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We don't know how much of the original games will be in their remakes, I like to think of them as stepping stones, that provide the context and the core of what we were trying to achieve.

Although our original three games are all web-based HTML5 games, we decided to go native for this remake. The engine is being written in C++ using SFML, and we plan on packaging all three games into one standalone executable. We'll be releasing this cross-platform to boot, thanks to the libraries we're using.

This is our first non-jam project, and I'm excited to see what we can do when not restricted to 72 hours  :)

Work on Two of Us


Today I'm finishing up work modeling the main character of Two of Us.  Originally the idea was to animate the vector work I've already done, avoiding the paper cut-out feel by replacing parts with their angled counterparts/using shape keys per frame, unfortunately that's a lot of extra work.

That 2d look is really what I'm after, and a lot of that rides on the shading, but I haven't found a way of lighting/material combinations that can do that for me.  To get this, I'll be cloning the model per animation, and doing custom shading through material colors.

Character Design

When redesigning the character, I was making decisions that would make him stand out as the hero of the story.  I removed his visor, and gave him a face to relate to.  In the original game he's wielding a sword, I decided to give him a hammer instead, I think it's more versatile as a weapon, and makes his design less generic, also giving him a recognizable silhouette.  A lot of time was spent deciding his color combinations.  During jams I don't really have the time to think of these things, the designs just come out and I'm usually stuck with them till the end.

also scope cut, for now we're focusing on Two of Us

also we're looking for a musician/sound guy

to join our team, pm me or ekun - we're nice dudes, for this we're looking for someone who can do pretty epic orchestral and atmospheric music zelda oot ish music.

Level Editor: The beginning

I've spent the past couple of days creating the basis of the level editor we'll be using throughout our development. It doesn't have many features yet because we still have to flesh out some of the game design/mechanics, but it's a start. I think separating the level editor into a different tool slows down iterating on design, so I've designed the editor to be able to seamlessly load, edit, save, and test levels quickly.

This isn't the first time I've made a level editor for one of our games, but this is the first time I'll be trying to make it as user-friendly as possible. I'd like to make a tool that doesn't require a huge amount of time to get familiar with, something I haven't had the luxury of with previous editors due to time constraints. Eventually, it might even be cool to release the editor alongside the game so players can create their own adventures... but we'll see  :)

So modeling was a load of wasted effort, but I might still end up using it for something ...  :yawn: I'm gonna put it down because I can't get the model to look right, and I'm quite anal about it looking right.  To have more control over my animations, I started to work more with shape keys in blender.

A brief tutorial on Shape Keys YAY

(http://media.tumblr.com/eba55d58bc9e29f3910751e2807d614a/tumblr_inline_mujvbhsaWF1r2bnzm.png)

So yea I'm going to talk about shape keys briefly.  Shape Keys are used to tween meshes.  You can find the shape key panel when you have a mesh object selected, in your properties window, there's a panel that looks like this.  An object starts with no shape keys, you can add a shape with the PLUS symbol.  The first shape key will be called "Basis", this is what all the shape keys will tween from, whatever your mesh looks like in the current view3d scene that is what this shape key mesh looks like.  You can add subsequent keys following Basis, they will be titled "Key#" (you can change their names, as I have here to "Forward"). Now to Edit the mesh associated to the shape key, you have to have the shape key selected, (highlighted in blue like in this picture).  Tab into edit mode, and move your vertices around.  Now if you've tabbed out, your mesh will default to the Basis shape key.  That's because your "Value" of your shape key (see image), will start out at 0.0, sliding this value will tween between your basis shape key and your current shape key. KEYING In the picture the value of the shape key forward is highlighted yellow, which means it's been keyed.  You can key almost any numeric property (including colors) in blender by right clicking the property and choosing "Set keyframe". Quote tip: there's another option in the right click menu, called "Add to Keying Set", a keying set is a set of properties you'd like key at once, when you press the insert keyframe shortcut "i".  Saves a shitty load of ton time.  You can add any number of properties to a keying set.  You can change the keying set, in the toolbar of the timeline window

Still there are some things you don't want to use shape keys for.  like when a graphic does a 90 degree turn revealing the backside of the object, for that you'll want a seperate graphic for the appropriate angle to replace that graphic.  I wrote a blender plugin for that, I'll probably post a link to / talk about... sometime.

I think thats some of the nicest looking 2D character art i've ever seen.

Looks at odds with tiles though. I think dropping in images and then drawing collision over the top for more of a 'painted bg' look would be much better.

:) thanks greg, really looking forward to how the rest of the game comes out.  But yea the gif eugene posted is using placeholder graphics from the previous game, none of that will be used in the new release.  most like we'll be using tiles and a combination of 'free' images (as in not tiles) to build our environments, they'll be vector based also, with textures applied.

another centered gif:

We're jamming today, making good progress, should be done with most of the player animations. Some of them are a little spotty and I'll probably revisit them. Tomorrow I'll get started on the world and some game design work.  We'll have something playable by the end of the month so look for that.

also yea took off his shield because it's kind of an impractical design, he'll be pretty agile in this game, movement's a big focus.

