011 - 2012
2013
2014
2015
2010
- Development of SOMA and its HPL3 engine began shortly before the Amnesia: The Dark Descent was completed and released. [1]
2011 - 2012
- Hints that Frictional Games were working on a new title were scattered throughout the company's job vacancies and cryptic allusions in the gaming press. During this period, the as yet unannounced game was referred to simply as the "Super Secret Project". [2] [3] [4]
2013
- SOMA was officially announced on the 11th of October 2013, preceded by roughly two weeks of teasing, and was given a tentative release window of "early 2015". [5] [6] It was affirmed by Frictional at this time that SOMA would be their most ambitious project to date. [7]
2014
- By mid-March, the game's development had reached Alpha stage, with a 5-hour version of the intended 8-hour game being in a playable state. [8]
- By August, it was stated that the script was complete, all of the game's dialogue had been recorded and roughly three quarters of the game's content had been built (further voice recordings took place in February 2015). [9]
- By September, the PS4 version of the game was up and running, with all features working as intended. [10]
- By November, the game had reached "pre-pre-Beta" stage, and the core mechanics had been "set in stone". The game was playable from start to finish for the first time, clocking in at around 11 hours, and several more months of polish will see the game through to completion. [11] [12] [13]
- By mid-December, the game had reached pre-Beta. [14]
2015
- The 14th of February saw the final piece of voice work to be done on the game, with the last line recorded being "Back off okay!" [15]
- On the 13th of March, Frictional stated that if all goes according to plan, the Beta build for SOMA would be done "in 4 weeks", which would be mid-April, and beta testing would commence right after that. For the first time since development began, the final release of the game was "a clearly visible milestone". [16]
- On the 13th of April, Frictional Games said that this would be their "last full day" before the Beta build is completed and sent out to testers. [17] [18]
- After a slight delay, the Beta build was sent out to testers on the 15th of April. [19] On the same day, a blog post from Thomas Grip explained that the next deadline for SOMA's development is the final release. [20]
- On the 23rd of April, Thomas Grip revealed that the average playtime for Beta testers was around 9 & 1/2 hours. [21]
- The final Beta test took place on the 22nd of May. [22]
- The game's release date was revealed on the 29th of May: SOMA will be released to the PC and PS4 on the 22nd of September 2015. [23]
- On the 9th of July, the preview build of the game was sent out to journalists. After this, the next major milestone for the game is its release on the 22nd of September. [24]
- By mid-August, the PS4 version of the game was "almost done" and the Mac version was "pretty much done". [25] [26]
- On the 28th of August, it was announced on the official Frictional Games Twitter account that SOMA's development had reached the "content lock" stage, and that the last two weeks of development will be used to "test, fix bugs and do minor tweaks". [27]
Platforms & Game Engine
SOMA was developed for release on Windows PC, Linux, Mac OS X and the Sony PlayStation 4 console. [28] [29]
SOMA is built upon Frictional's in-house HPL3 engine. It is the first game to use this engine, and the first iteration of the engine to have compatibility with a games console, namely the PlayStation 4. Alongside HPL3, several third-party and/or open source technologies are used by Frictional in the development of their games. These include FMOD, OpenGL and Newton Game Dynamics. [30]
Improvements made to the HPL engine since its last iteration (HPL2) include:
