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At first sight, the game Journey came to mind - which isn't surprising as both have similar inspirations.

I really like the visual style and how various background elements move (e.g. flags).  The only thing that seems odd is the main character.  I'm not referring to the shape or style but mainly the visual aspect.  It doesn't seem to stand out from the background.  More precisely, when you are outside.  Seems fine in the inside environment and when it receives the power up.  I really like that "shiny" feel. ;D  If instead of a rock type material, the character is made of (or is partially covered with) metal.  That might work better when you are outside where the Sun's reflection is more apparent.  Of course, this is just one of those "subjective" aspects. ;D

Please also post updates here (or at least when the game is finished).  :)

Ah cheers very much, Journey and other games like it are always sort of in my subconscious. There's something special about that combination considered visuals, exploration and ancient mysteries, you know?

Funny you should mention the main character. He started out as a placeholder but I sort of grew attached and ended up animating the little fella. Plus playing as a stone totem works thematically. However there is a chance that he may end up being refreshed or completely replaced last minute, who knows! I may drop alternate designs here for wider consideration!

And yep, no worries, I'll be posting updates here and I'm sure we'll share download links when all is done and dusted.
   

Love all the details in that non-zoomed pixel art, looks fantastic, keep it up!

Cheers Naezith. Was just checking out Remnants of Naezith earlier on today. Looks incredible, the attention to detail on your animations is bonkers! Looking forward to getting my hands on it!!

Looks interesting :O
Some cool pixel graphics going on. I'll keep an eye on this  :blink:

This game is gorgeous! I love the high level of detail. And the moody lighting on the interior scenes.  :-*

Ah this looks interesting. Looks like a mix of Okhlos and Heavier Than Air (both devlogs here), with some hints of Sword and Sorcery.

I'll keep my eye on this :)

Aahhh Heavier Than Air looks gorgeous!! And yep, Sword and Sorcery is a definite (and very obvious) influence on the look, this is my first attempt at pixel art so I've not really found my identity yet, it's very much an amalgamated style! Prior to this my main trade was pen n ink illustration (can be seen here (http://www.tom-kitchen.co.uk/folio.php) if you're curious) 

Totally keeping an eye on this!

Cheers for the comments and alike!

Here's a little screen crop for ya while I work on more room interiors

(http://41.media.tumblr.com/624e8e0e618ade1092b61c432b8d2a42/tumblr_o0bnzePw8T1u25i8jo1_500.jpg)

Beautiful! Looking forward to seeing more. Good luck with the development!  :)

SOOO gorgeous!! I really love the art. The colours are just perfect!

I just remembered why I had a feeling THAT your game (and mainly the character) was reminding me of something.  There's a Flash game: "Gilmo: The Inner Self" that has a similar "stone block" type main characer.  Here's a walkthrough video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfbESfymBeA

Cheers muchly for the kind words, helps keep me motivated!

Thought I'd talk briefly about some of the animation in Mandagon (partly because I spent waaaaay longer than I should have on some assets and felt the need to give them some air time!)

Alright so you've got the water prayer wheel - The water wheel itself is modeled in 3D, then animated within unity.

For the little splashes a collection of particle effects were added that rotate in unison with the wheel. And of course the running water and the prayer wheel are your standard sprite sheet animation.

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/PrayerWheelGif02.gif)
(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/WheelScreen.jpg)

The whole thing was almost a full days work, mostly trial and error to figure out the best way to get what I wanted! The flags are also 3D planes that use unity's built in cloth and wind effects. Yep, you guessed it, I'm resorting to 3D modeling and physics for aspects that are way beyond my current animation ability!

Another fun thing is unity's hinge physics - Put to work here on these happy little lanterns!

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/lanterns.gif)

And lastly you'll see the usual sprite animation scattered about the map.

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/FireGif.gif)

_____________________________________________________


Love the physics on that little guy in Gilmo!



 

I really like the art style, thanks for giving some background on it. It's a bit odd to see those rapidly-changing pixels on the sides of the water wheel though, are those intentional?
Also, why is that bell spinning so fast?

Really nice animations and overall art

Yes, not really intentional. Combination of choppy gif and choppy shader. Was trying out something that wouldn't have gradients to sit with the pixel art. I've been looking at it a little more, playing about with how it's shaded, it's softer now but I think it still looks ok next to the pixel stuff . . . What do you ya'll think? I'm much happier with the updated wheel (also ignore the weird artifacts in the new gif... just gif failing)

The power of box2d!   ;D

I also like the new one better.  It still has that pixel graphics feel but at the same time adds something unique with the 3d part.  Much like the flags.  :)

I love the overall feeling of the game. Graphics are so nice and in some way relaxing. I'm going to keep an eye on this :)

Cheers tanis, our music man is doing some wonderful work at the moment to help solidify that relaxing vibe, while adding a slight sense on forebode. Looking forward to people being able to hear/see it all together!

In the meantime here's some concept art stuff. Just for fun

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/promo.jpg)


Also I've been playing around with the lighting in some of the rooms recently - up next is set decoration

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/07.jpg)

Been working on this introduction level recently so I figured I'd share some screenshots -

(also gameplay/story trailer will be here very soon)

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/lvl2_02.jpg)

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/lvl2_04.jpg)

We'll be looking to run MANDAGON through steam greenlight in the near future so keep eyes peeled!

Damn all the colors in the game are wonderful..

Cheers very much man. I've obsessed over those colours, glad it's not gone unnoticed!

Looking good! :)

I would certainly like to spin this building around like in FEZ.  ;D

Cheers, although no spinning I'm afraid. But if you tap LT it turns into super meat boy :monoclepop:

In the meantime, here's a peek at another one of Mandagon's talkative statues -

(http://45.media.tumblr.com/19555384f9a23d86569784ff71bdf83f/tumblr_o0ojqtYq7v1u25i8jo1_500.gif)

So, :handanykey: turns  ;D into  >:(

That sounds like a ... game ... within a game!  
Very magical.  :wizard:

That was fast! :)

The only thing I noticed is that I couldn't make out the game title at the end.  It just blended in with the surrounding artwork.  It does seem better in this image:
(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/307739431575646457/2E5CCE4B57110FAFF7AE5918A816CE07D119632D/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|268:268&composite-to=*,*|268:268&background-color=black)

Maybe because the background is dark.   Or you could just fade out the surrounding artwork and have the game title remain on screen a bit longer.  Also, might be better if it was larger as well.

The pixel style, tone, and layout of the background elements just scream Fez, which is ok because I liked Fez. Had I seen a picture or video of this game without context, though, I might have incorrectly assumed this was somehow related to Fez. It's that similar, imo.

Again, this is a-ok by me, I'm all for it :)

Yep, been racing! Due a crash soon I'm sure! And also yep, good point RE: the logo in the vid - My aficionado for subtle unassuming branding will be my downfall! Definitely something to conciser for future promo stuff :blink:



Ha! right you are, the look of fez is a big influence - I'm super new to pixel art, so as such I'm a bit of a sponge and am very much wearing my influences on my sleeve! Game like fez, Titan Souls and Swords and Sworcery have been a MASSIVE inspiration!! As well as an odd combination of games like Journey and Dear Esther for story telling.

Mandagon is something of a playground for me and the team, We're just experimenting a little, dipping our toes into greenlight and getting a feel for how things work!

You can see my usual visual approach here (https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=50925.0) in the dev log for our main game adam.

Current state of mind . . .

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/IMG_20151209_130149.jpg)

Really cool atmosphere and scenery/setting. I love the odd main character as well. :handclap:

Cheers man! I've been lurking a bit on your dev logs, that pixel art of yours is super adorable!!

Felt like I could do with a break from staring at a computer screen . . . So I went ahead a made a little paper cube fella. Happy hobby crafts!

(http://www.blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/paper01.jpg)

For some reason that picture reminds me of a very focused state of mind. :)




Looks good! :)  It reminds me of a similar animation character made real and photographed in various places: https://www.facebook.com/Mr.Carton/    
Here's the cg animation:
https://vimeo.com/131759337


Sometimes I also prefer to use pencil and paper to make sketches to take a break from working on the computer.

On the other hand, while I've done certain frame by frame animations by hand in the past when computers weren't around, at this point I definitely prefer the power of automation and wouldn't do something like this by hand:  https://vimeo.com/90603521    ;D

I'm also getting some major Fez vibes from this.  It's looks like it'll be a fun little game to play.  Keeping my eye on this.  :)

Our friendly neighborhood sound artist Mr. Richard Jackson (http://richardjacksonmusic.com/) has started a series of blog posts about the audio in Mandagon - You can have a read here (http://richardjacksonmusic.com/blog/mandagon-sound-design-movement/)

(http://richardjacksonmusic.com/static/media/uploads/.thumbnails/mandagon-movement-massive-preset.png/mandagon-movement-massive-preset-958x716.png) (http://richardjacksonmusic.com/blog/mandagon-sound-design-movement/)


Frame by frame animation is an admirable endurance! I used to do a lot of hand drawn animation back in college. Also random childhood memories of using a Game boy camera to make stop-motion stuff!

It certainly is! :)

I've also done some stop-motion animations and still have a few of my flip-book animations from childhood.  Fun times! ;D

Congrats on the game getting Greenlit! :)

We recently became greenlit! Took exactly 2 weeks and 3 days, so cheers to those who were able to vote, share, follow or look at the page, anything really - Mandagon is our first PC release so every little helps!

In light of this I thought I'd share a little bit of the games evolution. Since we started this blog relatively late in production I figured a little peek at how things started might be interesting to someone!

Those of you who follow this dev blog well will know of our project { adam } (https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=50925.0). It was during production of { adam } that I started playing around in my spare time, mucking about with pixel art and colour, to counter balance the work I was doing on { adam }.

The result was this -

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/retro/FirstBuild01.jpg)

A little lackluster admittedly but fine for a learning project

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/retro/FirstBuild02.jpg)

You'd jump about, collect yellow skulls and score points because why not, video games!

So I continued to play around more and expanded the level -

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/retro/SecondBuild01.jpg)

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/retro/SecondBuild02.jpg)

To get a bit serous for a second - It was around this time that my family suffered a pretty serious loss. I shan't bother you with the details. In the fallout of this loss I found myself unable to focus on { adam } properly and ended up working obsessively on Mandagon - Morning, noon and night for a good few weeks.

It also led the game to have a more coherent, somewhat paternal themed narrative. This shifted the setting from vaguely Asian to the more focused Tibetan philosophical vibe you see now.

After showing the rest of the team the work I'd been doing we decided to push Mandagon to a finished product in order to help us spread our wings on the Steam market, in the hope that we'd be well versed by the time it was adam's turn.

So with the help of our lead programmer and fellow designer we began refining the gameplay cycle. Initially our mechanics were pretty minimal, with the focus on atmosphere and the quiet little narrative.

Since then I've been working on the art stuff, all be it at a more healthy pace!

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/retro/Gif01.gif)

A bunch of stuff was cut and new things were brought in - And of course the devil is in the detail!

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/retro/Gif02.gif)

At this moment in time we're working hard on expanding the gameplay, limiting/enabling how you traverse the environment to make things a bit more dynamic. I'm also completely redesigning the level layout from the ground up to accommodate this. Hefty work for a small, free game - but if a jobs worth doing its worth doing well ( and 3 or 4 times over apparently!).

We look forward to showing you more as we progress!

Also -
Cheers buddy! :)

So we've been hunkered down rebuilding the main level in Mandagon as well adding a few new features. We're getting pretty close to the end now so I figured I'd post a small flurry of new screenshots!

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/screens/09.jpg)

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/screens/10.jpg)

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/screens/11.jpg)

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/screens/12.jpg)

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/screens/13.jpg)

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/screens/14.jpg)

We're so very close to finishing Mandagon - From a visual stand point the game is nearly all there, Audio and sound fx are well under way. The majority of remaining work lies in the hands of our programmer. So lots of back end work, balancing how obscure/mysterious we can be with exploration and story prompts before the game becomes unplayable!

So while programmers program, artists will art -

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/am.jpg)

We've been toying with the idea of releasing an art book and sound track as DLC for a couple of £$£'s while still keeping Mandagon a free game. What do you reckon?

________________________________________________________

Also since this is a dev log, probably a good time to log some development! I thought it might be fun to break down my level design process -

Apologies if any of this is rudimentary to any of you. I was pretty new to this when I started on Mandagon, so I thought I'd share what I was able to learn along the way!

So it goes without saying Mandagon is built mainly from tile based pixel art. Very early on I was playing around to figure out what resolution to work in - After a lot of mucking about I settled on 32 X 32px for my tile size. I personally found it to be a good balance between detail and representation (if that makes sense?).

