Script Updating

We're nearing demo mode.

Most of the art has been finished.  I've been tweaking the background art with the background artist.  He's doing mock-up animations which we might use for the final version.

The character art is, for demo purposes, finished.  I could use one or two more pieces, but I'll wait until everything needs to be compiled to decide whether I want to invest another two weeks of art time.

Then again, maybe I should review the art again.  Hm.

The script is being reviewed.  There's a lot of logical errors left to correct.  I have thought recently (or at least for the next version) investing in a script writing software.  I do a lot of mock-ups and a basic word editor doesn't really cut it anymore.  It works for now, but when you start getting a 50-100 page script, it starts getting a little creaky and sometimes buggy...and the last thing I need are corrupted files.  (I would jump off a very tall building if the file corrupted.  Back-up files are my friend.)

The hardest thing about being a producer of a game project is that you are there to motivate everyone else, but when it comes near to the final product (and when I mean near, I mean annoying final hump near) the last thing you do is feel motivated.  It's the long weekend in Canada and all I want to do is turn off Netflix and let the game coalesce on its own without me.

Which will never happen.

...

Unless I clone myself.   But that probably wouldn't turn out that well.

A slight delay

When art has to be reformatted it's never good.

We've been dealing with some great pieces of character art, that, at the last I should have edited for size a long time ago.  Take, for instance, Gavin, the werewolf demigod character:

If you'll notice, he's a giant amount of pixels wide.  Almost 600 pixels wide.  The whole iPhone screen is about 640 pixels wide.

Clearly there's an issue.

So, I currently have our artist reformatting, and slightly redesigning the character.   The new base Gavin sketch looks like this:

There's certain things I like about this a lot more, there's a lot more action in this pose, but also it takes away from some of the moodiness of the character.  However, it's the proper pixel ratio, which is something you have to deal with on a hand-sized touch screen.

Sprite Sheets

Now that most of the art is complete, I have begun taking art from the artist and compiling into sprite sheets.  Since I have no idea what I'm doing (no really) I decided I would give SpriteSheetPacker a whirl on a couple of tests images. 

I was hoping I wouldn't have to format the images to similar sizes (the examples on the site seem to suggest they can be a couple of different sizes, but I only got images of the same size to work in a sheet.)

I'm going to investigate this tool a little more.  I feel that if I can get it to work for me, I can save myself hours of time in the future.

The thing that sucks is that it seems to be a windows specific tool, which means I'm switching back from windows to mac all over the place.  I'm trying to cut down on that and use the mac as much as possible for the game assets.  It gets tiring switching platforms all the time.

So Interra Games went to join twitter

And I made a new logo for the company instead.  Giant improvement over previous logo, I think.  Kind of didn't mean to do it until 1:45 a.m., though.


Follow us on Twitter at @interragames.

Early Icon Art

 


Artist is currently working on finishing up the icon, among other things.

Bakcground artist called me

He finally sent me some new art, which is good, since I've been waiting for a while.  Now just need him to complete three more backgrounds.

I have some new sketches

Of one of the playable characters.  I've asked for a few changes, and I'll be putting them up soon.

I have a bunch of copy to edit tomorrow evening.  Didn't get to it tonight.

Waiting for the code from the programmer.

Now researching 2D art effects

Could be interesting, but I felt good that a lot of people who are small studios don't always know a lot about 2d art animation stuff.

Story boarding almost finished for the day.  Taking a lot longer than I expected because I forgot about a couple of gameplay elements that I'm hoping to release in the 2nd release sometime.

As always, if you would like to be a beta-tester, sign up at www.interrgames.com

Character designer finally sent me some updated art

At first I was freaking out, but then I looked through the rest of the art, and realized she did a pretty good job with it.  I can't believe how much the main character has changed over the last six months.  Not bad changes, just different.  I'll have to post it later.

Gavin

Art Attack

My artist just sent me about seven pieces of art to review. 

That was like, a serious use of my afternoon.  It was rough because there big (and little) changes that needed to be made, so I just sent her an essay. 

She still has four pieces she's working on for me.  I'm feeling like a bad employer.

But on the bright side, nearly 75% of the character art is done for the game!  Two major characters to go (out of six) not to mention 3 more boss characters.

I'm going to be so penniless by time this process is finished.

Final Boss Sketch

Whew

My main artist, A, e-mailed me back and told me her scanner wasn't working, which is why I hadn't heard from her this week.  I was seriously ready to start hyperventilating. 


More than normal, that is.

I'll post some art later today, hopefully.

Some early heroine poses

Some early art

One of the poses of the Lamia.