The HPL Developer Tools have also received several upgrades. They include:
Level Editor
Particle Editor
SOMA was developed for release on Windows PC, Linux, Mac OS X and the Sony PlayStation 4 console. [28] [29]
SOMA is built upon Frictional's in-house HPL3 engine. It is the first game to use this engine, and the first iteration of the engine to have compatibility with a games console, namely the PlayStation 4. Alongside HPL3, several third-party and/or open source technologies are used by Frictional in the development of their games. These include FMOD, OpenGL and Newton Game Dynamics. [30]
Improvements made to the HPL engine since its last iteration (HPL2) include:
- Global sunlight with full shadow support [31]
- Terrain generation with dynamic terrain LOD (Level of Detail) [32]
- HDR lighting with filmic tone mapping [33]
- The introduction of a custom shading language, HPSL [34]
- Anti-aliasing [35]
- Particle collision [36]
- Depth of Field [37]
- Coloured Specular [38]
- Streaming (no loading screens between levels) [39]
- Tessellation [40]
The HPL Developer Tools have also received several upgrades. They include:
Level Editor
- Fly Mode (an in-editor "fly" cam) [41]
- Poser EditMode (an in-editor skeleton manipulator tool) [42]
- Colour Picker [43]
Particle Editor
- Live update (adjustments made to a particle are updated in real-time) [44]
- Control of the update speed (slow down or speed up a particle effect to more precisely examine its behaviour) [44]
- Easing functions for fading values (an ad hoc alternative to having tweakable curve controls) [44]
- Helper graphs (a tool to aid in the previewing of fades) [44]
Design
With the HPL3 engine and the overall development of SOMA, Frictional Games attempted to improve upon design choices they'd made in previous games. Attention was devoted to ensuring coherency in the world's design, the flow and pace of the game as it relates to things like puzzles and enemy encounters, and the way in which the environment itself will convey the game's story in a believable and plausible way. Writing on the official PlayStation blog in March 2014, Thomas Grip of Frictional Games states:
With the HPL3 engine and the overall development of SOMA, Frictional Games attempted to improve upon design choices they'd made in previous games. Attention was devoted to ensuring coherency in the world's design, the flow and pace of the game as it relates to things like puzzles and enemy encounters, and the way in which the environment itself will convey the game's story in a believable and plausible way. Writing on the official PlayStation blog in March 2014, Thomas Grip of Frictional Games states:
When creating Amnesia our setting was basically just “Old castle where supernatural stuff happens”. This allowed us to get away with just about anything and explain it with “because, magic”. But in SOMA we are building a world that is supposed to be tied into the real world and to make sense. Our goal here is to make proper sci-fi and not just a magical fantasy with futuristic designs. [45]
With such considerations in mind, the creative team tasked itself with adhering to certain design principles, which are outlined below.
- The Five Foundational Design Pillars of SOMA -
Pillar 1
Everything is story |
Pillar 2
Take the world seriously |
Pillar 3
The player is in charge |
Pillar 4
Trust the player |
Pillar 5
Thematics emerge through play |
Click here for a full explanation of these design pillars.
- Goals for SOMA -
Goal 1
The feeling of playing a narrative |
Goal 2
A coherently crafted world |
Goal 3
Gameplay with plenty of variation |
Goal 4
Deep, disturbing themes that make you think |
Goal 5
A pervasive sense of horror |
Click here for a full explanation of these goals.
