This week, André and Tomé worked on replacing some old interaction and mechanisms placeholders with quality, animated and fancy shaded 3D models. Small logic additions and adaptations needed to be made to fit the new art.
Some new props, girl model for scale.
André is also doing some logic changes in order to streamline the localization process, the entire user interface and game text will have support to various languages.
Iuri is also replacing placeholder animations and doing some new ones for the mechanisms mentioned above.
A Journey checkpoint is always important.
Pichel is working hard on finishing the 3d model of the player companion. The next step is rigging it.
This week André added some new mechanics he has been developing for the swamp zone, like quicksand and other traps. He’s also working on fixing the terrain mesh and polishing the level design of that zone. Some bug fixing, code polishing and optimization was done too. Interior zones are more optimized now, the light culling masks were not set correctly but as soon as we fixed it the performance increase was noticeable. Ranged enemies are now more efficient when it comes to killing the player.
We would like to officially welcome Iuri Monteiro, our new animator. We have been using mostly temporary and altered asset store content but now, with a dedicated animator, we can finally define each character’s personality and improve the overall consistency and fluidity. Expect great things in the upcoming months!
New animations examples.
Meanwhile, Pichel has been doing the retopo of the Elk model, and he’ll start texturing it soon. Tomé is working on props like the ones you can see below – the Rune Stone (the concept art for it was shown in the previous Blog post) and the Shrine. The latter is meant to work as a checkpoint during the adventure.
Pichel and Tomé are doing some progress in the texturing department, painting maps for all the modular props. You can see below most of the wooden assets, all game-ready.
Various finished wooden props.
This week André implemented deferred decals, they will be used for blood splats on surfaces and for details in walls/floors, like cracks for example, or other numerous applications in static objects.
Some improvements have been made in the way enemies respond to hits, like if the player swings the sword in one direction and hits the enemy, he will stagger in the opposite way he was hit. The direction of the blood particle and blood splat in floor respect the hit direction too.
Here you can see some blood on the ground with the new deferred decal system.
We did some tests with interior lighting too, still very WIP (no final textures nor materials), but now we know that we can achieve cool ambient interiors.
You can see some light coming from the cracked ceiling in the far end.
Finally, we can show you more about the state and development of the game!
Many things changed since the first prototype, the decision to alter the visual style and the growth of the team forced a careful re-thinking of the project as a whole, from the working pipeline, the addition of new mechanics to the rebuilding of some levels and architectural studies.
Revamping the visuals forced us to try some new ideas and concepts until we reached something we could all relate to and we couldn’t be happier with the results.
As mentioned earlier, the team has grown, we now have Filipe Pichel as our art director, a veteran in the area who has worked on various games including titles like Under Siege for PS3. He’s working hard to maintain a consistent and appealing look throughout the game.
Tomé joined us unexpectedly but was a great surprise; he’s very hard-working and talented. An architect turned game developer, he is currently responsible for all the concept art and is also capable of creating high-quality 3d content.
Ricardo Teixeira, during his breaks from Amplify Creations development and customer support, provides us precious help making rigs, testing and implementing workflows and supporting our software pipeline. He is also the bridge between the art and programming team.
Things have really changed since our first Xbox One preview.
For the first post-prototype milestone we decided to construct a small area and establish the visual style for the first part of the game. It’s a staged encounter with a mini boss that serves as a private playable build where the player can fight him and get a feel for the game with the new graphical style.
The playable build entry.
Who is the mysterious Lumberjack? You will learn the hard way when the time comes!.
He might be slow but he has one hell of a swing!
In the upcoming dev blogs we will talk about the game mechanics, lore, concepts, inspirations and some level previews.
Hope you liked the new look we achieved and thanks for reading!
We are starting a development blog for Decay of Logos, our first independent game. It will be available on desktops and consoles, it’s made with Unity and powered by Amplify Creations leading post-processing and texture virtualization tech. We will post as often as possible and we would love to hear from you, feedback and questions are welcome.
Decay of Logos is an immersive action/adventure third-person RPG influenced by Nordic folklore and by J. R. R. Tolkien’s high fantasy. The gameplay is heavily inspired by Dark Souls and The Legend of Zelda, with focus on exploration, combat and resource management. It draws its visual inspiration from movies like Princess Mononoke and games like Shadow of the Colossus.
You play as a girl on a journey with her companion, a mystical Elk. They fatefully meet after her village is destroyed by one of the King’s sons. Battered and oblivious of the culprit behind the attack, the girl will not rest until she has her revenge. During her quest she will unveil secrets about the King and his sons, slowly realizing that all is not what it seems.
André Constantino, our game designer and programmer, started a prototype back in 2014 as a personal project in his spare time. Later that year, he had the chance to demo it at ComicCon Portugal and the reception was great and inspiring.
In 2015, Amplify Creations gave him a chance to have a team by his side, and they are currently working hard together to make Decay of Logos a reality.
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