Official dev blog for all things Nanokin!

[nanokinofficial]

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Greetings, Nano-Keepers!

Today, we're going to talk about scratch tracks! For a majority of Nanokin's lifespan, the tunes were intended to be done with an 8-bit NES VST, though we weren't following rigid constraints. Over the course of development and as the game evolved in both scope and visual style, we eventually reasoned that the 8-bit tunes weren't quite gonna cut it. However, this isn't stopping us from composing some of our songs in that style and then updating them down the line!

We'll be sharing a couple of scratch track samples today, it's up to you guys to imagine what kind of wild adventures you'll be going on to each different song! Furthermore, far down the road and sometime around release, we'll be releasing all of these scratch tracks as a bonus, so you can hear how a majority of them initially came together!

So give that play button a press and enjoy!

Until next time Nano-Keepers!

[nanokinofficial]

Stream of Consciousness

Hello once again, everyone!

Since a couple of weeks back, we’ve been hard at work playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild making tons of new Nanokin content for you all to enjoy in the future!

Today, however, we’re going to talk about something a little bit different but still relevant, streaming! A few of us at Anjin tend to set up shop maybe once or twice a week and give a little taste of what we’re working on for Nanokin, and one of us even streams a lot casually for fun, ideas, and to have a great time. So stop in sometime and get to know us!

First up is Jacob AKA SwoodDude AKA MegaUltraJMan AKA stick-to-one-name-buddy. As our in house lead animator on character art and co-animator on Nanokin monster design, Jacob tends to set up and stream pixel sessions every once a week or so, sometimes more if he’s not being too secretive! When he’s not, he’s studying and enjoying games, anything from retro classics dating back to the NES, MSX, Genesis, all the way up to the latest hits for PC, PS4, Switch, and more! So tune in for the art, stay for the conversation and great games!

You can catch Jacob streaming at https://www.twitch.tv/megaultrajman throughout the week! While he has no set schedule, he tends to stream every few days.

Next up is our resident maestro of music, the master of management, and the founder of Studio Anjin itself, Kyle! While Kyle delves into quite literally every piece of Nanokin including art, map making, character design, writing, and more, you’ll primarily catch him toiling away on stream making music. In rare instances, he might be playing some really bizarre off the wall games, as he’s always had an interest in the strange and the quirky above all else, looking for the most far out ideas and designs for inspiration. Every now and again, you might catch him collaborating with Jacob to co-compose some sweet monster jams!

You can catch Kyle streaming at https://www.twitch.tv/neonlare occasionally! He doesn’t pop out of his dev hole month, it’s kind of like waiting for a groundhog on Groundhog’s Day, but it’s always worth the wait!

Lastly, one of our Nanokin code warriors and one of the dudes making sure everything doesn’t break into a billion pieces is Nicolas! This mysterious warrior in the shadows frequently alternates between streaming strings of code and carefully planning out speedruns and tool-assisted speedruns, also making him an excellent candidate for testing and making sure things don’t break! He has a high appreciation for the PS1 era of classic games and also dabbles in art as well on his own time, drawing all sorts of odd caricatures with a strange and distinct style.

You can catch Nicolas streaming at https://www.twitch.tv/oxysofts occasionally as well!

Most importantly, while not everyone on our dev team streams, they’re just as important and if you’d like to know a little more about them or follow them on twitter, please head over to our About Us page on our main website! It’s slightly under construction at this moment, but we’re working on it slowly but surely!

Until next time Nano-keepers!

[nanokinofficial]

Nanokin - Old VS New

Greetings everybody!

Kept you waiting, huh?

Fortunately, we didn't arrive empty handed! This week we want to talk to you about the state of Nanokin and how it's evolved over the last year or so of development. While we aren't keen to show a lot yet, let's take a look back on the characters in their initial iteration, and in their final, current iterations.

Nas old: 

Nas new:

Jatz old:

Jatz new:

Serio old:

Serio new:

As you can see, we initially built the game upon the premise that everything would be isometric, fitting to a smaller resolution. This allowed us to create smaller sprites in a quicker manner for prototyping the game via Game Maker Studio, furthermore it made for quick, easy creation of sprites in a timely fashion.

Things have definitely changed since then! As our hopes and dreams for this game increased in scope, so did the resolution and the care and craft that's being put into each and every character. While the information regarding all those juicy details is being reserved for a later post, we can say that Game Maker Studio has been abandoned in favor of creating the game in Unity. Gone are the 2-directional isometric sprites of 2016, and here to stay are the 8-directional sprites of 2017!

We're extremely excited to take this new step forward, and while it's been in the making for a while the gears are officially turning and Nanokin is making tremendous strides. We've also settled on a final style for the game's music, and at least 90% of how the game will be playing on both the overworld, and in battle.

