Category Archives: WIP

DevBlog 10 / Interior Testing

Hi there!

Our exterior and interior 3D modules are finally ready and we are assembling the buildings that were simple place holders a few weeks ago. We are still experimenting with the overall distribution and lighting of the area.

Modular props are very useful since they can be reused in other buildings, even on later chapters. They can be used as ruins too (with simple painting or decal variations). In the next couple of weeks, Level building will become much faster and fun.

Old view on the left, current view on the right

You can use stairs to reach higher places, they will also offer you clues to possible passages.

Some cracks, rubble and wood planks will be added later for added effect.

Temporary lightning, this shot uses a very simple preview light setup.

We plan to have smooth and immersive interior/exterior transitions, visually and auditory. Duck volumes (exterior sounds like birds will be clamped when you are inside), eye adaptation and reverb zones combined will create an unforgettable experience.

Next week André will tackle dynamic spine IKs for biped and quadruped, and Pichel will be working in a new NPC.

DevBlog 09 / The Journey Companion

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Hi everyone!

A very important character in this game is the player’s companion, previously mentioned in the game description. Your companion can help in some puzzles, serve as a fast travel option and can store additional weapons, armor and potions that you can’t carry with you. But it can’t follow you everywhere! Some places can only be accessed with the player alone, for example: when you need to climb something, your companion will wait for you below; in this type of situation you need to manage what you bring with you and what stays with your companion, since your inventory is limited and your companion can carry many more items.

Early concept by Jeffrey Ferreira.

This was the very first model of the game (Modeled, rigged and animated by our programmer André), and it is still the model used for AI logic tests and behavior like in the gif below. All the mechanics and logic mentioned above are already implemented.

Here we can see some automatic object avoidance, the Elk automaticly avoids major falls and objects like trees even if the player forces it.

We are trying to make the Elk’s movements the most organic possible, like previously mentioned, in situations like avoiding falls and trees, and by reacting to enemies close by. If the player is adventuring around and exploring, your companion won’t stay in the same place waiting. Our idea is to have a character with personality that you can mount and interact with, not a soulless prop.

Some details like foot IK and body position relative to ground or slope will be implemented to enhance the organic feel. This behavior is highly influenced by Shadow Of The Colossus Agro’s behavior (the companion horse).

WIP, for tests only, not the final model.

We are still exploring the Elk’s design, and that is currently one of our top priorities. Next week Tomé will make the final concept of the Elk for Pichel to model. Next step is new animations.

In this week of work André did some bug fixing and gameplay polish while Tomé and Pichel finished the ruins asset modules.

DevBlog 08 / Interior Illumination and deferred decals

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Hi there!

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.

DevBlog 07 / Current Progress

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Hi everyone!

Today we will show you a floor plan preview of the area we are working on which expresses the planned size for the first Act of the game. The areas highlighted with the white contour are the ones we are currently working on. We are building assets to populate every zone fittingly, for example, if it is a predefined dry and rocky space we will not place colorful flowers.
In the second Devblog we have shown you guys a mini boss encounter that occurs in the area zoomed in the map below..

Floor plan preview of the first Act.

André improved and added more features to combat, like a new trail system (for weapon swipes) and improved bow targeting system. A new Quicksand mechanic was implemented which will have many players trapped when they try to reach some items in isolated zones.

New trail system preview.

Pichel and Tomé are working on texturing all the assets we have shown in the previous blog post. Here are a few examples of floor tileable textures.

Portuguese pavements texture tests.

DevBlog 06 / Interactable Objects

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Hi there!

While Pichel and Tomé are finishing the ancient ruins modules and the wooden assets, André is taking up the ones already finished and preparing them for in-game interaction. For example, we now have a breakable wooden fence and a crane!

You can break planks of wood to reach some hidden zones.

WIP model of the wood crane, that can be used to lift up or down objects.

Now, talking about the overall state of the game, all the mechanics logic are done (although we’re mostly still using placeholder objects) and we already did balancing tests with enemies and bosses. The level design of various areas are also done, ready to be populated with the new props. We are working hard to replace the placeholder props and characters, fix bugs and polish the visuals. With more playthroughs we will keep tweaking the gameplay and balance of the game.

