Another Character Artist

I talked to my friend and showed her the link to our project and she says that she would be interested in being a character artist. Her name is Amanda, she used to be my roomate... she's pretty cool. Would you guys like to set up another meeting soon for introductions?

Rough Sketch

Here's another rough sketch I did to sort of picture more of how bigger chunks of environment would flow together:

Enviornment Quickpass

Here's a real quick color sketch of how I imagine the environment. Questions/comments/critiques welcome. I may add more detail, not sure if I'll continue with this idea or try something new:

Technology Considerations

While browsing the FAQ on the unreal tournament engine (http://www.unrealtechnology.com/features.php?ref=faq) I am concerned about three things: cost, performance, and portability.

My background as a developer typically has me working in a GNU/Linux environment. If we develop against this particular engine we shut out quite a bit of market with regards to GNU/Linux and OS X users.

As for performance, I have a feeling that this particular engine is going to all but limit our market yet again to users capable of running DX10 based games (ie. high performance capable machines).

And then there is cost to contend with. If we go the mod route, I am not sure how that works as a viable platform for commercial development. Also, without access to the source we may be unable to do the level of customization required to support the type of game play you want.

On a final note, I don't have much experience with mod development, or game development in general. Mostly I deal with systems level programming and front end UI development. What I have done is some browsing and modification of the Quake3 engine. I am not entirely sure the Unreal Engine 3 is suitable for this type of game. We can achieve parity in features and graphics with a much simpler platform: SDL. SDL runs just about everywhere. It does GL. It is performant. And it is open-source. Plus there are bindings for a variety of languages. Overall this lowers the cost of development (I don't have a copy, nor do I want to purchase a copy of Unreal Tournament 3 as my computer is too slow to adequately play it).

Environment Reference Images

Alright guys, I looked up alot of reference for the environment, and i'm gonna split this up into two parts. The first part is samples of old western buildings and locals that could be a good basis for our environment (and then we make it all hip and steampunky). The second part are samples of pictures with nice color tones that we could take inspiration from. Here goes:

Western Locals:








Those were the location refs, here are the color examples I was thinking about (you can mostly ignore whats in the actual pictures besides the colors):






And as for level of detail this is the sort of detail we could put into a western style setting (if we wanted to):





**some concept references are the property of deviant art members, and these examples are for reference only**

Meet the Bad Guys (Part 1)

*warning, i am thinking out loud so this post might be a bit of a mess

i have been doing some thinking about the way the story flows and how the player/players fit into this world and how we get from one stage to another. i know the plan right now is to get one stage finshed and get everything working on it, but i also want everyone to be thinking about the other stages. i am currently planning on having 5 total stages (if all goes well).

i believe a system where the player chooses which target he/she goes after would be a good system (think megaman). by making the main character/characters bounty hunters of some sort helps in keeping the story simple while giving us the freedom to add story where its needed. so with that in mind, i present to you the really rough idea of bad guys.

The Wild Aces - this is the name of the bad guy group. the idea is taken from poker where there are 5 cards in a hand. in this case, the 5 cards are 4 aces and 1 wild card (the joker). of course there are henchmen that follows each main bad guy. so far, i have rough ideas of each boss based on the different idea of stages that we kinda chatted about.

(its getting late and i cant think of names right now so i will just put them into general archtypes).

the big guy
the ghoul guy
the machine guy
the explosive guy
the joker

i am gathering concepts and will work out details about each bad guy.

2D Reference WIP

Just a WIP, ran out of time and have to go to bed, so this is what I have so far. Trying to get ideas for how the environment will look in 2D, going to try to pull a color palette later on this one:

BGM #1

Hey guys,

I listened to the links of BGM that were posted as reference points. Ive been tryin to work out a sound thats retro/sidescrolling-feeling to start with. I'll be posting loops regularly as I try to narrow in on a good sound bank. The loops Im posting today are more steam-punk/alien sounding than steampunk/western if that makes any sense. In order to really capture what you all are doing better I'll really probably need to see some game art, but in the mean time I'll keep crankin out loops so that we have some selections once were a bit further along.

(Hopefully these links work for you. If not I'll find better ones.)

http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/Zachary+Young/track/7up-Loop-01
I see 7up loop 01 as possible in game level music. The bass sound is a little cheezy...

http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/Zachary+Young/track/7up-Loop-03
I can see this one as a loading screen or menu loop.

Please let me know with as much detail what you like and dont like and make suggestions. Like I said, Ill be posting loops every few days so...

Peace,

Zak

SteamPunk Ref 2

More Refs:

Steampunk Refs

Hi guys!

I spend an hr or so looking up some steampunk images that might help during the preproduction period.

Game View

ok, i set this up to show the whole prospective setup and how we can kinda add a little more to the view and make it look better.





Background - its the background, nothing really happens here, its just really a scenery or something that the rest of the level will be built in front of. it gives the level more depth.

Midground - parts of the level will be built from here, this is like the front of the buildings, the windows, the doors, etc.

Foreground - this is the play area, this is where the platforms, the jumps, the fights, etc takes place.

Super Foreground - i call it the super foreground due to a lack of a better name, this is objects such as pipes and pillers that is in front of the foreground which can block the players view. we dont want too many of these, i think they will add more depth to the level overall.

Another Game UI

Hey guys, I was just messin around in photoshop to sort of picture how the UI/camera is supposed to work out and drew this up:



yeah the perspective is off (the windows), but oh well. I'm still messing with it, so not everything's there (like the left half of the screen)

Comments/Criticisms? Does the character to screen ratio feel like the right size to you guys?

Rough Game UI

i have been playing around with how i want to the UI to look like, here is a really rough example.

Concept Ideas

i found some images we can use for ideas for the six shooter and the shotgun.

End Goal and Ideas

ok, i found a few things here and there for ideas.
first off i would like to establish an end goal for us.
here are 2 examples of what i would like to see at the end. (we arent trying to match it, they are here to serve as a base guide line as to what we are trying to make)
Example 1
Example 2

i also found some BGM that we can use as like a starting point as far as how the sound might go.
Batman (NES) - Streets of Desolation [Stage 1]
Wild ARMs 3 (PS2) - Gunmetal Action
Journey to Silius (NES) - Stage 2
Journey to Silius (NES) - Stage 3
Journey to Silius (NES) - Stage 4
Bionic Commando (NES) - Area 1 music
The Music of Video Games [183] Gun.Smoke
Gun Smoke - music remake
Bionic Commando Rearmed OST: Leap of Faith
Bionic Commando Rearmed OST: Heat Wave
Bionic Commando Rearmed OST: Power Plant

Project Roles

Game Developer/Game Designer - Tony
Level Designer/Assets Creation - Adam, Antonio, CJ, Tony
Character Designer/Modeler and Animation - Sing, Alan, Antonio
Sound Designer - Zack
Programmer - Nick
Game Art and Concept - Everyone

here is what i have for the roles of everyone on this project so far, feel free to let me know if it is incorrect. (keep in mind that since it is a small team we will end up helping each other and most likely be doing a little bit of everything)

i will aim to get a rough timeline/milestone for the production out within the next day or two.
we also need a team name.