Tag Archives: Props

DevBlog 53 / A look at the battlefield

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Hi everyone!

This week we continued the work of replacing old animations with the new ones which add a lot more personality to the game. Walking on quicksand and the visual feedback of that action, for example, was something we needed to improve, in terms of animation and also in shader work. We’re currently working on that, but it isn’t finished yet. In the meantime, we are also doing some experiments with stylized water shaders to use in small lakes or shallow streams, for example.
On a different note, the cutscene system was fine tuned, and now there is an option to skip forward those events.

Knock,Knock, who’s there?

The new areas are developing smoothly, and although there are many assets to create, concepts like the one below help us to establish the mood we’re trying to achieve in advance. In this case, the image depicts the stage of a bloody battle.

The Battlegrounds.

Previously, we’ve shown the concept for an armor used by a new kind of enemy the player will be facing. The “game ready” model of this equipment is already finished:

In-game soldier with full armorset.

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DevBlog 46 / Road to PAX

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Hi there!

We’ve been having a very busy week – preparing everything for PAX, making posters, testing, bug fixing and adding new improved material.
New fresh sounds were introduced, and we hope the american audience will be able to notice them 😛

Final look of the current buildings.

Mostly it has been all about polishing what we’ve got. Small additions like flag vertex animation and candles’ behavior, or the placement of simple props laid out strategically allow us to enhance the mood and fine tune the visual storytelling.

Cool illumination effects with particles.

This is a small devblog post, there are way too many last minute things to do right now!

The flag says it all.

Wish us luck! Next week we’ll write about our experience at PAX.

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DevBlog 44 / Closing a chapter

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Hi there!

This week we’ve done a bit of enemy balancing for the Windmills’ area. Some ranged enemies were placed here in order to keep things challenging, but in a way that won’t make it too frustrating. The Woodified Enemies have been completely revamped with new animations, so the feeling of the first part of the game is getting close to what we had envisioned in the beginning.

Also, the Wanderer has more proper animations, while he is interacting with the player. As stated before, he will make frequent appearances throughout your whole adventure. And, in time, the Girl will learn more about him and his motivations.

This guy can’t play.

The final part of Chapter One approaches, development-wise. We are all working on this very last scene pretty hard, and we will show plenty of it further down the road but, for now, here are two ominous teasers!

Science, batch!

Let’s see where this leads to.

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DevBlog 42 / Opening new paths

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Hi there!

Since the beginning, one of our goals has been to intuitively make the player realize it is best to keep his four-legged companion by his side, without leaving it behind. In that sense, opening paths to make sure both the Girl and the Elk can travel together on this long journey is always an achievement!
Development wise, we are approaching the end of Chapter One (the first Act has two Chapters) and a big battle draws near, as well as some story reveals.

Lowering the bridge.

We have been working hard in this final zone, even though we haven’t shown much of it yet. We wouldn’t want to spoil all the fun. Nevertheless, here is a sneak peak of a very special weapon that foreshadows an epic encounter the player will have.

A strange sword.

The end of the first Chapter will conclude the “wood theme”, which has been predominant up to this point. The following Chapter will be very different, with a more “medieval-esque” feeling. Stay tuned for the next devblogs!

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DevBlog 41 / I can see my house from here!

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Hi everyone!

Once again, part of the team was working on the first Prince’s boss battle, polishing moves, balancing and adding more animations so the battle feels epic.
Although magic and elemental effects were only supposed to be introduced at a later stage of the game (once the player learns the appropriate skills from an NPC) one of the attacks of this boss required the implementation of the “paralyze” stat. We opted to use this nomenclature because it can be used in every situation in which the player temporarily loses control of the character (such as “petrify”, “woodify”, etc).
Similarly, a placeholder radial bar (around the weapon icon), indicating the current equipped weapon’s durability was added. Before, this very important info was buried in the inventory stat tab.

Paralyze and Durability bar.

That’s a big fall.

We really wanted the Rift Windmills’ area to have its own particular mood and identity, and in that regard the skybox plays a big role. With this in mind, we came up with a brand new sky with some dramatic clouds, as well as silhouetted mountains in the distance. Now the scene looks a lot more unique and consistent.

The swamp castle view from the rift windmills.

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DevBlog 30 / The cave of NOPE!

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Hi there!

This week André was working with Iuri on the treat mechanic. This is a mechanic where the player needs to gain the confidence of the Elk by feeding it. Then the player can mount it for some time if no enemy is near. Since the beginning, the Elk is not meant to be a simple mount, but more of a journey companion. André also improved the deferred decals and started polishing/fixing the action of riding the Elk and its control logic with the new animations.

On the environment art side of things, we’ve been experimenting with the mood of the sprawling underground tunnels below the swamp area. They are meant to be pretty dark, filled with stalactites and stalagmites that create interesting shadows when adventuring with a torch in hand.

In some places a torch is mandatory.

Pichel has already finished the high poly model of the Wanderer (we’ve shown the concept in the previous blog entry) and is almost done with the low poly version. Similarly, Tomé wrapped up the high poly model for the Wanderer’s guitar. We’ve decided to change its design a bit so it would be reminiscent of the traditional portuguese guitar, with a fantasy touch. You can check both the character and his musical instrument below.

The Wanderer high poly.

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DevBlog 17 / The Elk is alive!

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Hi everyone!

This week André helped the art team by doing some improved scenery meshes from the blocking mesh for the underground passage in the swamp zone (a new area we are working on). André also worked in something he wanted to do for some time, foliage dithering fading.

Old view on the left, current view on the right

Dithering per vertex when the camera is too close .

André also did the same effect but per object when characters get too close to the camera.
A reworked streaming logic is in the works, more fluid and efficient logic that can’t be noticed even if the player has a HDD disc drive (or for consoles).

The new model of the Elk is starting to come alive! Iuri began skinning and animating the Elk, and we hope to show gameplay with the new model in a near future. For now we have a very dynamic walk cycle:

Old view on the left, current view on the right

The new WIP walk cycle.

Tomé has been producing some more tree models to spread around the game environments, specially dead trees for the swamp area we are working on. He also developed a few modular stone pavement groups that can be combined together to form roads.

Old view on the left, current view on the right

New trees for various new zones.

Pichel made a lot of progress with the Elk model, and he has been investing a lot of time into making the fur work with our visual style. You can see how it’s coming along in the image below.

Old view on the left, current view on the right

On the center the new Fur approach.

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