- 4 Layers: A Narrative Design Approach -
Layer 1: Gameplay
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Layer 2: Narrative Goal
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Layer 3: Narrative Background
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Layer 4: Mental Modelling
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When SOMA was first conceived, it wasn't intended to be a horror game. As development progressed, however, the team was drawn more and more to a horror framework, owing to the complimentary relationship between the unique attributes of the horror genre and the central themes of SOMA. [46]
One of the challenges faced by Frictional was in developing a game for which quick, regular iterations were virtually impossible. The nature of the experience they were aiming for made it difficult to change things along the way without encountering dramatic obstacles. Writing on the PlayStation blog, Thomas Grip states:
One of the challenges faced by Frictional was in developing a game for which quick, regular iterations were virtually impossible. The nature of the experience they were aiming for made it difficult to change things along the way without encountering dramatic obstacles. Writing on the PlayStation blog, Thomas Grip states:
Getting this right has been extremely hard as it’s not something you can easily iterate on. Creating that disturbing sense of existential horror just right takes hours of setup. It also requires a lot of assets to be in place before it can be tested properly. So while other games can make several iterations a week on their foundational elements, it’s taken us roughly a year for each iteration. [47]
Enemies & Creatures
SOMA's creature AI is about as complex as that of the enemy characters in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Thomas Grip of Frictional Games explains the resistance to implementing a more sophisticated AI system as follows:
SOMA's creature AI is about as complex as that of the enemy characters in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Thomas Grip of Frictional Games explains the resistance to implementing a more sophisticated AI system as follows:
What we’re trying to do, though, is that they’re going to have different ways of interacting with the player. We’re not overly reliant on things like really sophisticated AI models. I think it works well when you have simplistic models that can work in many different situations. Having some AI that works really well, but if the player screws up a little bit, then it goes really wrong. [48]
In real life, Grip explains, the more you interact with another person the more depth and nuance you'll discover. The opposite is true of characters in video games; the more time you spend examining, observing and interacting with them, the faster the cracks begin to appear, a fact which informs how NPC encounters are staged in SOMA. [49]
According to Grip, Frictional Games intentionally avoided falling into established patterns regarding how they design enemy encounters. In the comments section of his blog, he listed these undesirable "tropes" as follows:
According to Grip, Frictional Games intentionally avoided falling into established patterns regarding how they design enemy encounters. In the comments section of his blog, he listed these undesirable "tropes" as follows:
- Enemies being introduced in a cut-scene;
- Behaviour patterns that are obviously meant to be a challenge;
- Enemies signalling their own weak spots to the player in a very unnatural fashion;
- A specially-designed area in which an enemy is likely to do battle with the player;
- The signalling of danger/safety to the player, rather than letting them figure it out for themselves. [50]
Sound Design
In a May 2014 interview, Samuel Justice, the lead technical sound designer for SOMA, said that the indoor and underwater environments in the game were each given their own unique soundscape. The team did not want to use any shortcuts to achieve this, such as applying global processes or DSPs, but instead wanted to hand-craft each soundscape directly, which is necessarily more challenging. [52]
In the same interview, Samuel mentioned that when designing logo stings for the game, he used a handheld Doppler to record the sounds of his unborn child's heartbeat, which were then processed further to turn it into a "cacophony of tonal distortion".
In a May 2014 interview, Samuel Justice, the lead technical sound designer for SOMA, said that the indoor and underwater environments in the game were each given their own unique soundscape. The team did not want to use any shortcuts to achieve this, such as applying global processes or DSPs, but instead wanted to hand-craft each soundscape directly, which is necessarily more challenging. [52]
In the same interview, Samuel mentioned that when designing logo stings for the game, he used a handheld Doppler to record the sounds of his unborn child's heartbeat, which were then processed further to turn it into a "cacophony of tonal distortion".
References:
[1] Jens Nilsson: "We started Soma in 2010. Just before we finished Amnesia, our previous horror."
[2] "At Frictional Games our main concern is our new super secret project."
[3] This forum post marks the beginning of a now-merged thread from September 2012, which was entitled "Frictional Games Super Secret Project Thread".
[4] "We are currently working on a new, currently super secret, horror game where we aim to take what we learned from Amnesia to the next level. This is what you will be a part of creating." [written on the 3rd of June 2013]
[5] "After more than two weeks of teasing, we are happy to properly announce our new game: SOMA."
[6] Thomas Grip: "So early 2015 sometime it’s going to release."
[7] Thomas Grip: "The game is by far the most ambitious and thrilling project we have ever undertaken."
[8] Thomas Grip: "We are currently about a week away from the alpha of the game. [...] It’s currently clocking in at around five hours, meaning the final game will end up at eight hours or so." [written on the 4th March 2014]
[9] Thomas Grip: "Right now I would say we built three quarters of the game in terms of content, the script is written and the dialogue is recorded."
[10] Frictional Games: "#SOMA now runs on PS4 with all features working as intended!"
[11] Thomas Grip: "In a little more than a month [from mid-October 2014], the whole of the game will be pretty much set in stone. After that several months of polish will follow and then we'll be finished and the game will be ready for release."
