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[growbotgame]

Here’s the background music for the Kitchen along with Starbelly’s theme. I’m in the process of re-recording Starbelly’s voice in a deeper tone
 




As you move from the bedroom to the kitchen, the music shifts first from melancholic to light and adventurous, and then when Starbelly enters it moves again to something more fun and mischievous. Even though the music regularly changes and supports the player's exploration, I love that it maintains the underlying themes of apprehension and isolation.
 
In the hallway beyond the kitchen there is a door leading up to the garden which is locked. The player needs the permission of the Chief of Security to enter. Thanks to Jessica, Wee Ted now has a drum roll to accompany his march:
 

[growbotgame]

Here are a couple more videos from floor 1 with the music in place.

The Captain's study:




Introduction cutscene:

[mich mash]

Your game looks super cute, I'm really digging the art style and your level layouts from the sketches you've posted look really cool!

[growbotgame]

Thanks! @starctodus

[growbotgame]

I've finished placing in the music for the second floor, which is set within a garden environment. The music for this floor functions a little differently than the first floor.
 
Jessica came up with the idea of creating layers of music which can play continuously, with specific layers being turned down and up as the player moves from room to room and zooms in and out on objects.
 
This proves to be a great way for maintaining consistency within the rooms and also for creating more musical content. If the same piece of music always starts from the beginning when you enter a room it can become repetitive. The overlapping layers work together to create the impression of a more varied melody and extend the time the music feels novel.

From a technical standpoint, as you enter the floor via the stem room, three separate layers of music begin to play at the same time: a base layer, a captain layer and a cloud machine layer. The captain layer and cloud machine layer are initially muted so that only the base layer can be heard. As you enter the pond room the captain layer is turned up and plays over the top of the base layer. Since the two layers begin playing at the same time when you enter the floor, they will always play together correctly.
 



 
This also happens in the cloud machine room. The base layer continues to play but a new layer plays over the top of it, adapting the melody. When the player zooms in on the cloud machine the base layer is turned down so only the cloud machine layer can be heard.
 

[growbotgame]

There are two instances within the stem room where the player can zoom in and out on objects. The first is on the water machine and the second is on the head gardener. For the water machine I turned down the base layer music to about 70% and played a mechanical fan noise to represent the water machine. For the head gardener Jessica created a mystical looping melody which plays whilst the base layer is turned down.

[growbotgame]

I’ve almost finished working through Growbot’s feedback from IndieCade. If you’re interested in seeing the kind of comments jurors send to applicants, you can read the feedback in full here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7paqcr5fU_tTGtvVThXaXJtSms/view?usp=sharing

And I've written about how we've addressed it here: http://growbotgame.com/post/161311983606/growbots-feedback-from-indiecade

[growbotgame]

The Captain is trapped inside their own mind, within a crystaltonic state. Nara must find a way to break her out. During this scene, we've tried to make the audio a mixture of haunting music and ghostly sound effects.





Once the player has solved the puzzles within this room a short uplifting cutscene serves as a relief.

[growbotgame]

The cloud machine cutscene now has music. The cutscene runs across two scenes which makes the music tricky to sync with the animations, as there is no way to know how long it will take for the second scene to load. In the end we split the music into two files with the first file having a long tail end which carries through the scene transition and into the next scene. When the next scene loads the second file begins and the first file quickly fades out. 

[growbotgame]

Back to working on floor 3. The background art for room 4 is mostly complete and I'm now in the process of developing the puzzles.



The puzzles in this room focus on repairing a coral reef who has lost his colours as a result of the attack on the station. The wheels on his front are broken and need reassembling in order to clean the surrounding water and maintain a healthy current.

Here's a development video of the Water Wheel puzzle:



 

[io3 creations]

The visuals are truly enchanting.

I can already see "The Art of Growbot" book.

[Connor]

for some reason im getting a ton of "tiny bang story" vibes here, and thats awesome; not too many people using that style as of late.

[growbotgame]

Thank you @Connor and @io3 creations!

[growbotgame]

Growbot is now on itch.io as a development project. Please follow our progress here: https://growbot.itch.io/growbot

[Kyle Preston]

Still so beautiful! Happy to see all this progress on your amazing game 

[CatStack]

I really dig the artwork. It'd be cool to see your process.

[oahda]

<3

[growbotgame]

Thank you for the kind comments

[growbotgame]

Super excited to announce that Growbot now has a store page on Steam! :D You can add it to your wishlist here http://store.steampowered.com/app/661680/Growbot/

I've also just finished making this new teaser trailer

[growbotgame]

Recently I've been designing floor 4 which takes place in Engineering. On this floor the player will need to use a Starbelly stellarator to restore power to the station, and repair a giant centrifuge to separate harmonies from melodies. Here are some development sketches.