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MAIN CHARACTER PROCESS

When first conceiving the main astronaut, I wanted to do a character with a bit of a graphic look, as well as keeping his shape simplified and slightly stylized like an animated character.  

These are my initial sketches to get down some shapes and ideas.  Pretty down and dirty, since I'm not concerned with presenting anything to people for approval.  



Once I picked the design direction, I worked on a quick ortho to hand off in order to be modeled in Maya.  



The 3D model allows us to animate and reiterate quickly rather than spending 6 months on 1 character animating by hand.  



Once modeled, I paint the textures and then we export animations as 2D sprites.  The reason for this is so that I can hand touch each frame to give the animations a "hand done" quality, as well as to better integrate the character into the environment.  

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Here's a sneak peak at an upcoming enemy concept:

And another screenshot of a new area! 

[Hardcore2dacore]

I like the idea of this and it looks undeniably cool. Glad I spotted this and will be able to follow it

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We're working out the shield system.  This is a little snapshot from Unity.  In the game you'll have a combination of powered systems at your disposal to help along the way.  Both shields and special weapons, which are upgradeable and changeable via a sort of crafting system. You'll need to be mindful of your power supply though!

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Thanks Hardcore2dacore!  I'm glad you're liking things so far.

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We've been really busy working on a lot of game mechanics behind the scenes, as well as creating a huge amount of art assets for environments and creatures.  

Here's a quick peek at where things are headed.  More to come soon!

[oldblood]

Glad to see a new post here. This game is looking gorgeous, keep the devlogs coming...

[TopherPirkl]

Agreed, really beautiful game.

[bbtombo]

wow. Definitely following!

[sidbarnhoorn]

Looking gorgeous and inspiring. :-)

[slarti88]

Wow this looks gorgeous! How big do you intend this game to be?

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Thanks for the kind words everyone!  We're in a big crunch currently, thus the lack of posts to keep the devlog as active as I would like.  The vertical slice is coming along well, and by the end of it I think we'll have have most of the main game mechanics worked out and ready to be polished.  Lots more to show down the line, but that will most likely be revealed in video form. 

slarti88-It's a pretty good size game.  Ideally there will be 9 main "dungeons" to explore, and an overall world map that's pretty huge.  Many areas to explore-structures, hidden pathways, forests, glaciers, deserts, caves, etc. 

The game has been evolving into a Zelda/Ico combat system, with puzzles that go a bit deeper than simply pushing objects, but instead require critical thinking and assumptions to solve them at times.  I've always been a fan of point and clicks like Monkey Island and The Dig, so I think those elements are creeping in.

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Here's a little GIF showing our jump mechanic.

[oldblood]

Wow that does sound like a pretty good size game. Sounds very diverse and... big. Are you working on this full time? Also, will the vertical slice be available for demos once completed?

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Wow that does sound like a pretty good size game. Sounds very diverse and... big. Are you working on this full time? Also, will the vertical slice be available for demos once completed?

Yes, It's quite large for sure.  Exploration is the part that I love...that sense of finding secrets and adventure.  So the world has a lot of hidden areas to find, as well as areas that aren't accessible until you have specific items to help you get to them. 

I'm working on it part time currently, as I'm having to spend quite a bit of time doing consulting work in order to keep the team fed.  Hopefully we can raise some funds via KS in order to take the load off, allowing me to focus on the game nearly full time.  As you already know from your own game, art assets end up taking a good deal of time and are the bottleneck for us as well!

The vertical slice will definitely be a playable demo, which is actually the opening level in the game.  That won't be released for public consumption until it's been thoroughly polished though.  It's a number of months away from that point.

[TopherPirkl]

How big is your team? It seems like the game is quite an undertaking.

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How big is your team? It seems like the game is quite an undertaking.

It is a very large undertaking, but the team helping me is really stellar! 

The team consists of:

Me-I'm doing the art assets for environments, cut scenes, and overall creative direction. Here's some additional portfolio work if you're interested

3D modeler--Mostly for character models

Animator--making the characters come to life, as well as animating cut scenes in After Effects

Programmer--He's making all of it come together.  There's seriously nothing that he can't do.

Sound Designer--All the FX for the demo level so far.

That's 5 people floating in and out of the project on a regular basis. On a day to day, the programmer and I are working on various elements to get things to a good spot for the demo.  We'll be focusing on in-game music down the road, so we'll have a composer come onboard pretty soon, which would make the total team 6 people. 

[TopherPirkl]

How big is your team? It seems like the game is quite an undertaking.

It is a very large undertaking, but the team helping me is really stellar! 

The team consists of:

Me-I'm doing the art assets for environments, cut scenes, and overall creative direction. Here's some additional portfolio work if you're interested

3D modeler--Mostly for character models

Animator--making the characters come to life, as well as animating cut scenes in After Effects

Programmer--He's making all of it come together.  There's seriously nothing that he can't do.

Sound Designer--All the FX for the demo level so far.

That's 5 people floating in and out of the project on a regular basis. On a day to day, the programmer and I are working on various elements to get things to a good spot for the demo.  We'll be focusing on in-game music down the road, so we'll have a composer come onboard pretty soon, which would make the total team 6 people. 

Nice! Sounds like a solid team. Out of curiosity, who is your sound designer?

Fantastic art, too! Not to derail the thread too much here, but I like that you list that you're a member of IATSE, I'm in Local 13 myself.

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Cool! Thanks for the kind words.  It's a small world isn't it?  IATSE is a great union to be in.

Our sound designer is a gentleman name Akash Thakkar.  

[TopherPirkl]

Oh awesome! I don't know him personally, but we have a lot of mutual friends. He's got a great reputation, I'm excited to hear what he comes up with!