Keep your peepers glued, because we have even more to share in the following weeks!

Until next time Nano-keepers!

[nanokinofficial]

Floorplanning on the fourth!

Hey everybody! Happy Canada Day, Independence Day, Day Day, and Galactic Pizza Day (this last one might not really exist. We implore you to enjoy it anyways!)

We over here at Studio Anjin are hoping that you're enjoying, or have enjoyed a safe and fun holiday! With that out of the way, we want to talk to you today about... floorplans.

Yes, floorplans! You know... those things you lay out when you're making a building or, in our case, a really complicated theme park!

What we currently are doing is building out semi-detailed floor plans to figure out the general scope and size of an area, like so:

(Image above is a WIP, and isnt’ 100% indicitive of what the final product will represent)

Then, after, we're going over, tiling, and putting those into the game. So what does that mean for Nanokin?

The short answer is this, after a good handful of months of Nanokin, characters, music, and finally maps, the game is starting to come together as a cohesive piece of work that we're finally going to be able to show soon. No more posts of characters walking over blank canvases or Nanokin floating about and looking imposing, it's finally coming together.

As with any Studio Anjin project, the game has exceeded our initial expectations for how long certain things would take, among a slight shift in art from the original concept to bring more life and excitement to the characters, and even more so to the game world. Long story short, the true indie game struggle, but we still have a good lid on the final scope! No worries there, and we actually have our lovable characters walking around environments at the moment on top of it!

There's just a few layers of polish left before we can actually take a peak at the exciting world presented in Nanokin, and we can't wait to show you, but you'll have to wait just a little bit longer. It'll be worth the wait, we promise! Next week, perhaps we'll show you a fully completed and tiled map and not just the floorplan! Maybe.

Until next time Nano-Keepers!

[nanokinofficial]

The Ultimate Nanokin FAQ!

Hey all, Jacob from Studio Anjin here, the following FAQ is meant to answer any questions, concerns, or otherwise anything that could be asked about Nanokin! So let's begin.

- Q: Does Studio Anjin have a proper website?

- A: Yes, we do! While we are slow on the upkeep as Nanokin is our primary focus at this time, and by nature, this blog, you can see all of our previous works and the occasional news rumbling at: http://studio-anjin.co.uk/

- Q: What type of game is Nanokin?

- A: Nanokin is a game with traditional RPG map exploration featuring a few twists to the formula.

Currently there is planned platforming, key items that allow the players to travel in different manners and solve puzzles beyond simple inventory usage (more on this when we have it hashed out and finalized) as well as all manner of wild traps, tricks, and various exciting things you would find in a futuristic theme park!

In battle, we are employing an ATB system that places heavy emphasis on careful usage of skills, be it siphoning speed from your enemies to fill your ATB bars faster and perform more attacks, changing the positioning of your enemies to hit them with a variety of unique targeting spells, or figuring out slight puzzle components to certain foes and bosses.

We're aiming to take the best elements of Shin Megami Tensei, Final Fantasy, and Pokemon and create a unique RPG experience that's exciting and enjoyable for both veterans and newcomers alike!

- Q: What is a Nanokin?

- A: A Nanokin is a man made creature created using nano-gels and is intended to have a life span of roughly three weeks to a month. They take the appearance of fantastical creatures; ranging from dinosaurs, deep sea aquatic life, horror monsters to ancient mythological beasts.

Though initially they were created for scientific research of extinct species and the betterment of mankind, Nanokin are hard coded to battle other Nanokin and melt away upon defeat, leaving behind one of their vital limbs for the victor to claim for their own. The gel left behind is then recycled and used again, nothing is wasted at Nanoland!

You can then mix and match these Nanokin parts to your heart's content, creating the ultimate creature of your liking, and, perhaps, becoming the ultimate Nano-Keeper!

- Q: How many Nanokin are there, and how many ways can I combine them?

- A: Currently, there are 130 Nanokin, each comprised of four limbs: a head, a left arm, a right arm, and a body + legs. Doing the math that makes for a total of 520 different collectable Nanokin limbs! 

That's a gosh-darned boat load, and not a small boat either!

As far as combinations go, left and right arms are interchangeable, all limbs can be flipped and flopped, colors MAY be able to be tweaked (we're working on that one, give us some time!) the limitations are extremely low and the sky's the limit!

We can't even actually get a pinpoint on just how many combinations there will be, and there may be the chance to add even more Nanokin in the future, if we find out just how many we can do, we'll let you know!

- Q: Only 130 Nanokin? Isn't that a bit low?

