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[seancruz]

Hey everyone, I'm Sean and I am an illustrator from Ringling College of Art and Design; for my senior thesis, I am constructing a game that I've been conceptualizing and planning over summer. I, along with two others, Chris Lewis and Gabriel Sorondo are working together to make a playable demo by April.  



What is the Remnant?

Remnant is a sidescroller adventure game where you explore, craft, survive, and research.

Remnant is about a young man who awakens several hundred years after falling unconscious. The young man awakens only to find himself amidst the ruins of three empires, which has fallen to decay and ruin. The last of his kind, the young man is the only remnant of his people. With hardly anyone in sight, the Remnant sets forward, hoping to understand what happened to his people, and why he had slept for so long.

Remnant is part one of a larger story called the Mezua Chronicles. Mezua is a large region where four different stories from different time periods take place. Depending on the success of Remnant, three more stories will follow.

Our website is: www.mezuachronicles.blogspot.com

Game Mechanics and Features

Players will have to jump, climb, swim, and throw items. Players must also find food to heal.Players can choose to explore, craft, chop foliage, mine rocks and gems, collect artifacts, and solve puzzles.

Explore:

Players will be able to click on all sorts of clickable things in the environment that activate some sort of animation, sound, or even hidden artifacts. Exploring adds depth to an otherwise, empty parallax.

Crafting:

Players will be able to craft weapons, tools, and ammunition. Players will need to have a weapon at some point in order to survive harmful creatures. Thus, weapons will require ammunitions, such as arrows. Tools will be required to mine and chop.

Chopping and Mining:

Players can craft, but will require specific materials. Certain trees and bushes can be chopped in order to collect wood or fruits(food). Players will need to mine rocks in order to remove an obstacle, collect pebbles, or find hidden dungeons. Players will need to mine crystal and gem deposits in order to collect special materials for more powerful arrows.

Collecting:

The world will be filled with all kinds of artifacts. Some artifacts are hard to find and rare. Some are common. Some are useless, but others are very useful and act as a medium for contextual story-telling. Collecting is completely optional; some artifacts will be needed however, to find specific dungeon entrances.

Puzzles:

Certain artifacts, entrances, or obstacles will present a puzzle. Puzzles might need to be solved in order to progress, activate certain items or places, or collect certain items.

Researching:

Players will be able to collect artifacts left over from the ruinous empires. The artifacts hold clues and visual information as well as written script from those empires. The visual and written information holds clues as to what happened to the empires, who was who, and what the artifact is. It is a completely optional aspect of the game, for those who want to truly figure out what the world is about.

What Engine will the game be made in?

Chris Lewis is currently programming and designing the game using the Unity Engine.

What type of feedback am I looking for?

I welcome any kind of criticism; you can critique the concept work, the ideas, the mechanics, the title, etc. I will consistently post new concepts and screens as time passes by.

[eigenbom]

The concepts are very nice!

I really wish you luck, but learning programming and scripting and gamedev as part of your thesis is a humongous risk, especially if your thesis markers don't have any idea about the effort involved. (They may just mark your artwork, in which case creating a game is pointless, wrt getting a good mark.)

To minimised this risk it may be best to use a gamedev kit such as AGS or gamemaker, which will basically have templates you can slot your artwork into. (But will still require a tonne of work to get a decent game happening.)

GL!

[seancruz]

Thanks!

Yea it's a risk, but so far it's been great! I honestly am not concerned with my grade, since it's based on artistic merit; if anything I have all the art I'm producing to fall back on if I can't make a demo by April. It can be compiled into a book or portfolio instead

I was thinking of using a gamedev kit, however, I don't have a PC :/ and some of the things I'd like to try out are pretty custom, such as the interface and UI. I could try them out, but it might be too late; I've been working in Flash since summer.

[eigenbom]

Oh right, well never mind, I'm sure flash is ok too. You should just keep it really simple though, like super duper simple. For example, check out the game Samarost, you just click things to 'activate' pre-built animations, or to drive the character between designated positions on the screen. The art of the game and puzzle design makes it a really enjoyable and immersive experience, even though the gameplay is quite minimal.

[seancruz]

Yes, I was thinking of making it as simple as Samorost/Machinarium/Botanicula but with a bit of walking around since it won't be as puzzle-intense as Amanita games. But yea that's the idea

[happymonster]

The art is really beautiful, well done!

[Uykered]

The background and creature graphics look fantastic.

[JSK]

This looks gorgeous! I have a soft spot for exploration/survival games so I'm gonna keep an  on your work!

The concept art really sets the mood, loving the main character especially!
He has a cute but mysterious look, with the hood and all 



I sincerely hope you finish this game.

