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[nathy after dark]

So many cool things to learn from your last few posts:
- Reverse storyboarding! I'm more of a writer and less of a visual person, so I bet I could gain a ton of new skills by doing that.
- Those maps of the playtesting data are awesome
- I had never heard of Rockage before, and now I'm filing it away for a potential future trip!

[archgame]

@nathy after dark: Glad there are things to learn from! I've actually realized we've been sitting on this build of our game and there have been a number of frequent followers on this devlog that haven't gotten to see the actual game in action yet. I'll be sending out build links, so keep an eye on your inbox(es). Would love to hear your thoughts on the actual experience and how that relates to what is being logged here.

We'll be showing a playable version of the build at Dopium LA on June 9th. Dopium is an art event in Chinatown, it's a chill event with a lot of interesting projects and takes place at the Mandarin Plaza in LA's Chinatown.

I've been teaching a class at UCLA this semester and gave a lecture at USC two weeks ago, so the devlog has been quiet lately, although I've still been working on the game.

We've recently started talking with a writer to help nail down the narrative arc of the game and developing the characters, which will culminate in some dialogue trees, which i'm very excited about! The contract is still in the works, but a big idea that came from our initial chat was imagining the city as the sea in Wind Waker and special architectural sites as the islands where stories and puzzles will happen, which is fitting as we've referenced a number of other LoZ titles. Another LoZ reference we are running with is from BotW and their use of triangulating and chaining interest points so that from each interest point at least two other interest points are visible to the player. Towards this end, we triangulated 80 sites evenly spaced across the sphere with the idea that the next architectural site isn't to far away.

Now that we have a list of 80 sites, I've set to work modeling them. Here's my modeling progress from the last two weeks, I probably won't post again until I have the rest done.

[Zireael]

I like the buildings. I now have some more references for my own near future game (I spent last two days browsing Deviant Art looking for cyberpunk cityscapes and buildings )

[JobLeonard]

This looks like it could be part of a game trailer :D

[archgame]

@Zireael: Actually, I'm an architect by day and most of these models are built off of real-life references or studio projects from my classmates. Glad you have some more references, check back when all 80 are here

@ JobLeonard: Yeah it does kinda look like a game trailer or even title screen, just realized how similar it looks to the Kaiba Opening.

I see I have some messages in the inbox, but this is a quick saturday post, still working on the 80 sites. I'll post some of these later, but in the meantime wanted to throw up a character design from cory. Feel like this fully captures the quirkiness/weirdness/surrealness/quality we are going for with our characters:

[archgame]

I'll send a copy of the current build to anyone who names any of the architecture precedents I used for the images below or in the previous post 









the architecture above and the architecture from the previous post compromise 40/80 sites we are developing. I'm taking a break from modeling the architecture for the next two weeks to get the modeled sites situated in the game and improving the urban buildings of the game in tandem.



As previously mentioned, we've been working with a writer and to kick things off I started making a dialogue system using Ink. The gif isn't much, still working on the UI (looking at you night in the woods), but the system is currently set up to use tags to place the text either over the player, npc, or between both of them. I'm planning on adding animated text, camera effects, and choice selection UI in the next phase. What's cool about using Ink though, is that this is what my dialogue script looks like, which allows for super fast iteration and it's extremely easy to read (not to mention it has built in branching and it's open source ).

Code:

# npc
...
# npc #player
nothing exciting ever happens here.
*let's run away[.] and start a jazz band.
	# npc #player
    we're both looking at the same city, in the same galaxy.	
    * *we're connected[...] by the same beat.
			# between
            we nodded
			# npc
			vibes
			# player
            i have to be leaving.
    * *we can[...] make a jazz band.
			# player
			but in the end,
			# player	
			how close can we come to truth's essence?
*i[...] have to be leaving 

- goodbye kisses for real.  # between # spin # pink
-> END

[Pixel Noise]

Wow I had not checked in on this in a while, or TIG much at all lately, but this is looking so good! Love that you are getting some good press for your efforts too.

[archgame]

@ Pixel Noise: Thanks!

End of the quarter, which means we did our quarterly kickstarter update:

Screenshots:







Characters:



Sites (felt good to finish them right on time!):



This coming quarter we are going to be focusing on gameplay (and I might sneak in some soundtrack work too). First thing I need to do is get the loading, dialogue trees, and save states all working together. From that point, we'll be adding in gameplay scripts and fleshing out what exactly it is you do in this city besides talk to other inhabitants and jump around on rooftops.

