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[Pehesse]

Didn't see that you had a devlog in here as well! Posting to subscribe to your updates :-) Great looking as usual! What's your current timetable? Are you planning a demo at some point?

[Romain Rope]

This looks great!

Looks like a Mark Of The Ninja/Prince Of Persia mashup.

I'm sold.

[Green Gospod]

The art direction, quality and animations are fantastic, but the anime eyes ruin everything. They look so dumb, amateurish, childish and ill-fitting. Whole face is just two huge gaping eyes. Why go for dark realistic style and then use anime eyes? I don't get it. I guess they look fine from afar, but eh, I feel like they could easily put many people off. Just my two cents.

 

[Tuba]

The art direction is great indeed.

[Pixel Noise]

  Wow!

I think the eyes look pretty good in game - they do look strange in the up close shots, but that's not what's important. This is reminding me a lot of Salt and Sanctuary (in the overall look and feel). I loved that game, and this looks like it's on it's way to being something special too!

How far along are you in development? Are you at a point where you have some OST samples? Would love to hear some, if so 

[OllyOllyBennett]

What's your current timetable?

We're staying tight-lipped on release dates for now I'm afraid, but keep an eye on this thread and our Twitter account for updates.

Looks like a Mark Of The Ninja/Prince Of Persia mashup.

Those games are both certainly influences, so we're glad you picked up on them

The art direction, quality and animations are fantastic, but the anime eyes ruin everything.

Thanks for your feedback, both positive and critical.

How far along are you in development? Are you at a point where you have some OST samples?

Our development path was somewhat unorthodox with this particular project, so stating an abstract point in development like 'pre-alpha' or 'alpha' would not be entirely accurate. Let's say we're a mix of the two. There is nothing forthcoming with the OST right now, but we’ll be sure to share on our social channels when there is, so keep an eye out, or an ear

[OllyOllyBennett]

We're delighted to announce that Chucklefish – the company behind Starbound and Stardew Valley – have partnered with us on The Siege and the Sandfox.

You can read more on their blog, here.

[Staleevolution]

This looks incredible!  Good luck. 

[JosephSeraph]

Wow I'm legitimately and thoroughly impressed with the beautiful pixel and animation work on this.

[aamatniekss]

Oh, this is looking great! Reminds me of those old mobile java Prince Of Persia games!

[CrayderStudios]

Wow, that sunset / sundown artpiece on the first page is gorgeous as hell. The art direction in this game is top notch, animations are smooth as a baby's bottom and I love the stealth and acrobatic stuff. Sold 

How much will the story play a part in the game? Will it be linear (nothing wrong with that) or multiple-branched? Looking forward to it either way.

Also, congrats on partnering with Chucklefish!

[Thaumaturge]

This looks like a rather interesting--and rather lovely--game. Following! ^_^

On the subject of anime-eyes, I'll confess that, to my own taste, I do find them a little large for this context. (I'd likely reduce their height by a pixel.) However, it's far from a deal-breaker for me!

The fortress looks as though it might be rather interesting to explore, and the means of doing so look promising. ^_^

[OllyOllyBennett]

Thanks for all the positive comments guys

How much will the story play a part in the game? Will it be linear (nothing wrong with that) or multiple-branched? Looking forward to it either way.

We're not saying much just yet, but the story is a major part of the game and will be experienced through the traditional Metroidvania structure. We are working with writing company Talespinners on the project, so check them out.

Thanks again everyone for your feedback and support.

[OllyOllyBennett]

80.lv did an in-depth interview with our team about building a 2D game in Unreal Engine 4. You can read the article on their website, with accompanying pretty pictures.

[tanis]

The game is looking awesome guys! How did you set up the camera to keep the 1:1 pixel ratio?

[Boxy]

The game is looking awesome guys! How did you set up the camera to keep the 1:1 pixel ratio?

To be fair UE4 deals with most of that for us. We project orthographically rather than in perspective and Unreal's camera system allows us to set the ortho width (640 in our case, as we intend to run at 640x360 and double up as required for larger resolutions) and constraint the aspect ratio, thus giving us perfect 1:1 pixel ratios on all layers of the game world.

I think a lot of games tend to fall back on a perspective camera with a low FoV to achieve a fake orthographic look, but as you have noticed it leads to pixels of varied sizes at different depths and we definitely didn't want that for Sandfox!

[tanis]

Thanks for the reply Boxy. I ended up using the same approach for my own prototype. I made an extension of the UCameraComponent where I set the design width and height and compute a best fit algorithm at runtime to scale up the orthographic width accordingly.

I wish you guys were around the corner, I'd be at your office pretty much every day to talk about such things

[OllyOllyBennett]

We've posted a pixel art animation dev blog at our new location on the Chucklefish forums. You can read it here.

It details our development of our talking sprites, from almost static with just mouth motion, to animated bodies with gestures. Give it a read and let us know your thoughts.

[jctwood]

I love the post about the animations for dialogue! Such a huge difference! I wonder how long it takes to do these kind of animations and whether you plan to tie the gestures to what happens in the dialogue? I just wanted to say the game looks absolutely phenomenal. The flowing animations and movement remind me a lot of PoP which is my favourite game. Congratulations on partnering with Chucklefish they seem like a great team!

[OllyOllyBennett]

I wonder how long it takes to do these kind of animations and whether you plan to tie the gestures to what happens in the dialogue?

Thanks for the lovely compliments.

Emotes take about a day, a walk cycle around 2-3, all highly dependent on complexity of course. We hand draw/edit each frame, hence the smoothness, but also the time consuming nature of it.