Project Valkyrie 002

Refined the protagonist concept a little bit [her name is Brunhilde by the way ;3 ] and decided on a potential colour scheme.  I threw in a quick colour and texture for the background, something desaturated and med-high value, since that will be the predominant setting for backgrounds.  In contrast to that, I purposely chose the baby blue and yellow as Brunhilde's colours because it forces her to "pop" on top of the play screen.  Plus, it's a "regal" colour set and will help differentiate her from the primarily green-brown-ish zombies.  The last thing people need is loosing track of the player piece during gameplay.  The blue-yellow combo may not be her final colour set, but the high saturation will remain.

Also, once the image is shrunk to the in game size of 48x64, one can notice the guns disappearing into the background.  This is something I will have to fix since seeing the guns recoil and animate is essential for visual feedback and general sense of kick-ass-ness.

Project Valkyrie 001-Quick Character Concepts

It occurred to me that I might as well be a little more transparent in regards to my game development process, seeing as I have not bound myself to an NDA [Non-Disclosure Agreement].  It would be very hard to sue myself ...although I'm sure with enough legal hoops and lawyer creativity, such a precedent would be possible.

Hypothetical musings aside, Project Valkyrie is a simple top down, move and shoot game.  We plan on having some fun with the weapons, but the game play itself will be pretty standard.  Here's a quick sketch of our heroine, Brunhilde, here with weapons and what seems to be oddly rendered wheels: [Note to self:  Draw angled ellipses more often].

Wojcik, my co-developer and cohort at Likwidgames, mentioned that wheeled legs gave a "Rosie", of Jetson's fame, -type feel.  I was inclined to agree with him and so I experimented with a pair of petite sexy legs:

It'll make the animations a little tougher but I think having her sashay around the screen with two huge gun-arms makes for fun visualization.

As for the enemies, we'll be going with undead WWII soldiers, primarily nazis... mmm, Nazi Zombies.

Saturday Cud Chewing

I can be surprisingly superstitious, something I attribute heavily to the Thai end of my upbringing.  It has served me well in some cases, by making me cautious, but the neuroticism that accompanies superstition can be stifling. In particular, it applies to me when it comes to mentioning good fortune.  I am incredibly uncomfortable when it comes to admitting that all dominos did indeed fall as planned.  Almost to the point that it feels shameful and an outright tempting of fate, to mention that I have been experiencing good fortune.  That being said, internally I am fully aware when the winds of good fortune strike my sails, and I am fully grateful towards the universe and the powers that be... it's just rare that I would mention it or if I do, I will downplay it to a minor stroke of luck.  Anyhow, it's a habit I'm tweaking, and so far, dare I say it, my freelance business is finally showing some signs of life...
*knocks on wood*

On a side note, I have used and abused my first pocket sketchbook of the year, here's the last page:

On the digital painting side of things:

Those of you who are fans of my dear Mana's work may potentially recognize this scamp >;3

Back in the saddle.

Despite my own best efforts at thwarting my posts [self-criticism can be a bitch], I will keep on going.  Still need to up frequency of posts big time though since I do have a lot to say, I just need to sit myself down and articulate it in writing.  Always simple to say, harder to do.  

Important news first:

The flash game Castaway has come out.  

Play it here!  

I worked on this game with my friend/colleague Wojcik over at Likwidgames.  I did all the backgrounds along with the main character.  The game itself is relatively simply, and we've already got a giant list of ideas and concerns we will need to address in its eventual sequel.  

This in turn marks the beginning of our newest project.  Our main goal with this game is to hopefully narrow the scope down enough for a two man team to get a playable game out within a 1-2 month timeframe. For the time being I will refer to the project as "Valkyrie" [How inventive, I know.] , but hopefully have a finalized name soon enough.  Here are concept sketches of the main character/unit.

On a side note, I also need to get a finished painting of Strauss done.  Who is Strauss you say?  You folks will find out soon enough >:3 [Pssst, there's a sketch of him on the bottom.]

Sally's Studio is out!

Actually, the game was released a little earlier this week, but I decided to bunch up the scans into one post.  I promise I will not make a huge habit of this, I much prefer piece meal updates overall.  Anyhow, back on topic, the last game I helped work on at GamesCafe, Sally's Studio, is finally out.  This release brackets my first half year of going freelance and starting my own company, and is to me a formal swan song to my career and all the good times spent over at GamesCafe/Orbital Media.  Knowing that this was the last project I worked on for them really gives me a sense of completion, and this flows well with the changes that I've been swimming in for the past week.  A comfortable letting go of the past if you will.

Refining and absorbing advice.

Today was incredibly uplifting, not just that I got started on a few small contracts here and there, but I also got the chance to catch up with some old friends/colleagues over at Ph03nix New Media.  Nothing like hashing ideas over with folks and getting back feedback to further trim the project.  I find the more I document, the more material I actually end up removing or simplifying, in an attempt to keep things from growing out of proportion.

This is tougher than it sounds.  When you get a room full of people with differing ideas about one destination, the conversation becomes a distillation process of the ideas that are ejected forth.  The key is to try to lump as many ideas into cohesive bite size chunks, without having others feel like you are ignoring their points.  I cannot accommodate everyone's thoughts, but I can sure as hell try to get a little tidbit of everyone's brainchild into the mix.  The key is ending up with a cohesive love child of a game, as opposed to a Frankenstein abomination, barely holding together at the seams.

Tomorrow should be even more interesting.

In the meantime, some bus sketches along with some sprite work samples for an upcoming browser game :D !

 

Last but not least, the game's main protagonist undergoes a beating depending upon his HP. An homage to early fps's like Doom and Wolfenstein.

New Month and focus

May started off with a lurch, one of those kinds that launches you forward but then you hit some solid patches of friction along the way... and it's only been 4 days. Following the performance at the Calgary Expo, I've had a chance to really sit down and hash out what I would deem at least a feasable path for my small company, Bella Machina Studios. Having had a heart to heart with our current team, it seems like trying to build a facebook community for our project, Empires of the Mist, followed by an app, would be the path of least resistance.
At this point though the plans are still rather amorphous, although the end product is more clearly defined. I will be spending the next month talking to peers and mentors, picking at their brains to refine and streamline what has to be done on my end.

On a side note, I'm coming close to finishing a small sprite based flash game with an old colleague of mine over at Likwidgames. I did all the art for the background and character sprites [not the enemies/monsters though, I only tweaked a few of the latter animations]. For today, I will post some tasty tidbits of the backgrounds that are to be found. Next time I will show off the main character's sprite/weapons and armour :D