next »

[Islandh]

Congratz man! And thanks!

Archgame mentioned the Spirited Away bathhouse on a tropical island as well a bit earlier in the comments. When I hear that I can definitiely see what you guys mean, and although I have seen the film, I havent actually had the bathhouse in mind at all when designing the environment or the atmosphere!

[oleomingus]

Wonderful work! The city clustered atop the rocks looks really good, especially with it's deep saturated hues.
I saw someone mention favelas and it ceratinly looks like that!

Does the complete game follow the same color pallet, and will there be interior spaces as well, like being able to go into the houses? And how large is the city?

[Islandh]

Wonderful work! The city clustered atop the rocks looks really good, especially with it's deep saturated hues.
I saw someone mention favelas and it ceratinly looks like that!

Does the complete game follow the same color pallet, and will there be interior spaces as well, like being able to go into the houses? And how large is the city?

Thanks! The game will take place during day, evening/sunset and night. Most of it is going to be during evening/sunset as in the pictures, though. You will be able to go into buildings and houses, yes (not all of them though, ofc). The size of the city is rather unplanned. I´m creating the key parts of the game, and then all the rest will be a bonus. It's a short story though (45 min maybe) so don't expect a The Elder Scrolls: Capri 

[TonyManfredonia]

One of the best games I've ever played (Gone Home) took less than 2 hours.  45 minutes has the potential to be perfect!

[Islandh]

45 min is what I guess would be the average. I dont care much about game time, to be honest, as long as the experience is good. I want the game to be dynamic in the sense that you could potentially solve the case at Capri by just finding a few clues or even just one clue, which would give the game a playtime of possibly less than 20 min. Most people though, will need to find rather many clues to be able solve the mystery which increases the game time. And even if you would solve it early, every little clue tells you more about the story, which enriches the experience.

[xix]

Excited to see this game develop. Good luck on you.

[RujiK]

This game is pretty, and you should feel pretty.

But 45 minutes only? 

[Islandh]

Thx! We will see how long it will turn out eventually. I don't want to aim too high, but rather design something within reach and then expand that.

[PixelDensity]

The atmosphere and composition of the world you have created looks great, I love how you have taken the time to make it unique and add all the small details to make it interesting.

Question: Are you using the default UE4 water shader for the ocean or have you modified/made your own one? I just ask is its the only thing that looks a bit flat to me. Needs more dynamic to it.

Otherwise great work. Please keep this devblog updated, because I will be giving this a follow  

EDIT: I have just looked over all your instagram photos and seen that you did make your own water shader, and that it is the effect you wanted from it. My opinion is still there, in that it looks a bit flat, and doesnt really interact with the rocks or the island very much. You could look at flow maps to make it more unique, but again if its the way you like it, disregard what I just said here

[Islandh]

Thank you! And thanks for the feedback (the water is an important part of the game)!

The water is a modified version of the community shader found here: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?42092-Community-Project-WIP-Weather-amp-Ocean-Water-Shader. It's tricky to discuss the water (especially water dynamics) based on screenshots due to the motion being such an important factor. I do understand your point however, and I have a few fixes that I will do later on. I like the way it looks for now, though. Visual consistency is very important to me, so when I have all the main components, including characters, in place; I will start tweaking and polishing the look.

[CiroContinisio]

Nice screenshots!

Is the game meant to be about Capri, the island in the Gulf of Napoli? Because it doesn't look a lot like it.
The palms remind me more of a tropical kind of island, for Capri I'd go more with maritime pines and similar Mediterranean plants.

[Islandh]

Thx! No it's not supposed to look like the real Capri! I used Capri in the title since it symbolises a typical exotic place to me, as well as being an inspiration. I´m not sure if I will keep Capri in the title when the game is finished though, if it leads to confusion. But it's WIP so it works for now. The people in the game will also talk a gibberish version of italian, is the plan.

[kraed]

Lovely stuff and great ambient, can't wait to see gameplay related posts. One of my favorite logs so far.

[CiroContinisio]

Thx! No it's not supposed to look like the real Capri! I used Capri in the title since it symbolises a typical exotic place to me, as well as being an inspiration. I´m not sure if I will keep Capri in the title when the game is finished though, if it leads to confusion. But it's WIP so it works for now. The people in the game will also talk a gibberish version of italian, is the plan.

