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[tamaraj]

We here at Snowed In Studios are excited to finally talk about our first independent PC-based game—Windforge. Still in the development process, we will be posting regular updates on its progress here for all to follow. Currently on milestone three of six, the final game is expected to be released later this year. More information is also available on the website at www.windforgegame.com.

Windforge is a building-block RPG located in a beautiful and exotic sky world. It empowers you with total creative freedom to create airships for exploration and combat. These creations will be put to the test while you try to survive the hardships of the skies while unraveling its mysteries.

What is Windforge?
I (Evan, Creative Director for Windforge) want to elaborate on that now and talk a bit more about what it is about. Windforge is all about exploration, construction, and combat.

Exploration
Exploration, discovery, and the freedom to go where you want are all focuses of Windforge.  To make this a satisfying experience, we are putting a lot of time into creating high quality visuals, and a rich, exotic diesel punk inspired world to discover.
One of my goals with the design of this game is to avoid artificial constraints as much as possible.  By that, I mean I want to avoid invisible walls and other design hacks as much as I can.  There will still be some physical and difficulty based constraints to help enforce the progression of the game, but I would love it if people can figure out ways to beat the game stupidly fast by utilizing the rules of the game.  (you’ll have to send me a video if you do   )  I want the game to embrace cleverness, not penalize it.

One other aspect of the game that will enhance exploration is the procedural generation of the environments and other parts of the game. This means that the computer will create a unique environment for you every time you play the game.  Even we won’t know exactly what you’ll get!  A funny side effect of this feature is that the sense of exploration and discovery won’t be dead even for us developers making it.  (And we will be seeing this game full time for quite a while.)

Construction
Construction encompasses the building, crafting, and customization features of the game.
It’s all about freedom of expression and meaningful choices.  The primary way you will travel through the world is through the use of flying airships.  These airships will be constructed using the building blocks and items of the game.  These blocks and items that you use to create your ships will not just be aesthetic.  They will serve functional purposes.

My goal is to make the system rich enough that you will be able to create your ships for specific purposes.  For example, if you’re starting to find mining for resources tedious, turn your ship into a bulldozer.  (Just don’t be sad after you’ve destroyed the beautiful world you live in!)

Finally, with a few exceptions like quest items, ancient artifacts, and money, almost all items seen in the game will be craftable.

Combat
Windforge features easy to control, skill based combat. Expect to see action and controls, similar to what you’ve seen in games like contra, castlevania, or the old Dos game Abuse.

One of the fun things about the environment in this game is that it is completely destructible.  This means that your weapons will not only damage enemies, they’ll also damage the environment too.  Also, since all of the components of a ship are functional, we get advanced damage modelling for free.  Therefore, if you want to cripple an enemy ship, you’ll be able to shoot out its propellers, engines, or even its control panel.

All in all, I’m having a blast making this game.  If we can get just a fraction of our dreams into it, it will be awesome.


Below are some concept art pieces for Windforge. We plan on updating everyone on it's development here as well as though our blog.

Our last blog post about The Ships of Windforge can be found here: http://snowedin.ca/the-ships-of-windforge/

[DustyDrake]

Are those pictures mockups?

[sis_matt]

They are mock-ups. The in-game visuals are already looking pretty close, but as you can imagine - there's lots of work to do.

[sugarbeard]

Having had the pleasure of actually seeing this in motion (and knowing the dudes behind it), I can safely say that this is going to be awesome! I can't wait to see more from it!!

[tamaraj]

THE ART OF WINDFORGE

www.snowedin.ca/the-art-windforge

This week I’m going to talk about the art of Windforge and the world and cultural framework that it is based on.

We have a few high level goals for our art:

Represent and support the gameplay:  You might be able to argue that this is the most important purpose of the art.  The art and animations should clearly represent what is going on in the game, and important objects should be easily identifiable and easy to learn.  Function is also an important part of Windforge, so you will find that much of what you see in the game will serve a gameplay or implied purpose.