[12] Frictional Games: "Major #SOMA milestone tomorrow: Pre-Pre Beta. All major features are in & we'll play the entire game from start to finish for the first time" [13th November 2014]
[13] Thomas Grip: "The testing took an average of 11 hours per person. This includes a lot of note-taking, quick discussions and bug-fixing. But, given prior experience, this should give a decent estimate of what it will take the average (and non stressing) player to complete SOMA."
[14] Blog post describing SOMA's pre-Beta status.
[15] Mikael Hedberg: "Heading back home after recording the final V.O with @SideUK. SOMA should be all set. Last line was fittingly: "Back off okay!""
[16] Frictional Games: "If all goes according to plan the beta for SOMA, our upcoming sci-fi horror game, will be done in 4 weeks. It feels both exciting and scary that the game is really nearly completed now. After several years of hard work, release is finally a clearly visible milestone."
[17] Frictional Games: "So today is the last full day before we our internal beta is done. We are all extermely nervous and excited at the same time."
[18] Thomas Grip: [In response to a question about the timing of the Beta phase] "The beta build will (unless something weird happens) be done tomorrow and sent out to testers. "
[19] Thomas Grip: "Finally! Pushed a button and mails with Beta keys are now being sent to our testers." [written on the 15th of April 2015]
[20] Thomas Grip: "Now that Beta is done, our next deadline is Release."
[21] Thomas Grip: "So far the average tester's time to complete SOMA is 9h 30min."
[22] The official announcement of the game's release date on the Frictional Games website.
[23] Thomas Grip: "Just concluded the final beta test with around 40 testers" [written on the 22nd of May 2015]
[24] Frictional Games: "Just sent out a preview build of SOMA. Next major mile-stone: FINAL RELEASE!"
[25] Frictional Games: "The PS4 version of SOMA is almost done now." [written on the 14th of August 2015]
[26] Frictional Games: "SOMA's mac version is pretty much done now." [written on the 17th of August 2015]
[27] Frictional Games: "SOMA is now in content lock mode! The remaining time will solely be used to test, fix bugs and do minor tweaks." [written on the 28th of August 2015]
[28] "The game will be released for PS4 and PC [...]"
[29] Anonymous: "By PC, does that mean that it supports Mac and Linux?" Thomas: "That is the plan!"
[30] "Our own game engine goes under the name HPL and uses industry standard technologies such as OpenGL, OpenAL and Newton Game Dynamics. HPL1 has been released as open source and HPL2 was recently used in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The engine is currently undergoing an extensive update and the new version is cleverly named HPL3. HPL3 is being used in our upcoming unannounced game."
[31] Blog post about the Sunlight & Shadows feature.
[32] Blog post about the Terrain feature.
[33] Blog post about the HDR feature.
[34] Blog post about the HPSL feature.
[35] Thomas Grip: "We will have [anti-aliasing] in the final release, just not had it as a prio yet. So no worries!"
[36] In this thread, the question about particle collision is asked of one of the game's developers, to which he responds "Yep, particle collision is a feature in HPL3."
[37] Peter Wester: "When I added Depth of Field to the engine...". The reference includes a screenshot of the effect.
[38] Peter Wester: "HPL3 supports [...] Colored Specular..."
[39] Thomas Grip: "One feature that I think people will notice especially is the streaming, which means there will be no loading screens between levels."
[40] Thomas Grip: "We were planning on using tessellation to get detail offset mapping on the terrain, but we ran out of time to update the art to support it. It is in the engine though, so modders will be able to play around with it."
[41] A blog post which discusses the addition of the "Fly Mode" functionality to the Level Editor.
[42] A blog post which discusses the addition of the "Poser EditMode" functionality to the Level Editor.
[43] A blog post which discusses the addition of the "Colour Picker" functionality to the Level Editor.
[44] This blog post covers the new features of the Particle Editor listed above.