Ah I see! I'm from Napoli, so the island is around 20km from my house, you see.
Obviously you're free to reimagine the island the way you want, I think the most disturbing thing is the plants, which are really weird for this biome.

Also, you can't depict Capri if you didn't do the iconic 'Faraglioni'! (stacks?)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraglioni)

[Islandh]

I initially actually planned to locate the game on those Faraglionis. Im not sure I will still do it though. Check my Instagram devlog out, in the first images you can see some pics of that.

[lithander]

Looks and sounds lovely! And I actually tend to enjoy games that you can play through in one sitting more and more. So many games left unfinished in 2015

[TonyManfredonia]

Looks and sounds lovely! And I actually tend to enjoy games that you can play through in one sitting more and more. So many games left unfinished in 2015

I agree. Don't get me wrong, I love MASSIVE games. I just started delving into The Witcher 3 (finally) and, much like Skyrim or GTA V, the immersion is fantastic. However, quick games are fabulous to just pick up and play for the sake of variety and escape from the sometimes overwhelming "big" games.

For @Islandh, one thing I always love is when developers imitate a real life setting but still fictionalize it. For example, GTA IV is essentially NYC in the US, but it's not at the same time. For your inspirational settings, maybe you can do a mix of "real life" and fiction. Far Cry is good at this too. The 4th entry made it seem like the island is located in the real world, but truthfully speaking it doesn't exist. There's plenty of opportunity with creating a setting, and you're doing a marvelous job so far

[archgame]

I used Capri in the title since it symbolises a typical exotic place to me, as well as being an inspiration. I´m not sure if I will keep Capri in the title when the game is finished though, if it leads to confusion.

I just read the Killscreen article on PFC via FYIG (fuckyeahindiegames tumblr) and was super happy to see Priestman writing about the game! I was caught by the above quote and it reminded me of a Jerry Seinfeld episode of Comedians in Cars getting Coffee with George Wallace where he has a bit about the word "Riviera," something along the lines of whatever you put the word Riviera on, it makes it sound exotic and romantic, warm and sunny. Naturally I thought of your game. According to Wikipedia, Riviera is in fact derived from Italian word for coastline and "'Riviera' may be also applied to any coastline, especially one that is sunny, topographically diverse and popular with tourists" (literally sounds like a description of your game sans the the Spirited Away influences). Even a quick google image search yields results that might as well be one of your mood boards.

All this to basically say, if you want to change the name from Capri, I think Riviera (or some play on the word) would be very fitting.

[Islandh]

Yeah, i saw you got quoted, kind of, as well

Riviera is a good suggestion. I think that a 'the' would have to be added in that case though, Postcard From the Riviera. At least, that's how we use the word in Swedish. A problem though with 'Riviera' is that it kind of describes the place as being popular for tourists. One important part of the game is that the place is populated by locals (yes, it makes a difference, even gameplay-wise). I also like the word 'Capri', so I'll most likely stick to it. It will definitely not look like the Capri of today, but it's also gonna be clearly fictional, so I believe people will be okay about it. Thanks for the suggestion though!

Also, for the ones that doesn't follow the project on Instagram (postcardfromcapri), I´ve been spending the days since christmas on writing the design document to tie everything together; plot-wise but also making various ideas and elements simply work well together. It took more time than I initially expected, but now I´m just glad I got it to work and that I will be able to continue on the actual execution! Next-up is indoor environments, might have time to work on it enough to upload some pics of that on Sunday.

[Jasmine]

I've got some mails from interested composers, but it's too early for me to decide anything yet. I do have an idea for how I want the soundscape to be though. Realistic and ambient with melodies coming from street musicians, open windows, radios etc.

First thing that comes to mind when hearing this is Sunset (if you haven't listened, check out the OST). The main goal behind the soundtrack was for the music to play through "records" that the player put on that were in the house.

Anyway, this game is gorgeous. There is another game on the TiG forums that seems to be taking a similar, breath-taking explorative landscape approach. The art is vastly different, along with the premise, but the central theme being "explore" in a graphically stunning world is concurrent.

Great stuff, man!