- A: Well now, hold on, we got you covered! There are also over 40 additional boss monsters to battle and defeat, each working to different strengths and providing exciting screen filling battles against towering foes!

As a result, boss pieces CANNOT be collected, meaning every boss encounter is a unique experience. "Why is that!?" we hear you crying from the distance, simply put for both story reasons and personal reasons, boss monsters serve a far greater purpose and allowing people to collect them supremely downplays the excitement of a major encounter. We can't go into all the juicy details, but rest assured we have our reasons and that the bosses will more than make up for the inability to collect them!

Furthermore, if that isn't enough for you there are a variety of other Nano-Keepers roaming about for you to battle (or ignore, should you choose to do so) and Nanothane masters to beat and prove your worth to!

- Q: You said RPG earlier, what kind of level system is at play?

- A: Each individual Nano-limb can be leveled up, and as limbs progress they will gain more potent skills, be they buffs, attacks, or passives. Experience is gained normally by winning battles against Nanokin encountered in the park, other Nano-keepers looking to test their skills, and defeating large scale boss encounters and high class Nanothane masters.

Switching limbs and skill sets is constantly encouraged, and experimentation is a key component we'd love to see people embrace!

- Q: What is the story behind Nanokin?

- A: Nanokin's story boils down to solving a mystery that is slowly causing all of the Nanokin in Nanoland to malfunction, and it's up to Nas, Jatz, and Serio, a trio of three young Nano-Keepers to crack the case!

The trio will be helped, hindered, and often times baffled by a colorful cast of other Nano-Keepers, park staff, and all manner of strange characters in their ordeals. Who knows, maybe you'll even make a few friends along the way, or even eat a whole tub of ice cream! We just don't know!

You can also shoot for the stars to be the best of the best Nano-Keepers that ever lived, just be prepared to defeat all of the Nanothane leaders in Nanoland, and don't forget about that perilous mystery! It won't solve itself no matter how badly you just want to sing karaoke or visit the haunted house!

Tone wise, we're aiming at a scoop of something adventurous in line with childhood film favorite The Goonies, adding a pinch of the slightly surreal and colorful Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, then stirring vigorously and topping it all off with a healthy dose of the offbeat, hilarious, and often heartfelt dialogue found in the Earthbound/Mother franchise. We hope the odd flavored mixture comes out as an adventure filled to the brim with memorable characters, exciting adventures, and genuine feelings that people can cherish for years to come!

- Q: Are there screenshots of the game we can see?

- A: At the moment, there aren't any in game screenshots, but they are coming soon! We do have shots of quite a few Nanokin, and some work in progress animations for when you're exploring the various attractions at the park! For now, please enjoy these, this FAQ WILL be updated with proper in game screenshots as they come together.

Check out all these sweet Nanokin!

...or this cool kid's radical strut!

Perhaps, chilling out and standing around is more your style?

Or maybe, you just wanna beat the stuffing out of this guy!

- Q: What about the soundtrack, what kind of music can we expect?

- A: As always, we're going above and beyond what's needed and creating both an OST that utilizes only 8 bit instruments and bitcrushed sounds, and also creating an OST that is high quality featuring numerous life-like instruments, fuller sound, and a mixture of all mediums and forms to present a more modern, CD audio quality experience. We will be sharing with you a sample from both extremely soon, and will update this answer when everything is finalized!

- Q: Who is the dev team behind Nanokin? What is Studio Anjin?

- A: Studio Anjin is a small group of independent developers that have come together over multiple years. Initially starting as a super group of many, the team whittled down to just two members; Jacob Ritz, and Kyle Riley. Eventually they adopted C.L. Kerl, and went on to create The Midnight Station. Since then, the team has grown even more and there are a grand total of six team members at work on Nanokin. So let's introduce the crew, yeah?

Kyle Riley

- ROLE AT ANJIN: Anjin Overlord, Animator, Artist, Musician, Programmer, Team Leader, Writer

- FAVORITE GENRE OF GAME: RPG.

- FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC: Prog Rock.

- FAVORITE FOOD: Anything Pasta.

- FAVORITE HOBBY: Cycling.

- WEBSITES & CONTACT:

- TWITTER: https://twitter.com/MthisG

- TWITCH STREAM: https://www.twitch.tv/neonlare

- BIO: Kyle Riley started Studio Anjin with the vision of upstarting independent developers collaborating to create unique projects with smaller team sizes and an intense group focus. Starting off as a tile artist on small forum projects, Kyle grew to appreciate all forms of game development, eventually branching into coding, composition, pixel animation, hand drawn art, and all manner of game development making him an excellent project leader. Currently, he is heading Nanokin, Project Abysian, and Project Mu, all titles that are in the works and coming from Studio Anjin in the near to far future. Kyle has also spent time working on the successfully Kickstarted project Barkley 2 as a programmer, and his finished projects include The Midnight Station, Parascythe X, and a variety of Ludum Dare entries and miniature freeware titles.