And we found a musician Sam English (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=39266)!  We're stoked like super stoked, like smiles splitting our faces stoked

transferring the drawing over to a proper vector animation program, I love blender and all, but my current way of animating is way too hacky.

edit: sooo much better.

Some progress on the level editor, including the tile palette selection and some gui features.
I also changed the tile painting to be based on a line drawing algorithm, so no more blank skips when dragging the cursor too fast!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46434785/attack.gif)
rough rough rough

We've also finally settled on a design for our game. :)

Changes:
-Character can hang on edges and climb up as well.
-Level editor has a bunch of new features
-Some early environment art

On a side note, I need to learn GIF magic so I can make longer and better quality gifs

such hotness

 :) dank u.  Spent last night, filling out the rest of the grass/cliff tilesheet, it could be tweaked but for the most part I'm happy with it.  Continuing work on the environment today, should have the tileset for the first area complete in a day or two.

I'm gonna get some sleep here's a ss of the new tiles:


edit: treeeeees

Wooop - that looks beauuutiful. Love the editor too - looks like it would be really quick to work with. Keep the screenshots coming!

Finished implementing a bunch of features in the editor, including support for parallax tile layers and colored layers. I just need to add the GUI counterparts to the features so you can change everything without using console comands.

Kyle's been working on the first boss, and the combat mechanics are coming together, exciting!

Here's a gif showing off parallax + Keo's tree art:

the art is soo gorgeous!! reminds me of Shelter.
I for one would love to see another attempt at modelling the character, I think there could be something nice there.

lovely art, man.

I agree, Keo's art is spot on :)

On the technical side of things, more level editor progress!

Features include:

• Layer editing widget for visibility, colors, and parallax
• Animated doodads on any background layer
• Copy and paste by holding shift and dragging an entity

Nice, nice! Looks promising!

 :gentleman: thank you

model is done. what.  yea animating everything by hand takes so long, and I've been burning out pretty hard the last few weeks.  so I'm trying to corners.  I'll be doing a paint over pass when most of the assets are in, but this works for now/

huh. the model on previous page looked pretty good what happened.  Here's a preview of his basic attack.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46434785/Gifs/attack.gif)

ffsdsdaf

The basic attack animation kinda looks like it's missing a frame or two, maybe it's just me. Would be cool if he would hold the hammer with both hands, would make a more powerful impression.

I really like the progress of the art. It is very story-book ish -- in a good way :)

Two weeks ago, after deliberating as a team, we decided to stop working on The Two of Us. We realized that the project we had in mind was too ambitious, and decided to pivot and start a new smaller, more focused project.

Mini Postmortem

Before starting on TTOU, our vision for the game was relatively simple: a remake of one of our game jam projects (http://ekun.nukenine.com/two/). However the premise rapidly expanded. This was our first major project, and two of us were going to be working full time on the game. Of course we could add that feature!

We tried to ignore the scope creep in the beginning, but along with the increased scope numerous questions arose that we struggled to answer. How should combat work? Will there be character progression? What's the new story? Will we be able to finish this game?

Instead of having a concrete design for our expanding game, we had a nebulous concept of something grandiose. Keo was pumping out beautiful looking assets, and Kyle and I worked on an increasingly complex level editor/engine. We were all getting a bit lost in our own work. At a certain point, we realized we needed to set a milestone for a playable prototype because we weren't getting anywhere. We set aside a month of time, and started working hard to finish the list of features and assets we needed for the minimal prototype of our game. Halfway through the month, we were no where close to finishing the prototype. At this point, we had a decision to make. We could either keep trucking ahead and finish this game no matter how long it took, or set aside TTOU and start anew on a smaller, better planned game. We pressed the reset button.

What Now?

Using the lessons learned from working on TTOU, we've started on a new project. It's still in early development, but we're very excited about it. More details coming soon, stay tuned!

Good choice. Looking foward to your new project.

learned a lot about what I'm capable of and not capable of while working during that month.  I never stopped to consider the toll of working at higher resolutions, considering it takes 4-6x as long, you not only have to consider time, but also have to factor motivation over time.  With wanting to get funding as soon as possible, it just tacked on unnecessary stress as progress seemed super slow.  Even though it seemed like I was putting in a lot but not getting much out of it.

This current project is going smooth, like breezy breezy - was able to make more progress in a couple of days than the whole month of working on ttou.

From your title I thought you was remaking the AAA game.

What AAA game?

Well, I keep confusing Last of Us and Two Souls (because you know, Ellen Page)... So for a while I imaginated a single Ellen Page game named Two of Us.


Now I wonder, it would be nice to put a ellen page cameo, no?

 :-\
i dunno whatcha talking about
 :shrug2:
yea the main char's design was based on ellen page

I love it.

I especially love those little editor GIFs. I'm a massive fan of seeing people's level editors, really gives me inspiration when creating my own which is needed since it can be so daunting.

The art is indescribable, it's minimal yet it has a really nice feel to it... I think you've hit the nail on the head for originality there!