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[gimymblert]

Can I suggest something like mayan alphabet?



It seems to me it slot well between scripture, ornament and graphiti style



Especially if you had visual ligature (horizontal and vertical) between them so they look even more complex?

[tortoiseandcrow]

Jim is onto something here. Mayan hieroglyphics would look amazing rendered as graffiti. Lots of bulbous shapes and thick outlines. In some sort of linear sequence it becomes obvious it has a denotative function, but remains entirely outside of our legibility because it doesn't look remotely like what we would recognize as letterforms.

It might be interesting to mix things up with different scripts - one cursive script for one application, and one that's composed more of logograms for another. Ancient Egypt had a system like that spring up, where religious scribes would use Demotic script, and more professional scribes would use heiroglyphics.

[jamesprimate]

YES. the "techno mayan / aztec" design influence is something weve discussed a lot, and have plans to go more explicitly in that direction for future regions. good catch and gooooood glyphs!

Speaking of gibberish in games I can recommend this article on RPS (the comment section is particularly interesting).

OH WOW, good link, that game looks incredible O_O im getting it immediately

[JLJac]

Remember this?



Don't really know, the mayan stuff was pretty cool but doing a switch would mean replacing a looooooot of assets. I think James' enthusiasm would be curbed  by the outlook of having to re-render every room with a neon sign in it (which amounts to... every room) >__<

I already have two fictional alphabets going, and I absolutely won't introduce a third without cutting one or both of the old ones out. They were however made sort of quickly, a long time ago, for a game I imagined would be a month long side project... So maybe it is actually time to switch them up. It wouldn't need to be too harrowing, as I could just replace the neon sign assets but have the same names for them, and then they'll be naturally replaced as the rooms are re-rendered for touchups without us really having to do anything manually. That assumes that we'll re-render every room at least once more, which I think is probably the case. Otherwise there's a mass render function in the editor. So, it'd be annoying, but it's not entirely out.

Here are the current two alphabets:



And here's a piece of graffiti with the letters clarified:



One thing I could do to get a tribal/mayan vibe going without replacing the alphabets, is to work more with the pictographical "proto-comic" sort of layout many ancient cultures seem to have employed. Like, images that are in some sort of chronological sequence with small bits of text flowing in and out of it. That could be really interesting to mix up with a graffiti aesthetic!

[JLJac]

Update 434

I got tired of water in dark areas just being a black blob, so I got started on some darkness+water+light source interactions. First, a surface reflection:



And an underwater light source shader. This one is probably gonna get its fair share of tuning, just like the ordinary light source shader already has.



I'm digging the "beaming" quality of it, but it's a little too blurry and fuzzy to go with RW's art style, that will have to be straightened up somehow. But a good start :D

Yay shaders!

[hypedupdawg]

I'm digging the "beaming" quality of it, but it's a little too blurry and fuzzy to go with RW's art style, that will have to be straightened up somehow. But a good start :D

Yay shaders!

I agree that it doesn't quite fit in, but man that underwater shader is cool. I'm instantly reminded of one of these - it has that same hypnotic quality that I could stare at for hours.

Those lantern mice are going to look seriously pretty lighting up the water in multicolor.

[oahda]

I actually think the beams look fine along with the style, but if you say you can make them prettier, I'll trust you.

What struck me as the coolest thing, however, is how the surface actually moves into the circular hole in the background, all three-dimensionally. How are you achieving that? Is it actual 3D or shader magic?

Also just last night I was think about what I should do about my spotlight near the surface in Vatnsmyrkr. This is giving me some ideas.

[gimymblert]

 

this can be prettier seriously? 

 

I think the beat are TOTALLY OKAY, the main character is already sharp, I think it help a lot making good contrast, and softness of light really differentiate the exterior to the dark place, giving a very cool change of visual pace while staying consistent. It make the dark place more intimate and foreboding.

[jamesprimate]

LOL, I didn't mean REPLACE ALL CURRENT ASSETS, just move in that direction for new assets when we do the stone heads subregion 

Love the new darkness water shader though!!!

[lagdog]

is there a demo of this game somewhere i can play?

light effect is very nice

[Christian]

I actually think the beams look fine along with the style, but if you say you can make them prettier, I'll trust you.

What struck me as the coolest thing, however, is how the surface actually moves into the circular hole in the background, all three-dimensionally. How are you achieving that? Is it actual 3D or shader magic?

Also just last night I was think about what I should do about my spotlight near the surface in Vatnsmyrkr. This is giving me some ideas.

Joar is obviously a wizard, so it must be magic

Seriously, Joar, that looks amazing. The atmosphere of the light against the dark water is so good and, like Prinsessa noted, the little details just enhance the world so much

But will the slugcat glow so brightly like that or is that just for test purposes?

[ernanir]

Slightly subtler still:

The worldbuilding is so neat.

[jamesprimate]

Joar has mentioned the palette fades a few times, so i figured its time to show a bit of whats going on with that. this is a first pass at the transition into the shadow urban region:





this example could still use some work to the blends, the sunlit rooms could use to be toned down a bit (there is a whole little subregion devoted to that look), but it seems like the palette toolset is going to have a big impact! in polish phase i plan on going back and adding subtle touches of this through all the regions to indicate things like depth/height, inside/outside, and blend the palette transitions between the regions a little. im really looking forward to it!


edit: ehhhh, youtube image compression is totally borking the fades and introducing weird colors / artifacts. they are WAYYYY more subtle than that in game. but you get the idea.

[Christian]

Very cool. But will there be more (or any) sources of illumination? Seems like it would be kind of frustrating to navigate. Why do the exterior rooms of Shadow Urban get dimmer and dimmer if you're still outside?

[jamesprimate]

these are both some of the fascinating mysteries to be solved in the upcoming new game Rain World™!

sorry, I forgot there was an embargo on SH region stuff for a reason 

[tortoiseandcrow]

"The dwarves delved too greedily and too deep"

[hypedupdawg]

Alpha players!

There was some debate a while ago about whether the game would have an in-game map, I think the consensus was "probably not". I've played the alpha a bit now, and agree that an in-game map wouldn't really add to the game at all.

That said, I've been working on an out-of-game map system; mostly for the challenge, but also just to see how big and complex the game world really is. I've uploaded a first draft, low quality map of the suburban alpha region here if you want a look.

I'd really like to get some feedback, and any alternative room names you have!

View the full map here:

[adge]

Hey there! I just watched blade runner and saw this pillars.






I think that they would very well fit in some of rain worlds levels. They would also look very 3D because of their spiral geometry.

[Teod]

I'd really like to get some feedback, and any alternative room names you have!

If rooms seem to be aligned in the world, they should be aligned on the map. Things like Four posts, The box, The Hub and One drop being in a single shaft and Weeping willow, Marshmallows and Baby steps sharing their top surface. And generally, try to put rooms closer together, there are a of of unnecessary gaps and long blue lines where rooms could be simply placed together with a short link.
As for the names, the only ones I have problem with are Triskelion and Graffiti Mario. Firstly because i had to google what the hell triskelion even is, and secondly because I think (And I'm assuming you named them after graffiti or some other details of the rooms, since I'm not seeing it on the map. I haven't actually played alpha.) rooms should generally be called after general geometry or theme and not tiny details. Both for the purposes of easier recognition and with foresight of further visual changes.

[Crispy75]

Also, "U-Bend" should be *under* the rooms it links to.