Represent the world and culture of Windforge:  Windforge will be based in a rich and interesting world to explore and experience, and it is important that the art reflects this.  Much of the fashion and technology of the game derives its inspiration from dieselpunk, and as a result much of the art will be dieselpunk inspired.  I’ll write a bit more on how dieselpunk was chosen below.  I’m also interested in exploring the contrast between the natural environment and human-made technology, and I believe the art will be a great way to show this.

High quality and easily recognizable:   The art of Windforge will probably be the first thing that people will see and notice in the game.  I would love it if people are able to instantly recognize our game just by looking at a screen shot.  We also believe that the art style will help distinguish us from other games in this genre.  This is part of the reason that we chose to use a hand drawn 2D art style over a rendered and lit up 3D.  (Not to mention that it probably helps keep our costs down.)  Personally, I love hand drawn art in games, and I also love that the final game will likely look very close to our concepts because the art is hand drawn.

Windforge character concepts

DIESELPUNK
I have a confession to make.  I didn’t know what dieselpunk was before I started designing this game.  We originally chose steampunk for our framework to design Windforge’s technology, culture, art, etc.  We felt that steampunk fit well with the do-it-yourself, inventor, and crafting culture, that we wanted to portray in the game.  (Please refer to the links section at the bottom for more information about steampunk and dieselpunk.)

However, in our early concepts based on steampunk, I always found that what I was seeing wasn’t quite right and I didn’t know how to articulate it properly.  I wanted something kind of like steampunk but grittier and more down to earth.   An inside joke around the office even started that we need to “make it 30% dirtier”.  Eventually, I was introduced to dieselpunk and I thought it was a perfect framework to design the game.

This is exactly what we're thinking

This choice also helped constrain and refine the objects and technology found in the game, which in turn affected the gameplay.  I believe we found ourselves in a feedback loop between the art, game world, and gameplay, where everything inspires, constrains, and supports everything else.  I think this synergy will show, and I hope it will help create something special that people will love.

Windforge Dieselpunk inspired helmet and gas masks.

LINKS
Steampunk:    www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SteamPunk
Dieselpunk:  www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DieselPunk
Steampunk vs Dieselpunk:  www.lindsaykitson.com/2012/03/05/steampunk-vs-dieselpunk
Dieselpunk hovercraft art link:  www.hayenmill.deviantart.com/art/Dieselpunk-142841452

[tamaraj]

This week I’m going to talk a little bit about mining in Windforge, show off some screen shots, and talk about some cool things that our mining feature will let us do.

One of our visual goals with Windforge is to make the game look as close to the concept art as we can.  The major challenge with this, is that we also want to make the world entirely out of rectangular shaped blocks.  The organic, irregular shapes of the environment and the rectangular shapes of the blocks are entirely at odds with each other.

We experimented with a few things and ended up coming up with a solution with really cool results in my opinion.  Here are a few screenshots of it in action  (With a mix of actual and placeholder art).

This feature has some really cool benefits in my mind:

- It lets us achieve the look and feel of the environment concepts we want while also making the entire world minable.
- You don’t have to stare at blocks all the time.
- We can make objects with arbitrary shapes minable.

This last point is one of the things I’m the most excited about, since the possibilities for it are huge.  In fact, I was so excited about it that I ended up prototyping it on one of the creatures that will be in Windforge:  the Skywhale.

The Skywhales in Windforge are going to be huge.  They will be the size of large ships or small islands.  They will also an important resource for the world’s people, and will be hunted and exploited for whale oil.  (It’s a whale oil based economy.)  This made them perfect candidates for me to try making them minable.  Here are some screenshots of this in action.  (Please note that the art is placeholder.)

The results are gruesome in my opinion, but also have some cool possibilities.  Now when Skywhales die, they won’t just disappear into a puff of smoke.  Instead, their bodies will be integrated into the gameplay.  So, if you want to harvest their blubber and meat, you’re going to have to work for it now.  We may even put loot in their bellies that you will have to dig for.  Finally, if you feel like it you could even dig out the corpses and build houses or other structures.  (If you’re into that kind of thing.)   Maybe over time, they could even rot, have plants grow from them, and eventually form into new islands.

