Multinaut - making of.

The (hopefully) steady progress of making a game for the iPhone.

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So I've completed the boy in terms of proportions and face shape. next stop is getting him into Unity as my stand-in 3rd person avatar.

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Kid 3D progress.

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I finally had time to revisit some projects I've had no time for. So this is a small update on Multinaut. I've made a number of changes and some improvements and progress should once again be steady (if slow).

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Sigh, the best laid plans and all that. I am endeavouring to return to steady updates so here’s what I had time for tonight; the official Energistic Confabulator 2000! Made with the same materials as the previous designs and charged with the same fantastic energy. This is of course in lieu of an update to the werewolf (I’m not happy with the fur and have developed a different method for Zbrushing it, more later) and or more 3D content.  Hopefully more soon.

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So there it is; vicious cur! The proportions are just about right and I've purposefully included retro horror elements in it; the hunched back, the Lon Chaney knuckles. After extensive use of the Scales A brush in Zbrush I also have the fur I'm after. Haven't finished the teeth yet but I'll get round to it.  Rather than painfully pushing and pulling, I might just make a custom geometry in Maya and see if I can import it. 

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Gad! Just remembered I left that god-awful basemesh of my werewolf up. So here's progress on the head. Perhaps a little too fearsome for the style of game I'm going for but I'll see if I can "cute" it up after I get it looking properly lupine. 

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So I have no idea how they do it, but Pixologic keep releasing free upgrades to their awesome software. Yes, this is a Zbrush fanboy post. I can remember back in the day when people were posting their best 3D characters to places like CGChannel and CGtalk forums the Zbrush forums routinely had better quality work. This was really the first tool in my experience that unlocked a lot of talented peoples work digitally. While philosophically I believe voxels are the future this is a damn fine piece of software all the same. Anyhoo, here's a bit more on my Wolf, the underlying structure is Zsketch on Zspheres.

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And here is the start of 3D. I'm using Zbrush 4.0 to sculpt my werewolf and this here is the basic zsphere sketch of it. Once I've got some polys to play with I can make them into more what I want but this is a good beginning.

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So getting closer now. The egg-beater watergun cross pistol needs a little development but essentially it's all there. Now to start fleshing it out in 3D. He probably also needs a helmet so I think I'll just grab one of the pot versions.

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Haha, well... so this is once again not what I wanted to do. I was thinking that dishgloves would offer good insulation from the energicles that control space/time and be available to a kid. The fingerless gloves are just because he's badass. Overall however it looks a bit... peculiar, so back to the drawing board. 

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So, getting off track here. I liked the idea of power cords and insulation as a theme but being mindful of my target platform, they may be a little complex. Especially the rigging required around the elbow. I think I'll keep the insulated gloves but loose the aviator helmet as it covers to much of the face. I keep coming back to a Grid Iron helmet, but that's too Commander Keen.

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WIP of the diorama. I have selected a still scene where the characters haven't seen each other but are wary. There is a central plinth and various elements of the graveyard. Lighting effects can be drawn from the Jack O'lantern and the moonlight on fog. A nice tension filled setting that I think will be more enjoyable to view than an action shot. 

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So part of the design will be a backpack with an energy collection device. I really like the idea of a hollowed out blender with a contraption in it to collect the "æther particulons" or whatever scientists eventually label alternate dimensional energy.

I have concerns surrounding children and blenders and the implication that the two should "mix" but if thousands of people create a hue and cry over it we can deal with it then. 

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Primary sketches of the kid's face. I really don't like doing concept art but I need a quick turn around and ownership of all the material, so, sigh. Anyway, in the interest of being a bit more next gen I will be producing the more "realistic" looking kid on the right. 

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Just jumping in here and creating some (reaaaally quick) sketches. I think I like the werewolf the best, though I can't help the feeling that I've seen it before, it might be influenced by Ratchet and Clank though I can't find it on the net.

So, no white backgrounds, I find them horrible, and a really basic colouring just to bring a bit of form into the sketch. One artist I really admire for colour read sketches is Niklas Jansson of Itch studios http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/ so I'm trying to emulate his style.

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The protagonist will be a kid who is a crazy inventor and has made a device out of common household materials that controls space and time. He’s a little Cavlinesque in his fearlessness and imagination, with the latter being how he survives against all odds. He is able to teleport to parallel universes though there is a catch. The nearest ones to this planet are the ones that stand out in the human psyche, notably (and in the case of this game ) three of them.

Zombie World; which encapsulates our morbid fascinations, vampires, zombies, werewolves etc.

Slime World; everything we try to avoid standing on. (I’m not sure about slime world, though for the purposes of this game a kid inventor probably identifies strongly with it.)

Robot World; with everything from killer robots to revolving doors; they’re all out to get us!

I figure with these sort of basics I could evolve a pretty decent Paper Scissors Stone gameplay but I really will just focus on Zombie World. 

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Step 01: Design.

While this is a solitary project needing no documentation to convey ideas among different members of a team, I will employ a design brief here to stop myself from suffering feature creep. The first part of this project doesn’t need a complete spec but I will develop the concept as far as needed to evince aspects that have a bearing on production.

 I’ve been told a good first step is to encapsulate the design philosophy in a phrase; fast, simple and fun is going to be mine. This will be the overall directive of the game, fast to load, simple to use and fun to play. Navigation through whatever menus exist will be simple and fast with no sneaky tricks or nagware. Action by the characters will be swift, the environment will be simple and clean and the characters will lean towards being fun/silly.

In the mechanics area I’m going for a third person action game, top down ¾ view which has elements of strategy to it. The objective of the game is to stay alive as long as possible against waves of enemies using barriers and weapons with an element or energy harvesting/resource gathering. The score system will be open ended and shareable on Facebook, encouraging replay value and community. Thematically it will have a strong cartoon style, which mitigates platform limitations and in my mind increases the fun.