[archgame]

Another quarter ends, meaning we did our quarterly kickstarter update!!!:

Twitch Play Testing:

We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback from our current method of play testing, but we are at the point where we want it to get more personal. Starting in November we will be play testing through twitch. With our fans scattered around the country and our team split between Los Angeles and Tokyo, twitch offers a great way to get together and have an intimate look at the game. We believe we will get the most out of direct interaction with people play testing the game. Additionally, by play testing live over twitch, everyone else is invited to watch and give their feedback or just come and enjoy a chill time. We are currently scheduling play testing sessions, if you are interested hmu, else follow @homemakelabs if you just want to come through and kick it with us on twitch.

Audio:

Previously the music was composed of mostly cut samples. Like nujabes, I wasn't satisfied with using a recorded sample however, so I opted to recreate each sample in MIDI to ensure high quality audio and provide another level of musical fidelity. The MIDI allows me to not only have crisper sounds, but I can create a different instrumentation more easily, meaning each character will have a unique instrumentation. By giving each place its own melody and each character a unique instrumentation, I'm hoping to create sonic memories of time and place in the city. We’ve made unique atmospheres and melodies for each neighborhood and a number of beats that unlock as players progress through the city. Below is a link to the sounds, although it's really meant to be experienced in game.

[ piano beattape download ]

I've been doing all the sound design for the game so far and we are considering working with a sound designer in the future, does anyone have advice on when and how to go about doing this? We have sample audio for all aspects of the game, would we just send this to a sound designer? We want to make sure we are giving the sound designer room to be creative and pursue their own goals too, so maybe sending the samples is too prescriptive?

Screenshots:

[Pixel Noise]

Re: Sound design - If the sounds you currently have are close to what you want for a finished product, or even if they are at least representative of the overall style/sound you want, then they will be helpful for a sound designer to use as a starting point. I wouldn't worry about interfering with the sound designer's creativity by providing sample sounds.

I also have your BGM playing right now as I type emails, etc, and I really like it! Idk how sound savvy you are - the composition is really nice I think, and it all sounds pretty good already! But you may want to consider providing your audio stems to a sound designer for final mixing/mastering, and also possibly to add a bit of cohesion/flavor to them. But that's without knowing your full vision for the OST. Obviously, given the visuals, I think a lot of folks would expect to hear more synth stuff and less lo-fi acoustic instruments - but I love the feel of it!

[Jasmine]

Man, your models are fantastic! Have these been implemented in the current build? Also, I hope school has been going well.

Also, I'm going to second Pixel in terms of hiring a mastering/mixing specialist! It'll definitely give a finished touch to the overall project in the end!

[Devilkay]

i love the scifi or cyberpunk games. but, warning. the colors make the background very confunsing

[archgame]

@pixelnoise @m4uesviecr I should have prefaced the music by stating it has not gone through a mastering/mixing phase, but I'm really impressed you noticed . I'm assuming mastering/mixing is best saved until the very end and should be done in conjunction with all the other sound effects? I haven't decided if I'll hire someone for this part yet.

@pixelnoise 
That's good to know the sound effects will be helpful for a sound designer, I know it'll help us continue to move the game forwarded and I've always liked the idea of having a list of sounds we need that are also already implemented in the game.

Obviously, given the visuals, I think a lot of folks would expect to hear more synth stuff and less lo-fi acoustic instruments - but I love the feel of it!

That's a really great point. The current idea is that the musical instrument will relate to the characters, who also "see" the city differently. once I get into instrumentation there will definitely be a synth for one of the characters. The piano is most likely going to just be the starting character. I must confess though, that I run chillanimebeats (twitter/tumblr/soundcloud), which isn't exclusively lo-fi acoustic, but does have a lot of influence. I started chillanimebeats about two years after the game (and about a month before my thesis, in school I tended to procrastinate around finals by doing music things), and the anime + music really captured an atmosphere I was aiming for in the game, so i've been trying to push the game in that direction. The main musical inspiration has always been nujabes, I never get tired of listening to his music (one of the biggest reasons i'm on pandora more than spotify, although I just checked spotify again and they have a few of his albums up now!).

@m4uesviecr
The models have not been implemented in the current build on itch.io (they are in Unity atm though). haha the school comment took me aback, I graduated back in May 2016, I've been full-time employed doing architecture since then (which accounts for the slow progress of the game , and side plug anyone should hmu if you need any architecting).

@devilkay can you elaborate on what you mean by confusing? This relates to a convo we've been having in the background and are curious to hear your thoughts and see how they relate.

Once we had all the sites in the game, we went through the entire city and red lined what was working and what wasn't based on our moodboards. The last two weeks I've been going back through all the city blocking and finessing everything based on lists we've created (using google keep for task tracking).

what does everyone think of the title? we've been wanting to change it for a couple years now, but haven't found anything that feels right. What have you done to create your titles? My only strategy atm is to dump every thought I have on a spreadsheet.

