next »

[rivon]

I hope the symbols randomly fade in/out as if showing some kind of macro-symbols.

[Sergi]

 

[Dr. Cooldude]

I hope the symbols randomly fade in/out as if showing some kind of macro-symbols.

That would be really awesome

[HyMyNameIsMatt]

I am just seeing this for the first time entirely based on that video.  It looks really awesome.  Atmosphere and whatnot is superb.  I don't know how well that would work for a game that lasts for hours without some sort of sound, but I'm confident by what I see.  My instincts tell me there should be more detail in the enviornment like chains or whatever else, but I'd like to see more before really suggesting anything about this game.

It looks good.

[d]

I just had a wonderful thought: Chroma + singularities with spacetime distortion (light bending).

[HyMyNameIsMatt]

Oh god I just saw the other two videos.  Why is he an actual lightbulb now?  It's not nearly as relateable.  I literally do not think I could get lost as that character and empathize with him anymore.  Now it's like, "Aha!  Get it!  He's a little lightbulb! Jokes!"

[Frooxius]

When I saw the video at first, I didn't know what was happening, but then I noticed the shadows and I thought "wow, that's awesome concept" :-) Looks as simple concept yet fun, the atmosphere is also peculiar, sort of mystic.

Even though there's no music, what about some subtle ambient sounds? Just a random idea though ^^' I'll be definitely watching this 

[Claw]

I just had a wonderful thought: Chroma + singularities with spacetime distortion (light bending).

That's making my head hurt thinking about it I want to stretch the mechanics to their maximum feasible use, but reflection of collision lines and bending things etc is so incredibly complex (for various reasons) I'm not sure if it's possible in a realistic way. If you think about how the shadows are projected in this 2D representation, they really don't make much physical sense in a 3D world so it gets a bit crazy trying to do the maths and then plug it into physics calculations! Like the idea though :D

Oh god I just saw the other two videos.  Why is he an actual lightbulb now?  It's not nearly as relateable.  I literally do not think I could get lost as that character and empathize with him anymore.  Now it's like, "Aha!  Get it!  He's a little lightbulb! Jokes!"

He's always been a lightbulb, it's integral to the story.

When I saw the video at first, I didn't know what was happening, but then I noticed the shadows and I thought "wow, that's awesome concept" :-) Looks as simple concept yet fun, the atmosphere is also peculiar, sort of mystic.

Even though there's no music, what about some subtle ambient sounds? Just a random idea though ^^' I'll be definitely watching this 

It has a fair bit of sound in already but I'm adding more continuously, it just won't have any music. The point of the audio is that it's generally not just random audio noise in the background, each sound in the game has a point of origin and a purpose. If you hear a noise, it's because something is actually making that noise rather than just having an ambient track over everything (if that makes sense).

I'll probably get someone to redo/make the rest of the sound effects later on in development, just can't afford it at the moment and don't know all the specific sounds needed, so I'm just using my own mostly temporary stuff.

I hope the symbols randomly fade in/out as if showing some kind of macro-symbols.

What do you mean by macro symbols? Like musical notation style? Or the smaller symbols making a larger one in the grid? Cool thought though, gives me some ideas.

[rivon]

Yes, the smaller symbols making a larger one. It could be similar shapes like the small symbols but the small symbols would be like pixels of the large one.

[Claw]

I wrote a blog post about level/world design in Chroma: here

Might be interesting to someone so thought I'd mention it here.

This weekend will be full of art with a side order of level design. Made some rocks yesterday and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out; took so long to pixel in the normals but was pretty relaxing to just chill out, listen to music, and draw.

[melos]

I LIKE TO MAKE ROCKS

I already said this on Twitter, but nice blog post - will be cool to see more, if you have the time - I oftne want to write more as well but am busy working on things like the game etc.

[happymonster]

Yes, nice blog.

[Claw]

Cheers guys, glad you liked it. Might post blog things more often, ends up being quite therapeutic and useful for me to re-read and evaluate stuff.

Feeling pretty good today, because I'm sat here makin' a game, and that's a pretty fun thing to do. IGF finalists were announced and Chroma wasn't one of them, and for pretty valid reasons. It was way too early to be played, there wasn't much gameplay to the IGF demo and no real meat to it. Now I have a clean slate, a year to make a really good game and try it next time round.

The whole "intend to release it within one year" thing had me a bit on edge anyway, because I don't know what's gonna happen over the next 365 days, or the scale the game will end up taking, now I'm generally just looking forward to this next year doing what I love.

Anyway, here's a picture that is animated by magic and fancy technology of something I finally got round to adding/polishing:



Also, I'm talking with a sound designer/musician at the moment... There won't be background music to the game like I've said, but he sent me a dubbed video that blew me the fuck away, and it's pretty exciting. Takes the audio in the direction I was aiming for, but above and beyond that.

[devMidgard]

Are you using a third party engine or your team just created a custom engine?

I was wondering about Unity... DAMN THIS LOOKS SO COOL!

[Claw]

I'd like to give Unity a try some day, seems like the best thing around for making 3D games these days and has a lot of cool features.

I made this engine myself, but I'm completely insane so I don't recommend it.

[DustyDrake]

Uh... Wow!
But why do the shadow blocks go up? Unless that's just a trick of the eyes and they aren't actually dropping like the 'real' one does.

[Claw]

Light and shadow, equal and opposite, you stand on the solid and it falls down - the shadow stays there. Stand on the shadow and the shadow falls... up. Just thought it would look cool

[DustyDrake]

Light and shadow, equal and opposite, you stand on the solid and it falls down - the shadow stays there. Stand on the shadow and the shadow falls... up. Just thought it would look cool

It does, but... that seems fairly opposite to how everything else handles light.

[devMidgard]

Light and shadow, equal and opposite, you stand on the solid and it falls down - the shadow stays there. Stand on the shadow and the shadow falls... up. Just thought it would look cool

It does, but... that seems fairly opposite to how everything else handles light.

I think it looks great how it is right now.

For my eyes the shadow is not going up, it's just disappearing invaded by the light. Looks really great.

[Claw]

Light and shadow, equal and opposite, you stand on the solid and it falls down - the shadow stays there. Stand on the shadow and the shadow falls... up. Just thought it would look cool

It does, but... that seems fairly opposite to how everything else handles light.

You mean because the shadow stays there and the physical object disappears?

That's a pretty essential part of the game, the physical and shadow worlds are two very separate entities. Because something exists in one state doesn't mean it has to exist in all states at the same time, a few puzzles revolve around this concept.