Hello Tigsource
I'm an Environment/VFX artist and I have been making my own games for several years.
My main one is called Hellscreen, which I have released into Early access but I also have a couple of mini "digital holiday" games that I nibble at.
Me and some of the things I have worked on or made!
One of these is called "
Seconds of sand" and it is designed to be a free game that I give away when folks sign up to my gamedev progress news letter (
Link below for those that are interested!). I'm doing this in part to the decline of twitter and wanting to build up an audience to take with me.
SoS is a trial based racing game, about finishing small tracks within 10 seconds. The player has a booster pack which drains as you use it. Certain actions like speed boosts or travelling in water will replenish the booster pack and allow you to remain at a top speed. There are also enemies that when killed also refill your pack and the projectiles they fire can also be parried for boost too.
Example of the boost being used and then the "water" refilling the boost when the player moves through it. Not the bounce when the player hits the wall too!I envision it as a "lunch time break" game, something that can be completed in 30 mins. The player will have environmental obstacles as well as enemies that shoot projectiles at you. These can be parried
A typical loop of the game involves the player traversing a small hub world, traveling through a monoliths to various courses to win power squares. These are needed to go to other hubs and course and eventually unlock the master door which will contain a final course that challenges the player.
The player getting and then deposting the power square into the master door plinth.
Because it is a free game, I cant spend a massive amount of time on it but this has been a great exercise in scope control.
I have capped the number of courses to 20, limited the depth of mechanics, both on the player and environmental, tried to make the UI as minimal as possible (although I am also making parts of the UI diegetic in world too but more on that later).
I also designed the the art style to be a series of quick wins and to not get bogged down in details. This is very much a broad strokes visual style and is based mostly on a custom shader that derives UVs and color blending from a light direction.
The shader also has triplanar attributes so I can paint some vertex color and it just works (though I do have to UV map some trims but this isn't so bad with a modular model system)
Lighting is real time too (no baking light maps!).
Painted Vertex colors in Blender and how it looks in game (along with some extra props).
The skybox has a separate material too and is very flexible.
My initial modular kit with vertex colors.
Currently, I am designing and blocking out the initial tutorial courses and will move onto the main ones once I have a couple of extra mechanics that I think I need.
I contract work part time so this project gets 1-3 days a week depending on gamedev events/travelling but I hope to have something near finished in a couple of weeks.
I'd love to hear any questions you might have about the project, be it the art stuff or other things Im doing to encourage a quicker dev time, so drop them below. I plan to do updates here as it helps my brain process everything.
Thanks!
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