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[SelfTitled]

Looking good, nice to see it in motion.

[3Beards]

This is looking great. Love the concept work and it looks like its translating really well.

Curious to know how you're going about designing levels/puzzles. Is that something for later down the track, as in after you've got all the mechanics working the way you want, or have you got others working on that side of things at the same time?

[YaW]

Love the name, love the idea and love it in motion. Hope to see some puzzles and plataforming soon!

 

[Interactionman]

Hi SelfTitled, thanks yeah it's good to have a character to run around with now, he sure beats the capsule I was using before :D

Thanks 3Beards I'm designing all the levels on paper first and getting the layout and puzzles and flow of the level as right as I can before starting to build it. The layout of this level changed a bit while I was building it, and some of the puzzles and other things to do changed a bit along with that but it's pretty much what I had down on paper to begin with. More ideas and ways of doing things present themself when you go from 2D to 3D in the game engine anyway, so as I get more of the puzzles built and test them I'm sure things will develop. Apart from the coding help on some of the more complex things such as the character controller I'm doing everything myself, so stuff gets done as I get to it

Thanks Yaw, I'm workin' on it! But no spoilers... I hate spoilers

[Interactionman]

Wow I can't believe I haven't posted anything since October! Sorry to everyone who's been following this thread but don't worry I haven't forgotten you or stopped working on the game. Quite the opposite in fact, I've been really busy working on all kinds of stuff and not got round to posting.

So here's a quick re-cap of the last few months...

I've been working mostly on level design and building. I've gone through several iterations of the forest level which included a number of play tests with local friends. All that has been a lot more time consuming than I first thought it would be but it's been a really valuable learning experience and things are getting better with each new version. I've also been working more on the story, filling in the details of what's going on in the world and for the individual levels. And the in the last week or so I've been working on giving the player character a wider range of options for interacting with the world, making custom animations for everything and linking it all up in Unity.

Once I figure out how to capture footage and turn it into an animated gif I'll upload some, but in the mean time here are a couple of images of the animation progress:








I'll definitely be posting more regularly in here from now on. One of the big things I've been thinking about since the start of the year is about doing more stuff that I can share with the outside world. Not just getting things to a stage where I know what's going on and then I can move on to something else, but actually getting things to a level where I can show it to other people too. I've been doing a ton of work on the game, but I realised I haven't got much I can show yet. So, in short - more is coming soon!

In the mean time here is another Unity screenshot, taken on Jan 1st 2016 and comparing it to Jan 1st 2015 - the day I started development of my game. I think there's been a bit of progress




As always, thanks for looking!




 

[Interactionman]

Here's a quick test gif... using a big lever and a quick emote at the end when you try to interact with something and there's nothing there. I don't know what to call that... it's the 'I have no idea' emote 




More to come soon...

[maruki]

Man, the progress of this game is inspiring!
I love how the concepts turned out in 3D! That mustache is the best.

[Music Vortex]

Great to see that the game keeps moving forward, keep these updates coming! 

[Interactionman]

Thanks Maruki 

And thanks Music Vortex too, I'll definitely be posting updates more regularly.

I'm currently working on a short demo scene that I'm hoping to show at the end of the month at a local indie dev meetup, so I'll be able to make a video of that once it's done.

[Interactionman]

Here are a couple of screens from the short demo level I'm currently working on: It's not textured yet but all the gameplay is functional, new animations are in and loads of other stuff has been added, fixed or improved. I'm planning on showing it at a local game dev meet up soon and I'll post a video when it's done too.

Regular mode


Ghost mode


Bonus screenshot! (and so I can use my awesome caption again)

He's not just pushing up daisies anymore!

[Interactionman]

You know when you just get used to something being the way it is and forget to question it?

Well somehow, despite my game being about a guy who recently died, I textured him as if he was still alive and have been using that ever since! How did I not realise sooner I needed to change that?!

Anywho... here, finally, is the suitably dead looking version of Mister Albert Devlin!

[and]

Just saw this on the screenshotsaturday thread. It looks awesome! Love the concept

[Pixel Noise]

Just found this - wow! I think it's looked great from the very first concept post - really nice to see the progress you've made over the last year. Following

[Interactionman]

Thanks Pixel Noise & And, glad you like it so far!

p.s. And - I like the snow in your Saturday screenshot gif, I'm following your game too

[and]

Thanks! Sorry for the late reply

I had the snow laying on the ground but I couldn't get it optimised so the game slowed to a crawl

How's things coming along with this?

[Interactionman]

and - I'd like to say "really fast!" but you know how it is... there's so much to do and everything takes way too long.

But... progress! Having finally got the gameplay sorted out in the demo level I'm working on, I'm starting to make the art for it now.

I started by trying to define the architecture style for the old ruins that will be hidden in the forest. I focused on gates/doorways since they can have quite a bit of detail in them so they make a good signature piece  but they're not too large to do a load of variations. With the style settled on I can build the rest of the architecture out from that. I also upgraded the iron gate for the mansion gardens which also appears in the demo level.



With all the scripting, animation and other stuff, I haven't had time for modelling and texturing for a while so I'm glad to get back to that now and here are the results so far.

[Interactionman]

I've had a busy week working on ghost stuff!

I made a new concept for the ghost timer UI. It's a supernatural pocket watch that counts down how much ghost time you have left...



and updated the character textures for ghost mode...



I'm slowly getting back into the swing of doing art again after a lot of months working on scripting and game play stuff and I'm looking forward to getting more environment art done in the coming weeks.

Thanks for looking! 

[maruki]

Whoa, that ghost mode is seriously ghostly! I like it!

[Interactionman]

Thanks Maruki

I was using a mat cap shader before which was ok, but it didn't allow for any texture detail so I think this one is better. It still needs some VFX, some spooky vapours or something but it's getting there.

[Interactionman]

Look who's back from the dead! Ha, see what I did there? Ok, so jokes aside it's been a while since the last update but I haven't been slacking I've been really busy doing some freelance work to pay the bills and making tons of art for my game. So I'll skip the chat and get straight to the screenshots!







As you can see I've been working on expanding the mansion environment, from the original screenshot into what is now five rooms that make up the first section of the demo I'm working on.

There are more screenshots over on my website - http://interactionman.com/blog/?p=214

And a video clip on Youtube here -



During this round of art updates I started using Substance Painter to do my textures. I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon of this and that new software, but wow I really love Substance Painter! It really takes the guesswork out of making textures/materials for games, especially with PBR lighting as Unity uses. Getting the correct values for the gloss/rough and metallic textures is so much easier now because you can see directly on the model how it will look in the game. It means I can spend less time swapping back and forth between different programs to see if things look right and more time making artistic choices about how things should look.

As always, thanks for looking!