The potential cool things that can stem from this has my mind racing.  The only thing that is bothering me is that much of the gameplay in Windforge encourages harvesting and exploiting the world.  This has gotten me thinking that the game may actually be a good candidate to explore and show the results of certain environmental issues.  For instance, things like over logging, and strip-mining are basically inherent in the gameplay.  Other issues like extinction would also be easy to add, especially with creatures like Skywhales.  Aside from some potentially tricky gameplay balancing issues to consider, I think one of the challenges would be to give people reasons not to exploit the world.  Much of the gameplay will push people to exploit the world, but perhaps if we can make people take pride and care about the world, maybe we can persuade them to do it in a responsible manner.

I’m not sure about how much of these environmental issues will make it into the game, but it’s definitely something that’s on my mind.  At the very least, it will be possible to harvest almost every block in the game.  In fact, with the right ship construction, you might even be able to do it without it getting too slow and tedious.  Please be responsible.  If you mine everything, there will be nothing left in the world but empty husks of islands.

View the post at http://snowedin.ca/harvesting-world-windforge/

[moi]

yeah this concept looks very cool, just make the interiors less blocky

[DustyDrake]

That entire post was him talking about how he was trying to find a way to get the organic world to mesh with the blocky building style and you go and say 'No make it less blocky'?

Seems kinda rude to me.

[Eigen]

I don't know ... I'd have an issue with drilling into an animal like this. Looks like a very cruel thing to do :/ Even if they are already dead ...

I know animals are killed all of the time (in games as well) and I don't have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with killing animals for anything other than food. Like rhino horns and furs and whatnot. In your case whale oil. Seeing and knowing about the cruelty people are able to commit on animals just makes me so angry. The amount of animals that have become extinct or are driven to the brink of extinction just because of the greed of humans ... "ooh, it has horns. I want them on my wall!" ... it's mind boggling.

I'm just saying it crosses a certain line for me and I wouldn't want to play it and I'm pretty sure it does so for many people. Other than that, the game looks really good.

[ehahnda]

I agree that it does feel cruel.  On the other hand drilling into whales will not be a required activity in the game.  Freedom of expression and choice is really important for this game, and I think having the choice to be cruel or not will let people express their values in the game.

One thing I'm interested in exploring is the idea of adding extinction to the game, and sky whales would make good candidate for this.  I also think it could be interesting and worthwhile to look at the dilemma of extinction and destroying the environment vs getting an important resources that people are dependent on. 

I'd love to hear people thoughts and opinions on this topic if there are any.

[sis_matt]

WINDFORGE'S GIANT DENIZENS
http://snowedin.ca/windforges-giant-denizens/
Upvote on Reddit /r/indiegaming/ if you think it's cool!

Last week I wrote a bit about the mining feature in Windforge, and how we can use it on other things in the game with organic shapes like skywhales.   In addition to skywhales we are also planning on putting in a few other large creatures in the game.

SKYWHALES
We are working on bringing the skywhale to life in the game right now.  Check out this screenshot of it in action so far.  (Please note that some of the art is still placeholder.)

Under normal circumstances in the game, skywhales will be docile unless provoked, so as long as you don’t bump them with your ship or shoot them, they shouldn’t bother you.  If you do provoke them, they will fight back aggressively, so be careful.  There will also be a giant boss version of the skywhale that will be tied into the main storyline.
The animations are coming to life as well.  Check out this animation of it opening its mouth:

GIANT SQUIDS
The giant squids will reside in the lower atmosphere of the world.   They will be very dangerous and aggressive, so care must be taken around them at all times.  I’m inspired by the ancient squids that lived on earth back in the Silurian Period (440 – 415 Million years ago).  We don’t have any concept art for the squids yet, but I think this image I found shows what I’m thinking pretty clearly.  (See link below for the source page)  

Like the sky whale, there will also be a boss version of the giant squid that will be tied into the main storyline.
 
