By Jim Rossignol on June 15th, 2011 at 8:47 am.
Canvas is a Half-Life 2 Ep 2 modification that, as mods go, is one of the most impressively produced efforts you are likely to see. It tells the story of a girl with psychic powers, her psychically animated/possessed teddy bear, and the disappearance of her father, which the pair must investigate. Canvas is a 3D puzzle game, where the protagonist and her companion bear must use their powers to overcome obstacles and defeat enemies. Intriguingly, it’s also set within the worlds of various paintings, which they must enter to unravel the mystery.
The teaser is below, and it’s genuinely worth watching.
15/06/2011 at 08:51 Brutal Deluxe says:
After suffering from E3 trailer fatigue, I have to say this has restored the balance. Even the Bloom logo is great.
15/06/2011 at 14:00 Hoaxfish says:
I kinda want a game were you run around as a suited flower-headed man
15/06/2011 at 08:54 terry says:
Cripes, that’s some atmospheric pixels.
15/06/2011 at 08:56 McDan says:
Just…wow. That looks thoroughly amazing.
15/06/2011 at 08:58 tKe says:
Sinister indeed… certainly one to watch.
Also – anyone know what the music is?
15/06/2011 at 09:05 Heliosicle says:
The xx – Fantasy
Awesome song + band.
15/06/2011 at 09:36 Temple says:
The youtube link for people who do not want to google “Fantasy XX” at work…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ26_buhHfI
And yeah, some of the other tracks are quite nice as well.
15/06/2011 at 10:15 heretic says:
I thought the vocals sounded like the xx – only previous song I’ve heard from them is crystalised!
15/06/2011 at 12:12 Alexnader says:
They’re SO good. I heard the low tone voices at the start and I was like “This sounds familiar… no they didn’t !”
I reckon this music and the music to the Asselations trailer were the best.
15/06/2011 at 08:58 Spider Jerusalem says:
That’s a p ill bass kick.
15/06/2011 at 09:02 Lightbulb says:
Funny if this makes me buy the HL2 Episodes… :)
Looks good. Hope it actually get finished and released.
15/06/2011 at 09:04 ChaosSmurf says:
3:06/3:06 – well, there goes my soul.
15/06/2011 at 09:06 The Sombrero Kid says:
As a gamer i’m excited for this, as a developer i worry about every first person adventure game that gets announced, i worry that by the time my game comes out, first person adventure will be like side scrolling platformer is now.
15/06/2011 at 09:23 Fod says:
That’s OK because this is a third person adventure game!
15/06/2011 at 09:25 The Sombrero Kid says:
That’s weirdly a big relief.
15/06/2011 at 10:52 Heliosicle says:
Whats your game? ;D
15/06/2011 at 09:06 The Promised Landt says:
Yes, but have you seen my bear Tibbers?
Also, awesome.
15/06/2011 at 10:10 dartt says:
Oh man, I miss League of Legends. I was having so much fun playing until some networking bug meant that every third or fourth game would be a laggy unplayable mess where I’d just be a liability to the team.
Annie and Tibbers were great.
15/06/2011 at 12:21 Nevard says:
Want to look at your bear?
TOO BAD IT’S ME BLACKSMITH!
15/06/2011 at 19:44 Highstorm says:
Annie immediately sprang to mind when reading this article :D
15/06/2011 at 09:07 daphne says:
Best thing about this trailer is that unlike the Dead Island one, I can genuinely hope that the presentation of the actual game will be similarly surreal. Awesome.
15/06/2011 at 09:08 Dana says:
Woah.
15/06/2011 at 09:09 Bullfrog says:
Not a comedy then?
Music sounds like Martin Grech, although that’s a complete stab in the dark.
15/06/2011 at 09:24 Fod says:
Nope – XX. How do people not know about this band still. They won, like, all the awards.
15/06/2011 at 14:41 DrGonzo says:
They didn’t deserve to win imo. I heard two fantastic songs, bought the album, and its proper shit. Apart from the two great songs they produced.
15/06/2011 at 09:13 Pictoru says:
Well actually…
[music starts]
…brain melting…
[music stops]
…hurr durr derp
15/06/2011 at 09:14 Nighthood says:
The fact that you go into paintings and stuff makes me hope it’ll have a Psychonauts vibe to it. I’ll be unbelievably happy if it does.
Oh, and is there a release date anywhere?
15/06/2011 at 13:58 Ignorant Texan says:
According to this thread, no release date yet.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?406-CANVAS-An-upcoming-Source-Engine-game-site-launch.
15/06/2011 at 09:14 Urael says:
Mod news! Mod news!
Also…cool.
15/06/2011 at 09:29 Temple says:
Ok, it looks great, but the next vid shows the menu and RPS needs to use its full power to stamp out the crime it blatantly displays.
SLOW MENUS!!!11!!!1!!!
Come on game designers I dislike loading times, but realise they must exist; there is no reason for a slow stupid menu is there?
15/06/2011 at 10:16 klo3 says:
Definitely agree!
Menus should work intuitively and fast. Drop the ‘funky’ menu for all I care and focus that energy on polishing the rest of the game. Use the default HL2 menu or make sure the modified one works really fast. A step from one menu item to another should take at most half the time it does now, and also make sure you can skip over items by clicking more than once (which should accelerate the transform to be as fast as a single step).
There’s too many games i never got around to play because of the menu being a hassle, and this looks like a game i definitely would like to try!
16/06/2011 at 03:23 srredfire says:
Don’t worry. The menu is a few years old now.
15/06/2011 at 09:29 DrazharLn says:
Yes! This is the kind of game that I want to play.