DevBlog 05 / Bow behavior, Ancient Ruins and Sound

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Hi everyone!

In this week of work, Andre changed some things in the bow behavior. A trail prediction was added and the view when shooting was flipped. We’re also considering removing the Crosshair. In Decay of Logos the range of your bow depends on your Strength Stat.

Old view on the left, current view on the right.

Now the camera goes to the right side instead of left . When locked onto a target the behavior is different (no camera change) and the arrow always hits (if in range and providing the enemy is not defending).

In this screenshot the player has a strength of 11 for example.

Andre started improving the sound in the game and changing some things in how it is handled overall. Audio mixer, duck audio, snapshots and reverb zones were added for a more immersive experience.

On the other side of the trenches, Pichel and Tomé have been developing our own modular set for the ancient ruins. They’ve been pretty much playing with Lego.

In this screenshot the player have a strength of 11 for example

The modular set for the ancient ruins.

DevBlog 04 / Act 1 Enemies

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Hi there!

This week we have some character concepts and models to show. It’s the most predominant enemy in the first area of the game.

Concept exploration and orthographic views.

For reasons we won’t spoil, some inhabitants of this world are mysteriously turning into wooden aberrations. The goal of the concept above was to visually establish two phases of this process. In the first iteration, the flesh turning into bark is supposed to be very apparent, while in the second one the body of the villager is already fully transformed. We really wanted it to be clear that these individuals were not always like this, hollow wooden creatures – they used to lead normal lives.

It’s pretty hard not to draw comparisons to the character Groot while designing treelike humanoids, but the way we tried to distance ourselves from that was to stick as close to the human silhouette and anatomy as possible. In essence, the transformation is material, and most of the human form is maintained.

We are a very small team, so we developed a strategy for the enemies to appear and feel different each time the player encounters them.
Most enemies have adaptive AI, and when the enemy is instantiated a Behavior Tree is assigned randomly.

For example, if a Defensive BT (Behavior Tree) is assigned, the enemy will have a shield and act more defensively, going around you and only attacking sometimes. If an aggressive BT is assigned, the enemy will not have a shield and will attack more, and so on.

It terms of visual presentation, randomly instantiated parts will be added to the enemy giving diversity to his silhouette. One interesting thing is that the more attached parts the enemy has, the higher his defense is.

In the past week André was freeing some work for Pichel and Tomé by 3D modeling an area and populating it with props already created. Next step will be texturing the terrain.

High poly and Low poly models.

Pichel was working on the enemy we showed above. UV mapping and low poly is done, and he’s close to finishing the additional parts.

Tomé is working on the 3D modules of the Ancient Ruins we showed in the previous blog post.

DevBlog 03 / Buildings and new areas studies

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Hi!

Time for some architectural concepts and new area studies – the game has more than colorful woods! We want to showcase a few additional environments that will be in the game, from very bright and vibrant (like you have seen in previous blog entries) to dark dungeons or windy barren landscapes. The scenery will mirror the player’s mood and experience as they explore our game world.

Tomé, with his architect background has been a great help designing and constructing the ancient ruins that populate part of the world.

Forsaken ruins of an ancient civilization.

We are currently working on other areas like the swamp below while trying to maintain the same stylized look. During their journey players will smoothly transition between different areas, we are going to use the mood as a storytelling device, each area will be unique in it’s own way. It might even be a way to tell the players what kind of challenge they should expect, we are still experimenting and it has been great!

Swamp concept area.

DevBlog 02 / Concept and 3D Art

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Hi there!

Today we’ll show some concept art and 3D models of the game, most of them are already in-game.

In the beginning of the game you are most likely to found this set of weapons.

In the beginning of the game you are most likely to find this set of weapons.

The high poly of the main character.

This week, Tomé did some architectural 3D and concept studies for the ancient ruins which populated the world and in past were once the home of an ancient civilization.

Pichel among other things has been revamping the first enemy you face in the game. We will post some concepts and high poly models in the next devblog post.

André made a small pause in game development and joined the system management dark side. He transferred our cloud solution for project management to our local linux server with Bitbucket Server (VCS), JIRA (project management) and Bamboo (auto-builds) cross integration, plus a robust backup system for our projects. During Pre-production we used Github and Trello.