TURTLE ISLANDS
Last but not least, are the turtle islands.  Like the name implies, they are giant turtles that use entire islands for their shells.  They are peaceful creatures that will run away if you hurt them.
I’m really excited about the turtles islands, because you will be able to build on, and drill in their shells without harming them.  (assuming you don’t drill too deep).  So, if you feel inclined, you will be able to make yourself a little house on a turtle back and drift around with them.
Please excuse my horrible coffee stained sketch, but I think the picture below shows what I’m thinking:

MINABLE ANIMALS?
Like the skywhale mining I was showing in my last post, I’m planning on making all of these creatures minable as well.  So far the response for the skywhale mining feature has been really positive, with the exception of a few people that are disgusted or think it’s cruel.  A few quick articles were even written about it that I linked at the bottom of this post.
I should point out that it is not our intention with this feature to promote animal cruelty.  In my opinion, animal mining is a very natural feature to include, since I want to make everything out of blocks that I can get away with.  Also, freedom of choice and expression is very important to this game.  You won’t be forced to kill and harvest whales, and you definitely won’t be forced to build castles out of their corpses.  The choice is there if you decide to take it, and I believe it would hurt the game to remove these choices.
I also think that mining whales is a choice that will let players express their values.  If you decide that killing whales is wrong, you can avoid killing whales and limit the number of whale based products you use in the game.  Alternatively, if you value wealth over the lives of whales, you can become a whale hunter.  Finally, if you’re amused by this sort of thing, you can strap a zeppelin balloon to a dead whale corpse and fly it around.  Either way, you have choices, and you can express your values the way you want.

LINKS:
Giant Squids Picture:  http://eonsepochsetc.com/Paleozoic/Silurian/silur_home.html
Skywhale Mining:
http://indiegames.com/2012/06/windforge_is_aerial_whalecraft.html
http://www.gamersdailynews.com/story-28573-Players-Will-be-able-to-Mine-Skywhales-in-Windforge.html

[tamaraj]

WINDFORGE PROGRESS UPDATE: HALFWAY TO CORDEUS
http://snowedin.ca/windforge-progress-so-far/
Up-vote on Reddit if you like this! http://bit.ly/Ma2Qef

Today I thought we would give you a quick update on Windforge’s overall development process. Things are currently moving along, and we are getting close to completing our third milestone.  After this, we will have three more milestones to go before we reach alpha.  In other words, we are basically half way to alpha!

Here are some fun screen shots of things we are working on right now (note that these are works in progress):

A temporary placeholder quest

Each one of our development milestones gives us some high level goals we are trying to achieve.  Finishing milestone three will give us the fundamental conceptual building blocks we need to build the more advanced features and content of the game  (not to be confused with the actual blocks in the game).

Here are some of the highlights that will be completed once we finish this milestone:

- Procedurally generated worlds
- Block, and object placement and destruction
- Mining
- Character movement and controls with the ability to aim 360 degrees
- Character armour customization
- Roughly 270 craftable items (and counting).
- Basic humanoid enemies
- Basic quests and NPC conversations
- The sky whale

There’s also a lot more to come.  We are going to cram in everything we can that makes sense in the time we have.  Here are a few highlights of what’s coming:

- Enemy ships
- Hireable ship crew members
- Special ship components like guns and drills
- The atmosphere layers like the poison gas layer
- The main quest line
- New creatures and boss enemies
- New weapons and items

Throughout our development process, I will continue my weekly blog posts on Thursday to keep everyone updated. If there are any topics that you would like to know more about for my upcoming posts, please let me know!

[Bones]

Wow I'd like to say this looking just great.

I was

similar to this long ago, though I didn't have an awesome cubular destruction mechanic in mine.
It was a 2d shmup where you went from island to island gathering resources and hauling them from place to place based on a sort of economy.

Anyways enough about my failed project.

Looking forward to seeing some ship/vehicle designs and what not.
Regardless of what anyone else thinks, I love that you can drill into the whale.

[ehahnda]

Thanks!

We'll have to show off what we have going for the ship stuff soon. 

It sucks that your game didn't work out.  It seems like something I would've enjoyed. 
 