[Pixel Noise]

Definitely can not go wrong with Nujabes. I think you are capturing that feeling with the sound so far!

I agree that the title could probably be better? I think ideally, the title reflects something about the game/narrative itself, while also being catchy. One of the current projects we are working on just crowdsourced a new name on Twitter, and it worked out really well! If you can distill the emotion/narrative/feeling of the game (or that you want the game to instill), that should give you a good starting point on new names.

[archgame]

@Pixel Noise: How did you crowd source it on twitter? just say what should we name this game? we have a word bank and a list of 459 potential titles at the moment, but nothing is sticking; I remember seeing a video of Tim Schafer and he had a note book just full of names from grim fandango (word bank atm:chill, together, everybody, sentimental, altogether, endless, forever, scape, beat, tape, warp, album, mixtape). Without inserting too much authorial reading, the game is an exploration in a city trying to accommodate different needs of its inhabitants and the relationship between these inhabitants.



Our process has been between analog and systematic, scaling up our desired atmosphere. One outcome of this has been the new twinkle in the sky you can see above. We were working with lighting and trying to make the city feel alive. In doing so, we noticed it added a reason to look up at the city (given the spherical nature, something we are always trying to encourage). One of our backers made a comment that this would be a good way to have waypoints, or navigation. We thought this was a brilliant idea and embodies a lot of aspects of the game into a simple package: no map, but still provide an ability to show players direction and progress through the city. So we went back and added this technique to all the districts and sites of the city.



One issue I've been running into is the bloom (using post-processing stack on unity). The farther away the object, the bloom seems to increase, but ideally it would decrease so the sky doesn't look brighter than the immediate buildings. Is it possible to edit the post-processing stack, or am I going to have to do a custom camera filter? Side note, I'm using shareX to get gif screen captures, but they always end up being huge and it takes forever in photoshop to optimize them, anyone have a nice tool they use?



If anyone is interested in playing the demo, shoot me a DM (here or @archgame), I would love to watch a stream if you play.

[JobLeonard]

Oooh, update!

(word bank atm:chill, together, everybody, sentimental, altogether, endless, forever, scape, beat, tape, warp, album, mixtape)

If you're going to have mixtape, might as well throw EP in there. There's even some wordplay involved with that one (extended play)

How about "sprawl" as a word? Like uh...

A City Forever Sprawling (title reference)

The Sprawl EP

I dunno, I'm bad with names.

If anyone is interested in playing the demo, shoot me a DM (here or @archgame), I would love to watch a stream if you play.

I still don't have time to play games...

[archgame]

@JobLeonard: The wordplay with EP is brilliant! haha I love it, adding EP and Sprawl to the wordbank. Sprawl also reminds me of the Sprawl Trilogy, which is a nice reference too. I really like just "Sprawl EP", but the only issue I can see is that sprawl tends to have negative connotations, where this games emotional state is supposed to be "angsty nintendo", with a positive view towards urbanism. Thanks!

I like the title reference, that's how I always title my architecture projects, usually a book or anime episode title, with a word or two switched out. My favorite song is In A Sentimental Mood, so for awhile I really liked In A Sentimental City, but In a Sentimental Sprawl has nice alliteration.

I've been trying to make more times to play games lately (I used to play one a year, if even that), but I've found that purposefully playing games thoughtfully has really helped my own game development. But yeah, I wish I had enough time to do both too

This year I'm also trying to up my twitter activity: tweet, tweet, tweet

[NajibSG]

I love the way of lighting the environment and the design of the city.

[JobLeonard]

The Sprawl Trilogy is cool! Hadn't thought of that. I get what you mean with negative connotationsfor Sprawl though. Does "Urban" or "Urbanism" have negative connotations? "Urban EP" alliterates :p.

I like "In a Sentimental Sprawl" a lot though, and I feel like the "sentimental" undoes the negative connotations.

Sounding similar but meaning something different: "stroll" might cover the type of movement best, no?

You got a new follower on Twitter!

[archgame]

@NajibSG: Thanks! Still a WIP, working on detailing atm.

@JobLeonard: Coming form an architecture school, "Urban" and "Urbanism" have always been super neutral and disciplinary sounding to me, but maybe they mean something else to others? You are totally right, Sentimental could take care of those negative sprawl connotations, or at least create an interesting tension between them. LOL what if we just go crazy with alliteration and do "Sentimental Sprawl Stroll Simulator". I wonder what the difference is between a walking simulator and a stroll simulator...

"A Blade Runner sequel where Deckard just walks around the city trying different ramen joints"



Thanks for the follow, I try and keep it mostly game related, but there's the occasional code, beats, and architecture projects from friends too!