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[Farmergnome]

My second devlog project on here, lets hope it all gets finished, so this project is going to be the sequel to my Tigsource competition game, called Under the Garden [Which won the AGBIC competition].  

You can find the original game here:  http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=13394.0

Find the new game here: www.underthegarden.com

Latest Video:

Housing / Construction / Power Youtube Vid. >

Under the Ocean

Whats changed Paul?

Well lots of things, its still really early stages, the first thing we wanted to do is a location change with more emphasis on survival (ocean setting, tropical islands, underwater cave networks, etc), a decision to scrap the less popular elements of the game (farming comes to mind) and focus on stuff that could have been done better if the time was there [hunting, food and water, building/crafting].  The technology level will also be lowered to a primitive level, rock implements and such, also removing guns and modern items from the original game.

The biggest change visually is the switch to 3d, I have been thinking a lot about doing some of the elements in 3d and I think while I would want to keep the majority of the game field 2d some bits could really benefit from a 3d perspective.

I guess this devlog is dual purpose as the first game has already been completed, it would be great to hear what other people think could make it a better game, feel free to post below!

Who is working on it?  How long will it take?

Mike Reitzenstein and Myself (Paul Greasley) will be making it.  We are hoping to have a first test version in 2 months, and depending on if people are interested we will continue to develop it, if not we will stop and do something else.  We both have work outside of this so its more a project we will do for fun unless people really want some more out of it.  Updates should come every few days I imagine, this wont see updates as frequently as my other project at the moment.

If you have any questions feel free to hit me up at [email protected] , the game will be available here www.underthegarden.com once its done, cheers guys.

Old stuff/Original Post:

So onto some work!  Today Mike has been blocking out the basic platforming controls in Unity, I have blocked out the main character in 3d, and started animating him, hes about 900 polygons and 1x512 currently, trying to keep the poly budgets down so I can spend it all on shitloads of trees  

  the old.... anddd new  
Very work in progress, expect more updates on him tomorrow.

[ink.inc]

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[laxwolf]

 

[Ashkin]

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Farmergnome]

I hope eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee is good, please let it be good.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Just had a "quick play" (if an hour is quick) of Under the Garden and have to say that I loved it, such an awesome game  Although it's one of those games that it's too easy to play and suddenly realise that you've been playing for longer then you intended.

Really looking forward to this sequel. Keen to see what you do with it.

Also have to say that I'm really impressed at how fast you seem to work through your games.

[Farmergnome]

Thanks Franklins, I promise I wont let updates slip on Commando Bros, would be pretty fail if I did.  Ill release some details of what we are planning once its a little more solid, we are kinda starting out pretty ambitious, wait till reality and paying rent hits us in the face.



So I just concepted these up, this is what ill be modelling up first half of today, some of the extras on the top of the blocks may or may not be there as we will probably do that procedurally in code. They have the same basic structure of a UTG1 block, sort of texture on top and fade to black (which then fades to a generic black block), if it ain't broke don't fix it.

[unsilentwill]

Well I'm interested. I remember Under the Garden being brutal and unforgiving, but I may have played it wrong. It required a lot of patience and understanding of the environment. Taking out farming is a weird move for a long term survival game though, it was a challenge but I liked it.

[Farmergnome]

Well I'm interested. I remember Under the Garden being brutal and unforgiving, but I may have played it wrong. It required a lot of patience and understanding of the environment. Taking out farming is a weird move for a long term survival game though, it was a challenge but I liked it.

Actually, if anything, we are planning to ramp up the challenge so it should be quite a struggle, I guess the biggest difference between UTG and UTO is that UTO will have a little bit more intelligent design to the challenges, you fall down a well, you wont get a random injury, you'll be getting a injury that fits, and have to carry it through the rest of the game, all injuries will be cureable with the right activities also, unlike the original which relied on health potion type cures.  Farming is cool and we will be adding harvesting of some sort in future versions, but the goal for this first build is better and more focused UTG, that is unless we setup a kickstarter or something and have to commit to a bigger project, then we can pretty much guarantee all the features from UTG revised.

[team_q]

AWESOME
 

[Hangedman]

Loved the style and alone-ness(?) of Under The Garden. And the slow exploration that rewards caution and careful consumption of time over the usual exploration by bull-headedness.

Can't wait.

[ink.inc]

The original Under the Garden stands as one of my favorite indie games. I dunno, something about it just struck a chord with me. The colors? I dunno.

[Farmergnome]

The original Under the Garden stands as one of my favorite indie games. I dunno, something about it just struck a chord with me. The colors? I dunno.

Pretty flattered man, glad you liked the first, Im deliberately holding a little bit of info away from the post until its confirmed 100 percent (till its prototyped basically), but we are going to try a few different gameplay mechanics away from the first, mostly to upgrade the rather broken building mechanics, but Ill drop a video here once its all prototyped, but aside from that we wont be messing with the feel of the original too much.

Shit son. Colour me excited.

Edit: Hey Paul/farmergnome, do you have a twitter?

http://twitter.com/bigblockgames/ its like a joint twitter between Mike and Myself, best way to contact me if you need to is [email protected], im on gmail chat pretty much constantly.

[Farmergnome]

Tileset progress:




Also I should have posted this earlier, but this is the games mockup, using game models and the tilesets im working on.

[Franklin's Ghost]

That's awesome  Really liked the look of the old game but it's nice that each game/area will have a different feel to emphasis the change in location. Almost like alternate worlds of the same character.

[agersant]

I loved Under the Garden and your mockup is gorgeous, good luck!

[CEDE]

[Hangedman]

I do like the new style, but I suspect it being a bit abstract and cartoonish might detract from the dramatic potential of the game.

And I look forward to being royally proven wrong

[Farmergnome]

Thanks guys, I guess the transition to 3d will be a little challenging matching up a good level of original feel, but also making use of nice 3d features, I do think once we first get a giant storm floating across the island it will go above and beyond the original, I can almost see it now, giant arcs of lightning across the sea, leaves blowing everywhere, It should be cool.  AWESOME CEDE first fanart for the game woot  

Some questions popped up as to the characters floating ability this time around, we will be trying to incorporate a lot of swimming/underwater segments, so your character will be quite nimble in the water this time around.

Up today is sorting out the tiles into something that resembles the mockups, and adding some animation other than a walk for the main character, more to come!

[saint11]

This will be awesome! I wanna play it already!