[Windybeard]

This looks awesome, looking forward to see where this goes!

[tamaraj]

STUDIO TOUR: WINDFORGE
http://snowedin.ca/studio-tour-windforge/
Up-vote on Reddit if you like this! http://bit.ly/NbmhXd

As we move forward with the development of Windforge, signs of the game become more abundant around the office.  In light of this, we thought we would give you a tour of the office, Windforge style!

For those not familiar with the game development process, this should give you a better idea of what it looks like too!
 
CREATIVE DIRECTION
It all begins here: this is Evan. He is the creative director of the game, and is developing the narrative and game design that is the basis of Windforge. From there, we then design and develop all the features and functionality. Luckily, Evan is also a very skilled programmer!

Evan: Creative Director for Windforge

SCRUM BOARD
This is the Scrum Board. The team meets every week and determines the tasks to be completed and lists them on the board. Team members select what they want to work on, and move it to the ‘done’ column when finished! There are two of these; one for the artists and one for the programmers.

The Scrum Board

PRODUCTION
A task is picked up and work begins. The artists usually start by drafting concept materials and bringing the Windforge vision to life. It’s always impressive to watch as them use their creativity to build the pieces that will be featured in the game!

Tara drawing concepts for items in the game

Moving further through the office you come upon the programmers’ screens, where they build the elements that actually facilitate for gameplay.

Alex programming aspects of Windforge

FUN!
It’s not all work here, though. We also like to have fun with Windforge. This is the crazy ideas board. Here you’ll find anonymous ideas that may be “crazy”, but are usually also pretty awesome. Some of these may even get incorporated into the game.

The Crazy Ideas Board for Windforge

A few of us have the game logo as our backgrounds (download your own here!). Tara even has a rotating Glow Globe (or Glowbe) with a Windforge scene drawn on!

Tara’s Glowbe and the Windforge Background

We are thrilled to see Windforge coming to life as we start to bring the pieces of it together. As our last blog post stated we’re about halfway to Alpha so there’s still much work ahead of us, but we’re ready for it! The community support has been fantastic so far – and we hope you’re getting just as excited as we are to see this game in action!

(Most of) The Windforge Dream Team

[tamaraj]

CHOOSING THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY FOR WINDFORGE
Permalink: http://snowedin.ca/choosing-technology-windforge/
Up-vote on Reddit if you like this! http://bit.ly/LZ2wTy

This week we had Snowed In Studio's Co-founder JS write about our decision between DIY and off-the-shelf for Windforge's game engine. Enjoy!

When starting a project, one of the first questions that comes to the mind of the developer is “which technology should we choose for this game?”. When starting Windforge, we had to answer the same question and, although the decision was easy for us to make, I think it worthwhile and interesting to analyse.

When speaking of game development technology, we’re mainly referring to the game’s engine. Of course, other technologies are involved such as the operating system, computer type, server infrastructure, build system, continuous integration tools, bug tracking, etc. In this case, we’ll focus solely on the game engine.

The game engine is what delivers the experience to the user. Often, for marketing reasons companies will refer it as a 3D engine, because it speaks more to end users and it’s a great selling point, but engines are far more complex than only the rendering portion of it. Engines mainly do three things:

• Engines process input device signal (Keyboard, Mouse, Touch, Microphone, etc.) and translate it to game data.
• Engines handle game logic (Artificial Intelligence, User Interfaces, Physic simulation, Game Mechanics, etc.)
• Engines deliver content to user (Visual assets, kinetic feedback, music and sounds, etc.)

The Game Engine Process

We refer it to an “engine” because it is very similar in it’s behaviour to what’s under your car hood: something that takes your input (steering wheel, speed shift stick, pedals) and converts it to an experience (driving), using some internal resource (Oil, Gas, etc.).

When starting a new project, choosing the appropriate game engine plays a critical role.

