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[nuno]

I just finished announcing(https://www.patreon.com/posts/announcing-my-8150344) my next game, so it's still quite early to post here, but I like to, for the sake of keeping an history of my development progress
I always enjoy coming back to my previous devlogs and read everything from the very start.

Quartz(codename, until I get a proper title), is a 3d exploration game where you play as a geologist, discovering and learning about the remarkable world of rocks and minerals.

For the first time, I'll be experimenting a Patreon-based development model, so I am releasing docs, builds and ideas and thoughts on a more private level too. Still, all public posts will be here in the thread too.

Some early tests on things





Let's go :D

[nu_muso]

This is a beautiful, exciting, exploration game! Genuinely looking forward to playing this In the meantime, I'm following!

[nuno]

prototyping some rock examination while on the field (animated GIF)
(sorry, using the character from one of my previous games because...assets!!)

[nuno]

some more developments

[jctwood]

I love the idea of spotting a rock from high up in the clouds and then coming down to inspect it. Is the game going to focus on this kind of discovery? Thank you for sharing, I didn't know I wanted to fly a hot air balloon in a game until seeing this.

[nuno]

I love the idea of spotting a rock from high up in the clouds and then coming down to inspect it. Is the game going to focus on this kind of discovery? Thank you for sharing, I didn't know I wanted to fly a hot air balloon in a game until seeing this.

yes, also!
balloons will allow the player to travel from island to island, its quite cool :D

[nuno]

(original post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/quartz-devlog-1-8207040)

Quartz Devlog #1 - so many things :D

After the poll about how much I should post and devlog, I've decided to stick with the weekly(or twice a week) devlog posts summarizing the most important things done.
Some of these devlogs will be public, others will be exclusive for patrons, depending on the kind of info I put inside. (By the way, I'm starting the official game design doc for Quartz, and I'll share that with level 3 patrons too.)

So this first week was super creative and fun. I have my mind full of different ideas to try and test, but everything takes time to prototype or research.

Let me just name a few here, in case you missed them before

1 - testing the idea of analyzing a rock which the player picks from the floor



2 - testing simple but fluffy clouds





3 - testing the automatic Level Of Detail(LOD) mesh adaptation





this will be quite important because the game world is so big and I want to keep performance really good even in older computers

4 - testing flying in the balloon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwekGUQzAEk

I've got to tell you, flying in an hot air balloon is awesome :D

Balloons will be used to travel from island to island and also a way to explore things from above (binoculars included :D)

5 - I'm also experimenting different topologies for the terrains in the islands.

In all the videos and gifs above, the terrain goes up and down a bit randomly. But I'm considering using a more "layered" approach.



It will probably fit better with the artistic style I'm looking for. Not decided on this one yet.

6 - Caves / mines

I didn't want the game to be limited to gathering surface rocks. But I also don't want to go the minecraft way of doing things. So I've began studying a way to have caves/mines inside the ground or mountains, where the player can enter and explore a different environment, potentially finding different rocks than on the surface.



This also brings the question about the camera view. I'm not decided if first-person or third-person view. Thirds sounds better, but in caves and in the balloon, first-person is way cooler. Would it be too odd to change inthe middle of the game? Or should the player be allowed to change at will?

Right now I'm going to dedicate more time to research and filling out the game design document. As we begin to detail more aspects of the gameplay, objects available, etc, it will become easier to start developing the first prototype.

First demo prototype

As soon as I begin working on something even barely playable, I'll be doing periodic builds for my Patrons to play and test, if they want to.

Apart from that, I'm aiming to create a demo/official prototype of the game (with little features), to be available around April/May. With it, I hope to be able to gather more interest in the game and perhaps find sources of funding besides my own wallet. I have my hope up, otherwise I'll have to do the art my self, and we all know it can't end well

I'm super enthusiastic about this game, and I hope I'll be able to translate all these ideas in my mind to an actual playable thing!

From tomorrow until tuesday I'll be in a retreat, so no actual gamedev until next week

Thanks for reading!

[Pixel Noise]

What you've got sounds pretty cool! Love the balloon - it looks like it's going to be awesome to fly around in that

Will the game be purely gathering? Will there be NPCs, etc?

[nuno]

What you've got sounds pretty cool! Love the balloon - it looks like it's going to be awesome to fly around in that

Will the game be purely gathering? Will there be NPCs, etc?

I'm still deciding many things, but yes there will be at least a few NPCs, because I want to have some buildings where the player can do stuff (buy/sell/get specific jobs or quests).

[nuno]

couldn't resist to develop the cave test a little bit further

[nuno]

experimenting some rock texturing

[Pineapple]

that's a pretty sexy rock

[nuno]

since today everyone is talking about Zelda, I made my first attempt at texturing a "large" scale 3d terrain
not convinced on the style, just trying techniques

[nuno]

quick test with more stylized textures

[nuno]

testing a day/night cycle

[nu_muso]

That day/night cycle was very smooth and convincing

[Pixel Noise]

Yeah! Although I feel like when it's turning into night - the land gets TOO dark too soon, compared to the sky. The land is solid black around :20, and then the sky fades. It seems a little off - like there should still be some hints of color on the land at that point. But that's a minor thing - overall, really nice 

[nuno]

testing cleaning up dirt off a rock

[nuno]

here's the full workflow on a few possibilities of things to do with a rock

not sure if this will be used or not

[nuno]

trying the first character concept, animation and cel shading