Month: October 2020

Where we find a way to the lower deck, and test out some basic light effects.

My second update to preview prototype is up. I’ve been thinking more and more to move to a 3D realm, so these may be the last days of a 2D approach game.

I’ve done more pixel art for the bottom floor, it’s really starting to take shape, so even if it goes 3D, it’s going to be interesting trying to retain or reinvent the look for a pixelart world feel. We’ve been looking over toon shaders for that, and we think it’s gonna be alright.

Although the lower deck takes a back seat to the main deck, it’s actually mighty important for the narrative. This being your proverbial interstellar cargo transporter, it’s all gonna be about the goods.

We worked on lights and shadows initial planning and setup, too, and worked out the basics. Screen glows are working great, and both them and the stairwells light the captain nicely.

We spent almost an hour (!) just walking around the spaceship and looking at screens. This is the kind of stuff indie development is all about. You give yourself some time to enjoy the little things.

There’s a lot of functionalities ahead, but what we’re looking into now is finishing the basic look and feel, some essential designs and animation cycles for the rest of the crew before we go full 3D.

Beyond that we’ll be biding our figuring out interactions, and items – and it’s already looking like once we start working on dialogues it’s gonna be a lot, a LOT of time to spend there.

We’ll just see where the solar winds take us!

Check out the visuals on the current progress in the latest video (link below) – this one a first with a voice over! Since it’s the last 2D approach proto – there’s a rad new look coming soon.

Where the first prototype is revealed

Clickety clickety click, some more pixel art stuff, a few lines of code and voila – we got a little walkthrough going on. This early prototype was roughed out in Godot engine (although we’ll be moving to Unity 3D soon), and it’s a run of just the main deck and movement animation check.

We made a super early prototype video, too. It’s really that first “it’s alive” moment, so although we’ll be making this from scratch soon, good to see what’s possible. Now, there’s a whole other level (L1) below the main deck, with three access points, but it’s WIP.

Also, there’s some kind of a stutter on movement… I wonder if it’s just a debug window issue or something I’m gonna deal with once I publish the game for a platform (it’s supposed to be a mobile game, btw.)

Oh well… There’s my homework for the next blog

Where it’s touched upon the creative thought behind setting up a crew look and idea

Ah the crew. Tropes, everywhere tropes… Lolwut?! No. Awesomeness, everywhere awesomeness 🙂 We started playing with some pixel art concepts for the crew complement designs, settuing up character looks – and at one point I recon I got enough to run with. The first pass on the crew design concept.

We got the captain, 1st officer, pilot (the redhead in the black “jelek” vest), engineer, doctor, sensor array operator, defense array operator and, of course, the muscle. Sailor shirt guy.

So far I only did walk cycles for the captain, but it’s totes gonna be copy/paste to make the other ones. And I’m sure the look will change, like a lot.

Onward!