15/06/2011 at 09:29 Sp4rkR4t says:
A bit Psychonauts, a bit Alice all presented in the wonderful staleness possible in the Source engine.
Ok I’m interested in this now.
15/06/2011 at 09:35 MeestaNob says:
That was really impressive.
15/06/2011 at 09:44 12kill4 says:
Anyone notice the weird thing the helicopter does at 1:50-56? It half turns around and then reverts to its original orientation in a pointlessly incongruous fashion.
15/06/2011 at 10:42 tomeoftom says:
It was turning around to see if we were watching it.
15/06/2011 at 09:54 Warduke says:
Wow, that trailer is amazing.. Nice piece of work
15/06/2011 at 10:06 inertia says:
I can bearly wait.
(Come on RPS, it took this long for somebody to make a bear pun? You should be ashamed, all of you.)
15/06/2011 at 10:33 Vartesz says:
Bear with them, they’re working on it.
15/06/2011 at 10:40 JB says:
Quit ursine around guys.
Also STARING EYES TAG PLEASE!
15/06/2011 at 20:34 Scandalon says:
Fur sure!
15/06/2011 at 10:07 ynamite says:
Looking very impressive for an Ep. 2 mod … especially the scene where the room dissolves. I remember the one guy from Valve talking about how difficult it was to do the intro scene for Portal 2, where Chells room is breaking apart, it sounded like it had been one big workaround. I imagine they must be tipping their hats to the guy behind this scene here, if it is in game, that is.
16/06/2011 at 12:16 rapchee says:
i have a strong suspicion that the dissolving scene was edited together – there seemed to be too much shaking going on for both scenes and the character
15/06/2011 at 10:09 Evil Timmy says:
Sausage fingers!
15/06/2011 at 10:16 heretic says:
That is an amazing trailer, I don’t know how the game will be but I am genuinely interested after watching this!
I don’t think I’ve watched a trailer that made me want to play a game more than this.
15/06/2011 at 10:21 Tunips says:
Never mind the game, that was a genuinely extraordinary company logo.
15/06/2011 at 10:47 ynamite says:
Was thinking the exact same thing …
15/06/2011 at 10:36 tomeoftom says:
Holy shit.
15/06/2011 at 11:00 john_silence says:
Anyone else reminded of the large, living teddy bear in that terrifying Akira scene? Only this has got more of a dreamy dirge vibe. Thanks Heliosicle and Temple for the music info, and JB is right: where’s the staring eyes tag???
15/06/2011 at 14:07 Ignorant Texan says:
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought ‘Akira’ when I saw the video.
15/06/2011 at 11:07 mashakos says:
Let’s hope the developers have what it takes to bring this level of atmosphere to the actual mod, and not be stuck at having one dude with l33t Adobe After Effects skills.
15/06/2011 at 11:38 Theory says:
Go to the site and click on Screenshots. (I’d link but the site uses funny AJAX loading and pages can’t be accessed directly.)
15/06/2011 at 11:40 Nallen says:
It’s so sad to see the staring eyes tag all but abandoned these days. Rarely is a finer example seen in the wild.
15/06/2011 at 11:48 Valvarexart says:
They should have looked into the name better. Canv.as is a upcoming site from Moot, the founder of 4chan. It is in beta right now, but when it gets opened to the public it will be a pretty huge site.
15/06/2011 at 12:27 CMaster says:
Honestly, they’ve picked a semi-common noun. Kinda a given it will be used elsewhere, but not a bad idea.
I like that canv.as site though, trying to get back the old spirit of photoshopping and content generation that 4chan used to have before it got far too big.
15/06/2011 at 12:06 Shadrach says:
Whoa, best choice of trailer music since, well, since the Dead Island trailer.
15/06/2011 at 12:36 mda says:
Haha. Yep :)
15/06/2011 at 12:38 mda says:
Not qualify for ‘staring eyes’ tag?
15/06/2011 at 12:45 JohnnyMaverik says:
Trailer of the year!!!!!
Hope the mod lives up to it…
15/06/2011 at 13:09 Bodminzer says:
That made my stomach feel weird in the best way.
15/06/2011 at 13:34 sigma83 says:
Bebas (the word on the cupboard near the end) means ‘Free’ in malay.
Just my contribution.
15/06/2011 at 14:17 Josh Brandt says:
Is that Kieron slouching around at 1:15 there?
15/06/2011 at 14:27 The_Great_Skratsby says:
Evil moustache! I’m interested.
15/06/2011 at 14:33 RagingLion says:
I love the promise that this holds and the tone of the trailer. This is indeed the kind of left-field stuff that I want to see more of – I’ll wait to see what the actual experience of the game feels like first before lauding it too much.
15/06/2011 at 14:40 srredfire says:
Glad you guys like what you’ve seen, stay tuned for more in the future!
15/06/2011 at 16:28 Zyrxil says:
Fantastic trailer. I don’t know if the mod will get finished, but the trailer is something people would be proud to have in their portfolios.
15/06/2011 at 16:41 Seraph says:
Oh hey, Paranoia Agent!
15/06/2011 at 17:32 faelnor says:
Does everything need a GITS reference?
15/06/2011 at 19:41 Ayam says:
2:35 Not polite to call the audience w*****s, he must be the bad guy
16/06/2011 at 13:16 Ralphomon says:
Wow, looks like another excellent game I’ll be too terrified to play, following in the fine tradition of Amnesia, Penumbra and The Void!
18/06/2011 at 16:09 sfury says:
The Force is strong with this one.
14/03/2012 at 15:33 Mattress Specialist says:
good like another good game! Carn’t wait.