The good news for developers is that there are a wide variety of options. Multiple technologies are available and developers can usually pick an existing engine without having to start from scratch every time. If the project design is the most important factor in the final decision (as is usual) multiple aspects are to be considered:

• Game Genre: For instance, puzzler, 2D Platformer and 3D open-space games all have very different technical needs
• Cost: Some engines are free to use, some have a low cost and others have a very high cost (easily up to the $1M range). While developing your own technology does not involve licensing costs (assuming it doesn’t make use of external tech), this approach has a lot of development costs that need to be factored in.
• Team experience: Ramping up on complex technology could hurt a project
• Multi-platform compatibility: Some engines are made to run on various types of devices (PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Web, Consoles, etc.), where others are targeting specific platforms.
• Technical Requirement Compatibility: Several platforms (especially game consoles) need your technology to follow strict technical rules. Some engines already are “compatible” and others need to be adapted
• Community: In some cases, support from the community or the company that licences the engine can be invaluable
• Source code access: Some engines are “black boxed” and developers cannot change the inner code. Others allow full-access and the ability to customize the technology. Most of the time, gaining access to the source code can be done at an extra cost. Sadly, it also means that your “custom engine” will no longer be supported by the company that sold it to you: in a way it is very similar to making modifications on your car engine!
• Game features: When picking your engine, you need to make sure that most of the features of your game will be supported by the technology
• Ease-of-use: Some engines are really hard to use, others are much simpler. Usually, the harder it is, the more flexibility it gives to the developers (but some engines are also just terribly designed). A proper evaluation of your technology with this in mind is critical to avoiding bad surprises…
• External tool support: Remember that a game engine is not only used by programmers. Having an engine with a simple pipeline that allows quick integration of art assets, design and UI is also a very important factor.
• Code language: Make sure your technology will be easy to understand by your development team, given their skill sets

In our case, Windforge is a 2D platformer, with some cool AI, RPG features, world generation and a lot of exploration. As we are working with an “indie” style budget, all really expensive engines were out of scope. Further, because of some of the unique aspects of the game – mainly those related to world generation – none of the existing technologies could provide us with an “out of the box” solution. We therefore knew that we would need to have access to a full source code. Also, most of the modern engines’ features were useless to us:

• Advanced 3D rendering (Adanced shaders, Lighting, Bump mapping, etc.)
• Cross platform technology (We are PC only, which does not mean that we won’t be supporting consoles and mobile, but this is not a priority)
• Advanced 3D physic simulation
• Networking support
• Advanced 3D Audio

Given these facts, most of the commercial solutions would have offered more features than we need and would have required us a lot of modification in order to enable our unique game features. Even the free solutions could not have been properly adapted to our needs.

Windforge’s Characteristics Require a Custom Engine

In the last two years, we have been prototyping some 2D games using no other technology than a simple engine we wrote ourselves. This engine was quite simple, but already had the following support:

• 2D Rendering – with basic shader support
• LUA script support – Allowing designers to do modification to game logic without having to change source code
• Basic UI framework – Allowing designers easily create their UI
• 2D physic integration – Box2D

Because the team was already comfortable with this technology and because it was already supporting several of our needs, it was clear to us that the smartest choice was to simply evolve this “Snowed In Studios” technology to the needs of Windforge. Of course a lot of effort was made in customizing the engine to Windforge’s needs, but at this stage it still seemed like the right decision. Nevertheless, we could be wrong since a lot of developers have tendencies to try to “reinvent the wheel” because they prefer to work on their technology. However, I think our analysis was well done and, in this case, working with external technology would have made things more complex.

[moi]

Are you trying to sell me something with all that corporate claptrap?
Because I have no money, bro

[sis_matt]

I think that graphic is meant for those of our readers who may need a little visual help with the general concept of a game engine. Maybe not on TIGSource, but elsewhere.

Even if we were trying to sell something with it though - no one has any money right now thanks to the Steam Summer Sale.

[zede05]

That's a good lookin' studio! I'd love hear an assessment of your engine choice at the end of the development cycle. I mean, making your engine still has a cost, and sometimes (most times) that cost will go above renting an engine and making changes to said engine. But you can't argue with results (which looks great!).