[45] Source of quoted text.
[46] "Grip says Soma wasn't even going to be a horror game at first. Originally, it was meant to be a game that explored the idea of consciousness. But then horror just happened to be the best vessel to express that idea. Over the course of two years, Soma was increasingly identifiable as a horror game. It's as if Frictional couldn't escape from it."
[47] Source of quoted text.
[48] Source of quoted text.
[49] Thomas Grip: "What happens to thinking in games, it's the opposite of reality. The more you interact with a character, the less real and complex they become. They become more and more mechanistic, an automaton. In real life, of course, the more you interact with someone, the more you understand them. But in games it's the opposite."
[50] Source of quoted text.
[51] Thomas Grip: "It might also be interesting to look into 'a fate worse than death', a subject that's perhaps too big to cover here (check here for some examples in various media). This is something we're trying out for SOMA right now. The basic idea is that "death" is not final but takes the player closer and closer to a very disturbing state of being."
[52] Samuel Justice: "Recently I have been working on the sci-fi horror SOMA. This has been an incredible challenge as the game takes place both in indoor and underwater environments. Which has meant we have had to essentially create two entirely different soundscapes to achieve this. We did not want to use global processes or DSPs for underwater (such as a blanket low pass or reverb). Everything has been hand crafted for both soundscapes which has been a fantastic challenge."
[1] Jens Nilsson: "We started Soma in 2010. Just before we finished Amnesia, our previous horror."
[2] "At Frictional Games our main concern is our new super secret project."
[3] This forum post marks the beginning of a now-merged thread from September 2012, which was entitled "Frictional Games Super Secret Project Thread".
[4] "We are currently working on a new, currently super secret, horror game where we aim to take what we learned from Amnesia to the next level. This is what you will be a part of creating." [written on the 3rd of June 2013]
[5] "After more than two weeks of teasing, we are happy to properly announce our new game: SOMA."
[6] Thomas Grip: "So early 2015 sometime it’s going to release."
[7] Thomas Grip: "The game is by far the most ambitious and thrilling project we have ever undertaken."
[8] Thomas Grip: "We are currently about a week away from the alpha of the game. [...] It’s currently clocking in at around five hours, meaning the final game will end up at eight hours or so." [written on the 4th March 2014]
[9] Thomas Grip: "Right now I would say we built three quarters of the game in terms of content, the script is written and the dialogue is recorded."
[10] Frictional Games: "#SOMA now runs on PS4 with all features working as intended!"
[11] Thomas Grip: "In a little more than a month [from mid-October 2014], the whole of the game will be pretty much set in stone. After that several months of polish will follow and then we'll be finished and the game will be ready for release."
[12] Frictional Games: "Major #SOMA milestone tomorrow: Pre-Pre Beta. All major features are in & we'll play the entire game from start to finish for the first time" [13th November 2014]
[13] Thomas Grip: "The testing took an average of 11 hours per person. This includes a lot of note-taking, quick discussions and bug-fixing. But, given prior experience, this should give a decent estimate of what it will take the average (and non stressing) player to complete SOMA."
[14] Blog post describing SOMA's pre-Beta status.
[15] Mikael Hedberg: "Heading back home after recording the final V.O with @SideUK. SOMA should be all set. Last line was fittingly: "Back off okay!""
[16] Frictional Games: "If all goes according to plan the beta for SOMA, our upcoming sci-fi horror game, will be done in 4 weeks. It feels both exciting and scary that the game is really nearly completed now. After several years of hard work, release is finally a clearly visible milestone."
[17] Frictional Games: "So today is the last full day before we our internal beta is done. We are all extermely nervous and excited at the same time."
[18] Thomas Grip: [In response to a question about the timing of the Beta phase] "The beta build will (unless something weird happens) be done tomorrow and sent out to testers. "
[19] Thomas Grip: "Finally! Pushed a button and mails with Beta keys are now being sent to our testers." [written on the 15th of April 2015]
[20] Thomas Grip: "Now that Beta is done, our next deadline is Release."
