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[jO]

Really nice progress.
The new character model looks very nice, and the animations shown also help a lot improving the visual impression of the game. I also like the new canyons :-)

[Chris Polus]

Thanks!

Hehe, I think the canyons in the picture look better than in-game because there was some time pressure and we just tried to put them in to show them off. But for my taste the lighting does not show the canyons in the best light, so there's a lot to do and tweak regarding the lighting. But I'm very excited that we always manage to improve ourselves and learn a lot in the process. With tweaks in positioning the canyons and lighting they will really look great.

I'm also excited because today I finally get my new iMac

[Franklin's Ghost]

Haven't checked out the videos in awhile so impressed at how it's changed and come along. Definite improvements on character animations and the canyon walls are looking nice.

[kamac]

Really cool. The quality of graphics looks really much like AAA. You have to work on animations though, they look rather bad...

Cool terraforming features though
I wish for huge AOE spells, with breath-taking effects!

Another thing I wish for are tactically-driven mage battles, so that you don't simply *here, shoot that guy with a rock*, but much rather... tactical?

[Chris Polus]

Thanks Franklins Ghost. There's a lot of things we experiment with at the moment as we try to push the art style more. I hope the dust will settle soon and then we can be more productive again.

[Chris Polus]

I don't know how many of you tried a Kickstarter campaign already but it's nearly killing us. Videos should be of such high quality in order not to make a sleepy impression and it needs to show one highlight after another. At least the videos we liked were pretty well thought through. I'm not talking about industry veterans who merely show up and immediately get millions. But what do people of whom I haven't yet heard show to catch my interest. Of course, the normal production process should not stop either, resulting in double shifts for me and Julian. Not to mention all the stuff you need to polish and build into the game to make it shine. Well, at some point I'm sure we'll be able to write up a very nice post-mortem, too. Be it of a success or a failure, we'll see. Currently we do everything we can to hopefully turn it into a success, hehe. Wish us luck.

What else happened.

• We're experimenting with the camera's focal length to convey the vastness of the desert.
• We created and implemented another rough jump animation.
• There are now killer vegetables in the game. Carrots are what Sarahul's nightmares are about.
• Lols aside, the vegetables are for a farm area at The Edge. People have to eat something.
• Alex finished the blockout of the "Mirror Room" in the wind temple and Julian programmed the logic. Time to test, model and integrate assets.
• Daniel created concepts for the Mirror Room.
• We're preparing our Kickstarter campaign and we're shooting a ton of in-game and real world video. In this dev diary, you can see some of the bloopers

[Chris Polus]

This week's updates:

• We put the crystal holder into the "Mirror Room".
• Our water code was optimized and we tested it in our playground map.
• 90° death rotation jiggle dive
• Sand devils
• We implemented absorption of wind magic, now you can harvest powers from sand devils and the like.
• We implemented the wind push spell again and polished the terraforming aspect of it as well as the effect.
• As a special feature I put in Julian who explains how the terraforming algorithm works

[Chris Polus]

For all of you who celebrate this Sunday in any way, shape or form: HAPPY EASTER friends in all parts of the world! What's in the Easter Package today?

• We put together a scenery to make some nicer screenshots.
• Julian coded a new shader that takes 5 textures: seamless diffuse, seamless ambient occlusion and its normal map and additionally 1 AO with integrated highlights and its normal map per specific rock model (not seamless).
• The new shader was requested by Ruben who created new rocks that looks so much better again than what we had.
• Ruben did an animation for absorbing magical elements such as fire or wind - doesn't look right yet.
• Ruben did an animation for running sideways.
• Aaron did an animation for the fire burst spell - we're quite happy with this one, only minor tweaking needed.
• Daniel created new sand particle textures for when rocks hit the sand.
• Julian implemented the new dust cloud effect with Daniel's texture.
• There's something special going on with canyon walls. You can point your telekinesis at huge rocks. But you're not powerful enough to lift them in any way. Instead, ...
• LOOK what the Easter Bunny brought us!

Take care and watch out for April Fool's jokes tomorrow!

[Chris Polus]

This week you’ll finally see something else than our usual test level 

• We’re full of chocolate after Easter. In German you’d say “kugelrund”.
• New color set on the character that players will be able to customize.
• Improving the tutorial: the new drawbridge is in and works.
• Sarahul get their armor, the first piece is already on their body and it works with the rig.
• There’s a slight problem now there, though. Sarahul tend to lean forward too much for some reason.
• Our Kickstarter, if everything works out, is scheduled fro April 17th. Still a lot to do until that date though!
• New gorgeous red rock test scene where we play with lighting, rock placement and other eye candy.
• New gorgeous volcanic rock test scene with bones, sand devils where we play with the same things. Bones are a little bright though.
• Our ragdolls now work really well! Let’s celebrate that with some cliff diving.
• Ragdolls need to rest, too.

We'd be very grateful for any help getting the ball rolling on Kickstarter on April 17th (which should be the date if everything works out as planned). Thanks!

[Chris Polus]

It's been a crazy week again. Soooo many updates!