Good luck!

[aftslash]

Your art is looking great!

[seancruz]

More Concept Drawings and Preview of a New Location




Concepts for flora and trees.



A WIP of a new location. It might possibly be in the demo.

BTW Thanks guys for the compliments!

[ninto]

This looks and sounds beautiful, ahhhhh.

[Loren Schmidt]

Hey, a fellow visual artist turned programmer! I like your critters and flora sketches a lot. send me a private message if you want any programming help, I've done a lot of Flash stuff.

[saint11]

Dude, the style is amazing! Keep posting updates

[Son of Bryce]

This looks dope. Much props seancruz for tackling this one man army style, it'll be a ton of work to code it, do music, all while creating art at that level. If you're hearts there, you'll surely make it work!

Just keep the complexity down! If it's you're first game, it might be easier to succumb to the trap of trying to do way too much. Focus on getting your art in, characters moving around. Screen transitions, UI, sound, etc. in place before you move on to the more complicated gameplay mechanics. Just get placeholder assets in quick if you can so you can catch problems earlier. I recommend faking physics as much as you can, unless you're a total math nerd. Quick & dirty's my style, usually good enough.

Try to find out what the most difficult parts to code are early on, so you'll save yourself from surprises later and closer to your deadline.

Just my 2 cents! Keep it up though!

[emacs]

Sexy

[seancruz]

Hey, a fellow visual artist turned programmer! I like your critters and flora sketches a lot. send me a private message if you want any programming help, I've done a lot of Flash stuff.

Thanks! Just PMed you.

This looks dope. Much props seancruz for tackling this one man army style, it'll be a ton of work to code it, do music, all while creating art at that level. If you're hearts there, you'll surely make it work!

Just keep the complexity down! If it's you're first game, it might be easier to succumb to the trap of trying to do way too much. Focus on getting your art in, characters moving around. Screen transitions, UI, sound, etc. in place before you move on to the more complicated gameplay mechanics. Just get placeholder assets in quick if you can so you can catch problems earlier. I recommend faking physics as much as you can, unless you're a total math nerd. Quick & dirty's my style, usually good enough.

Try to find out what the most difficult parts to code are early on, so you'll save yourself from surprises later and closer to your deadline.

Just my 2 cents! Keep it up though!

Thanks! You're right I need to keep down the complexity. Well, my long-term goal is to eventually have more complexity, but for right now, I just need a good smooth platformer setup with nice menus, music, and a simple inventory system.




Platformer Prototype

Thanks everyone else for the compliments, I really appreciate it! So far, this is what I have, though it's a little rough; unfortunately the player can't walk on slopes; I'm currently looking for some good slope detection tuts. The jumping is okay, and the detection collision is alright too. Anyways, if you guys can, give the SWF a try and see how it feels.

http://www.swfme.com/view/1276952

Arrow keys move, UP is jump.

[golemshaper]

Seriously stunning artwork here..

[happymonster]

The SWF is a good start, everything felt solid. You might want to make the jumping a bit higher, but I suppose it depends on the game style.

Good luck with this!!

[eigenbom]

a few little tips:
- have a cutoff on-ground velocity (say 5m/s), under which the character stops completely
- don't do slopes unless they are _absolutely_ vital
- to get a better sense of motion you need to make the camera move less ... the typical way to do that is:
  - create a 'target' empty object which the camera tracks
  - when the players position moves the target follows it (but has its own, slower acceleration)
  - have an inset rectangle region in the center of the screen, any movement in this rectangle shouldn't cause the camera to move, only when the character 'pushes' against the rectangle should the camera then move

[seancruz]

The SWF is a good start, everything felt solid. You might want to make the jumping a bit higher, but I suppose it depends on the game style.

Good luck with this!!

The jumping used to be higher, but I don't want to get too unrealistic with jump height. I'll have to lower the plateaus so the avatar can actually jump on them haha.

a few little tips:
- have a cutoff on-ground velocity (say 5m/s), under which the character stops completely
- don't do slopes unless they are _absolutely_ vital
- to get a better sense of motion you need to make the camera move less ... the typical way to do that is:
  - create a 'target' empty object which the camera tracks
  - when the players position moves the target follows it (but has its own, slower acceleration)
  - have an inset rectangle region in the center of the screen, any movement in this rectangle shouldn't cause the camera to move, only when the character 'pushes' against the rectangle should the camera then move

Sweet, thanks for the tips. I will definitely look into the velocity thing.
I'd like to try making the camera move less, but since I'm new to programming I'm having a difficult time trying to write this up on my own. Do you know of any tuts that go into this deeper?

Anyways, new concepts: