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[MartinM]

Make sure to follow us on Twitter to keep up on the development of the game

BitUp is a side scrolling, exploration Hack-N'-Slash game in a 3D-Impressionist world. A game kept hidden by its legendary creator, while its protagonist looks for answers.

This is the only statement I will make regarding BitUp: It’s a mistake. I have decided to stop its development and leave the industry altogether. The decision comes out of personal motives.

Maxine Levesque -Maxine Levesque - E3 1996 Interview

Hi everyone, My name is Martin Melendez and I'm speaking on behalf of the Cosmogonia team. We are a team of 7 working on our dream project. The team has worked together in the past in a couple other projects using UE3, but now we are working under a new banner and using UE4! We are currently working on a demo, while making weekly devlogs detailing the process, so feel free to discuss any aspect of the game, wether is code, shaders, art direction, gameplay, etc.

Click here to view a hi-res turntable .WebM

Inspired by early 90's action side scrollers and late 90's adventure games, players must aid Bit in its quest to find out what lies beyond. The game will feature a Hack-N'-Slash gameplay inspired gameplay. Think Samurai Shodown meets Megaman, coupled with item collection mechanics that reward exploration, a nonlinear level structure with tons of hidden content, and 3D-Impresionist look inspired by early 90's games, but as seen through the eyes of the habitants of the digital world.

Likewise, click here for a smoother hi-res .WebM

One more time, click here for a smoother hi-res .WebM

This is one of our earliest concept art pieces that defined how we wanted the game to look and feel.



And this is how the game looks right now in engine! We have been working on a custom shader that will allow us to quickly set the look of the scene, so that we can later add in details by painting over the geometry and using additional textures. The screenshot depicts the look only using the custom shader and lighting.



And now we set it all on FIRE!



And here is a sneak peek at the animation of one of our enemies.

We have a devlog at http://www.bitupgame.com/blog/ where we have been posting updates on the development of the game. We have already a couple of post talking about the process of creating BitUp's shading and lightning and setting up our project on UE4 We will be updating the blog and thread regularly, so keep an eye out. I will reiterate that we would love your feedback and we would love to engage with the rest of the community, so let us know what you think!

[TooKindStudio]

Hey, I just saw your teaser, looks promising. Keep the good work 

[Zorg]

I'm sorry, but once i had this impression (from a certain angle) i'm always seeing this in your main character: 

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

hahahaha.... i can't unsee it anymore.

cool design, reminds me of Little Battlers eXperience ダンボール戦機. 

[Christian]

Oh wow this looks awesome. I love the art style

Do you have any plans for a Kickstarter/crowdfunding?

[ThilDuncan]

Really loving that enemy animation, can't wait to see more of this game in motion looks great :D

[MartinM]

Hey, I just saw your teaser, looks promising. Keep the good work 

Thanks! The teaser does have the old Bit's design though (this was in 2014). Glad you like it!

I'm sorry, but once i had this impression (from a certain angle) i'm always seeing this in your main character: 

hahahaha.... i can't unsee it anymore.

cool design, reminds me of Little Battlers eXperience ダンボール戦機. 

Everyone at the studio had a good laugh at your gif! You know, you are not the first one to mention that particular aspect about the placement of the face. We do intent for it to change color/shape depending on the situation. Thanks for the feedback!

Oh wow this looks awesome. I love the art style

Do you have any plans for a Kickstarter/crowdfunding?

Currently we don't have crowdfunding plan, as we are exploring other funding options at the moment. It's still up in the air.

Really loving that enemy animation, can't wait to see more of this game in motion looks great :D

Thanks! We will be showing more footage in the coming weeks. We want to showcase the animation along sound design, so as soon as we got all of that lined up, we will be sharing it with you guys.

[Ashedragon]

Oh wow, this looks really cool! And that enemy animation gif is adorable. <3

[DevDennis]

Nice !!!

[SolarLune]

Yeah, this looks cool - feels pretty interesting and unusual. I'd say one thing you might want to watch out for is going to heavy on "blocks" in the background - I think you could do more abstract and strange things given the goal to have an impressionist landscape, maybe?

Anyway, is it going to be all connected together or level-based?

[MartinM]

Yeah, this looks cool - feels pretty interesting and unusual. I'd say one thing you might want to watch out for is going to heavy on "blocks" in the background - I think you could do more abstract and strange things given the goal to have an impressionist landscape, maybe?

Anyway, is it going to be all connected together or level-based?

Thanks! Part of the philosophy behind the aesthetic is that we don't want to be constrained by the rigidness of the blocks. We have been experimenting with non square shapes, making them feel more organic... the goal is to represent how a characters in old games saw the world around them, without constraining ourselves in the rules of voxels/cubes/pixels.

As per the level design: level based is what we are going with, similar to what Warioland games structured its levels  (linear progression, but having the ability to revisit levels in order to get everything out of them).

[MartinM]

Hi fellow devs! We have a new update regarding our approach to lighting using Unreal Engine 4.


Click here for a better looking .WebM

Tell us what you think

[MartinM]

Hi fellow TIGSourcers! This week we are showing a glimpse at the attacks of another of Bit's foes: The Swordman (not a final name)



To tell you more about it, Josh, our lead animator wrote the following:

It’s time for animation, blood, and suffering!!

I’ve returned from the shadows! Me, Josue, the animator, present to the world a brand new enemy in the BitUp universe! The mighty Swordman! (Yup, we still suck at naming work in progress items )

You have already met the Minion a couple moons ago, and you got a glimpse into the behaviour we want enemies to have. We don’t want moving cannon fodder, as we are making enemies have a purpose, a mission: put an end to Bit by any means necessary.

By taking Dark Souls, my newest addiction, as a reference, I wanted the attacks to be “felt” by sight, so you can prevent the force of the impact and decide if you want to evade or block. By having good visual cues I expect players to have an window of opportunity into defeating them… although I hope they rip you apart

Enough for today! I won’t spend any more time with you mere mortals! I have and Archer to polish!

All yours, me.

(Josue)

Thanks for the feedback guys! Keep it coming!

[Cranktrain]

I'm the loving the aesthetic, it's very clean and geometric, but the IK on the samurai-like armoured plates really brings it alive, it makes the animations look really good. And I like the big, blocky particle effects too. Super-nice look and feel.

[MartinM]

Hi guys! This week we bring you a first look at the miniboss we are including on the demo 


Click here for a much better looking .WebM

The harbinger of death, the architect of the pain on your soul, he whom feeds on dreams and hopes… Heavy Mini Boss 1! (Continuing the streak of lame codenames).

This is the mini boss encounter that will be featured in the demo we are currently working on. We wanted to design include a hulking enemy that used swift attacks, making sure you put into practice all the skills you acquired trough the demo. I love how the enemy turned out, and I’m sure you will like it as well (although most likely you will hate his guts when fighting him).

This enemy is brought you by long Dark Souls sessions and the constant refinement of his movements. This bastard sure is special

Yours truly, Me

(Josh, Lead Animator)

[MartinM]

We have a quick update this week, but that doesn't mean is small!

Remember this is all a work in progress and there's a lot of things that can change between now and release  Music by Morusque and sound FX by Etienne Marque