• We now have a backwards running animation. Backwards strafing is still silly looking.
• After trying to fix it we got a funny animation bug. Animations would re-trigger constantly, resulting in the world's fastest one legged sprinter. It's worth a look.
• There's a relaxed idle animation but now the character can switch to an aggressive idle animation when a fight begins.
• There's a new character variation. He's got hair now.
• Grim facial expression so the char doesn't smile when fighting enemies.
• Ragdoll.
• New terraforming up and down visual effect. It conveys the upwards/downwards movement better.
• New visual indicator when absorbing fire or wind elements (the fire fairies are gone now).
• Sarahul with armor work now, too. No more ridiculous forward leaning.
• When enemies die, they don't just disappear, but disintegrate in a sandy fashion.
• Kickstarter was pushed back to April 24th (if it works out this time)...
  
• We got some pretty amazing Kickstarter reward illustrations back from our new illustrator. We love them, and they look good on our Kickstarter test page (you'll have to wait to see these).
• Another outtake from our Kickstarter in-game shooting. In one game situation, Daniel managed to kill his colleagues Alex and Bernd with a single shot. Pwned.

We should have guessed it. Our Kickstarter campaign will be delayed by one week. It's now scheduled for April 24th. It's tax time in the US and it takes a looong time apparently to get the employer ID number and a bank account. Also, the verification payment from Amazon Payments to the account can take up to 7 days (this is what we're now waiting for). We started preparing this for a long time and now every little step takes a week. Devil is in the details...

[Chris Polus]

Beside all the stress, yet excitement for the coming Kickstarter campaign, the production team continues implementing things into our daily builds. This is what happened this week.

• Improved character animation controller: Animations now have shorter transition times and the character reacts more quickly to input changes.
• Work on the fire burst visual effect. Experimentation with different types of flames.
• Fire burst and wind push can now be cast up- and downwards. This is useful in up- and downhill battles. Previously, these spells could only be cast on the same horizontal axis the player was on, making up- and downhill battles impossible.
• New fire enhancement visual effect.
• New wind push visual effect.
• Sarahul with bows now got a bow shooting animation. But we need to put the bow into the other hand. Last minute features always suffer from bugs...
• I take an arrow to the ... behind.
• Not exactly a feature, more of a byproduct. The Sarahul dispenser at work.
• Julian takes a nap while I bring you weekly updates.
• 3 DAYS to our Kickstarter campaign! We are still praying as some account verification process seems to still be ongoing. How long does that stuff take! Arghhh. Our nerves...

[Chris Polus]

We got the Kickstarter down!

• Everything was verified by all necessary 3rd parties and the Kickstarter campaign itself was approved too. Finally we're all set to go!
• So our campaign will start Tuesday, April 30th! This time for sure! Man, this has been a long time in the making... We'll keep you posted how it goes and tell you what we did should be be successful
  
• Windpush was improved. You cannot only cast the windpush up- and downwards but it will also terraform up- and downwards, too.
• After our big spell system redesign we came around implementing spell combinations!
• We moved on and are working on a new area. The Sarahul camp in front of the fire temple.
• Level design documents and mood shots were created for that area.
• You'll encounter an Aitharii, a guy of one of the races in Noshrac, in that level. Concepts have been done for this creature.
• Blockout of this new area was done. No programming or active components yet though.
• Julian sets me up.

[Chris Polus]

Tons of stuff happened!

• We finally launched our Kickstarter campaign. Yaaay!
• 2 completely new areas. The farm and the wind temple.
• The farm is part of The Edge, the food has to come from somewhere, right?
• The wind temple is the first sort of 'mysterious' area you'll encounter in the game.
• We show some puzzle solving.
• You can tear out rocks from canyon walls. This really feels powerful.
• Julian teased you with spell combinations in the latest dev diary. It's implemented and we will show it in the next video update on Thursday.

THANKS SO MUCH for being there with us on the way and all the feedback we constantly get! It all helps us getting better.

[Konidias]

For mocap you might be able to just find a school in the area that has a mocap setup and ask to use that... or possibly rent one... though I have no idea what that costs.

The best thing would be to also get someone who is agile enough to do some good fluid movements... not just a guy who sits at a desk all day or something. :p

Overall the game looks pretty cool but I agree that it feels dated. I think adding all the discussed details would definitely help... but getting some really good character animation is going to go a long way also.

Good luck guys!

[Chris Polus]

Thanks Konidias!

[Trystin]

Looking so amazingly amazing, how have I not seen this sooner?

Please, more sir.

[Franklin's Ghost]

This is looking great, have enjoyed watching it develop.

Also your kickstarter link isn't working. Son of Nor Kickstarter

[Chris Polus]

Huh? How did that happen! Fixed it now, thanks for the hint !

 

[Franklin's Ghost]

Great don't want people to miss backing the project

[Chris Polus]

So true Yesterday was a 2 hour Amazon Payments outage and all Kickstarter projects were quite nervous I guess. Including us. No need to conjure up more problems.