Pyxel Edit (http://pyxeledit.com/) Was my work horse at this stage, and still is. Can't recommend it more strongly, it's still in its beta stages right now so it has its little quirks here and there, but it has served me well Throughout!

Next step was actually figuring out how to build levels from tiles - Mandagon is like the second or 3 game I've worked on, and I'd never worked with tiles before, so every day's a school day!

My googling brought me to a little program simply and aptly named Tiled Map Editor (http://www.mapeditor.org/).

So I had my first tiles and my tiled map editor, well equipped to begin mucking about! I was also teaching myself a bit of C# at the time, so with my 32px scale locked in I was able to play around with the relationship between level size and player movement speed - I had one test with a smaller map and slower movement speed, another with a massive map and a speedy player.

Once this became a full project for me and the rest of us, we had a bit of an internal discussion and landed somewhere in the middle, not too fast, not too slow, not too big, not too small. I then began to build the level you can see in our Greenlight trailer (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=631037713)

After a modest but mostly positive reception on the Greenlights we were keen to deliver. Discussions led us to add new ways to traverse level and bump up the exploration side of things. So to compliment this I decided to scrap our original level and rebuild from scratch at double the size - que countless sleepless nights.

All that left me with a map that needed to be 187 tiles by 248. Throughout all this I realised classic pen and paper wasn't gunna be much use to me and my work process - I wanted a way for my layout sketches to feed directly into the final build. Also working at full scale in Tiled was just too daunting. So here's what I did -

I already knew the exact size of my map, that was locked in. So I just made a Pyxel Edit canvas that was set so one pixel equaled one tile, 187px by 248px. I had a colour pallet to represent my main tile sets. This gave me freedom to sketch chunks of the level as I would on paper and then zoom in to work on specific sections with more focus.

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/ld/ld01.jpg)

Then zoom back out, paint in joining sections and larger chunks. Zero back and fourth between sketchbook and computer. And then, knowing the players max jump height/distance, I could run my cursor through the map to see if there were any dead ends or sticking points.

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/ld/ld02.jpg)

Once I was as happy as could be with the layout, I saved myself a PNG, brought it into Photoshop, then, since my final tiles are 32 by 32, I just multiplied the resolution by 32 to get my full sized map.

I could just drop this full sized image into Tiled as a base and start layering up the final tiles

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/ld/ld03.jpg)

Once I'd got the basics in I could test the level for real and iron out a few creases

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/ld/ld04.jpg)

And finally, after a bit of back and fourth between building and testing I felt safe enough to start getting my detail and polish in.

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/ld/ld05.jpg)  

This is the stage I'm at now, adding new tile sets when needed, and still optimizing sections of the level as I go. Although it's mostly the aesthetics that I'm working on now.

So Mandagon is only a matter of weeks away now and it's mostly polish and shine left to do. We're super excited to get it out and see what ya'll think of it!

 
      

Over the past few months we've been expanding Mandagon's little world, adding lots of new bits and bobs. We're ha heart beat away from release now, so in the meany mean time we've put together a little trailer showcasing some of the new content :coffee:


Along side this we've also been working on a digital art book. Just a collection of in game art, sprites and alike. We'll have some promo and concept art in there as well

Ah so we managed to finish it! Mandagon is available now for free on Steam! Thanks to ya'll for following along here and providing input and friendly words to keep us going! :beer: :gentleman: :coffee:

(http://blindskystudios.co.uk/Tig/getgame.png) (http://store.steampowered.com/app/461560)

Oh cool I never saw this thread; I played the game during a stream a few weeks ago and enjoyed it a lot!  Thanks for making it!

Enjoyable short game.  I especially liked the highly detailed background visuals. 

I wonder about the jump visual effect though.  Visually, it seems a bit "too powerful", i.e. something that I would expect after picking up a power up.  Or did it have a relevance in terms of the spiritual context?

Oh, I encountered a bug when riding the elevator down.  I looked away for a short while from the screen as the elevator started going down and when I looked back the character left the elevator (shown in pic)  but at least I could move around (i.e. didn't get stuck) and could continue playing the game.  Only happened once.
(http://i.imgur.com/5bv8M5x.jpg)