[21] Thomas Grip: "So far the average tester's time to complete SOMA is 9h 30min."
[22] The official announcement of the game's release date on the Frictional Games website.
[23] Thomas Grip: "Just concluded the final beta test with around 40 testers" [written on the 22nd of May 2015]
[24] Frictional Games: "Just sent out a preview build of SOMA. Next major mile-stone: FINAL RELEASE!"
[25] Frictional Games: "The PS4 version of SOMA is almost done now." [written on the 14th of August 2015]
[26] Frictional Games: "SOMA's mac version is pretty much done now." [written on the 17th of August 2015]
[27] Frictional Games: "SOMA is now in content lock mode! The remaining time will solely be used to test, fix bugs and do minor tweaks." [written on the 28th of August 2015]
[28] "The game will be released for PS4 and PC [...]"
[29] Anonymous: "By PC, does that mean that it supports Mac and Linux?" Thomas: "That is the plan!"
[30] "Our own game engine goes under the name HPL and uses industry standard technologies such as OpenGL, OpenAL and Newton Game Dynamics. HPL1 has been released as open source and HPL2 was recently used in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The engine is currently undergoing an extensive update and the new version is cleverly named HPL3. HPL3 is being used in our upcoming unannounced game."
[31] Blog post about the Sunlight & Shadows feature.
[32] Blog post about the Terrain feature.
[33] Blog post about the HDR feature.
[34] Blog post about the HPSL feature.
[35] Thomas Grip: "We will have [anti-aliasing] in the final release, just not had it as a prio yet. So no worries!"
[36] In this thread, the question about particle collision is asked of one of the game's developers, to which he responds "Yep, particle collision is a feature in HPL3."
[37] Peter Wester: "When I added Depth of Field to the engine...". The reference includes a screenshot of the effect.
[38] Peter Wester: "HPL3 supports [...] Colored Specular..."
[39] Thomas Grip: "One feature that I think people will notice especially is the streaming, which means there will be no loading screens between levels."
[40] Thomas Grip: "We were planning on using tessellation to get detail offset mapping on the terrain, but we ran out of time to update the art to support it. It is in the engine though, so modders will be able to play around with it."
[41] A blog post which discusses the addition of the "Fly Mode" functionality to the Level Editor.
[42] A blog post which discusses the addition of the "Poser EditMode" functionality to the Level Editor.
[43] A blog post which discusses the addition of the "Colour Picker" functionality to the Level Editor.
[44] This blog post covers the new features of the Particle Editor listed above.
[45] Source of quoted text.
[46] "Grip says Soma wasn't even going to be a horror game at first. Originally, it was meant to be a game that explored the idea of consciousness. But then horror just happened to be the best vessel to express that idea. Over the course of two years, Soma was increasingly identifiable as a horror game. It's as if Frictional couldn't escape from it."
[47] Source of quoted text.
[48] Source of quoted text.
[49] Thomas Grip: "What happens to thinking in games, it's the opposite of reality. The more you interact with a character, the less real and complex they become. They become more and more mechanistic, an automaton. In real life, of course, the more you interact with someone, the more you understand them. But in games it's the opposite."
[50] Source of quoted text.
[51] Thomas Grip: "It might also be interesting to look into 'a fate worse than death', a subject that's perhaps too big to cover here (check here for some examples in various media). This is something we're trying out for SOMA right now. The basic idea is that "death" is not final but takes the player closer and closer to a very disturbing state of being."
[52] Samuel Justice: "Recently I have been working on the sci-fi horror SOMA. This has been an incredible challenge as the game takes place both in indoor and underwater environments. Which has meant we have had to essentially create two entirely different soundscapes to achieve this. We did not want to use global processes or DSPs for underwater (such as a blanket low pass or reverb). Everything has been hand crafted for both soundscapes which has been a fantastic challenge."