Jacob J. Ritz

- ROLE AT ANJIN: Artist, Animator, Game Balance, Musician, Tester, Writer.

- FAVORITE GENRE OF GAME: Experimental Games, Action Games, Run 'N Guns, Action RPGs, Older Platformers.

- FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC: Death Metal, Black Metal, Heavy Metal in general and it's myriad of confusing sub-genres.

- FAVORITE FOOD: Sushi, Shrimp, Orange Chicken, Spaghetti.

- FAVORITE HOBBY: Listening to Music, Writing Music, Arranging Music, Playing Bass, Live-Streaming Games, Animating Pixel Art.

- WEBSITES & CONTACT:

- TWITTER: https://twitter.com/SwoodDude

- TWITCH STREAM: https://www.twitch.tv/megaultrajman

- TUMBLR: http://ultrajman.tumblr.com/

- BIO: Jacob J. Ritz joined Studio Anjin not long after forming, starting from scratch with miniscule knowledge of coding or art. Jacob had always had a passing interest in pixel art and animation, eventually discovering tons of other modern pixel works and inspiring him to constantly push his limits well beyond what they originally were. Jacob now serves primarily as an artist and animator for Anjin's projects, serving on the side as both a co-composer with Kyle Riley and chief audio engineer and head of composition arrangement. Jacob spends his spare time doing commission work for Patreon and streaming a wild variety of games for constant inspiration, looking for ways to better balance and improve Studio Anjin's projects. When he's not busy with all of the above, he heads his own Studio Anjin projects, usually Run 'N Guns, Platformers, or Action Games, and his completed works include The Midnight Station, Parascythe X, and a few older collaboration projects.

C.L. Kerl

- ROLE AT ANJIN: Code Master, Programmer, Sytems Coder, Designer.

- FAVORITE GENRE OF GAME: Adventure Games/Point and Click, Strategy, RPG.

- FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC: He'll listen to anything, as long as it's something he enjoys.

- FAVORITE FOOD: Free Range Oranges, Activated Almonds, Gluten Free Wheat, Dehydrated Watermelon.

- FAVORITE HOBBY: Thinking of all the productive or creative things he could be doing right now, or maybe tomorrow.

- WEBSITES & CONTACT: N/A

- BIO: C.L. Kerl does many different programming and design jobs. From base engine systems, to cutscenes, to UI design, he has spent many hours to ensure crucial systems stay error free. In just two short weeks, C.L. built the entire groundwork for The Midnight Station, proving his ability to work under pressure and tight deadlines. Without him, The Midnight Station wouldn't exist, nor would the systems or engines for various other in progress Studio Anjin games. C.L. lives with his parents and his dog Jello, and is currently attending college, working towards a degree in Computer Science.

Emil Lindgren

- ROLE AT ANJIN: Programmer

- FAVORITE GENRE OF GAME: Exploration Platformers/Metroidvanias.

- FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC: Mood Dependant.

- FAVORITE FOOD: Piteåpalt.

- FAVORITE HOBBY: Sleeping.

- WEBSITES & CONTACT: N/A

- BIO: Emil has been a part of the Anjin family for almost a year now, proving his worth on the short Ludum Dare entry known as Parascythe X. Other works have included pieces of the Project Mu engine, Nanokin , and more. Emil is an avid fan of exploration platformers, or "Metroidvanias" as some like to call them and has a large interest in well crafted and cryptic puzzles mixed with deep rooted action and exploration.

Gerbrand Nijk

- ROLE AT ANJIN: Programmer, Battle Systems Engineer for Nanokin

- FAVORITE GENRE OF GAME: Story Driven.

- FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC: Most genres, as long as the song is good.

- FAVORITE FOOD: Pannekoeken

- FAVORITE HOBBY: Programming

- WEBSITES & CONTACT: N/A

- BIO:  Gerbrand Nijk  is a mysterious entity, swooping in and coding various odds and ends to make the battle systems of Nanokin slowly turn from an awesome fantasy into an even cooler reality! He's also bad at Bios, so we wrote one for him! Just between us, we think he might actually be a space alien, though this is yet to be confirmed.

deepFr0sty

- FAVORITE GENRE OF GAME: N/A

- FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC: Videogame Soundtracks.

- FAVORITE FOOD: Pizza.

- FAVORITE HOBBY: Pixel Art/Animation & Sketching.

- WEBSITES & CONTACT:

- DEVIANTART: http://kizunaken.deviantart.com/

- BIO: Fr0sty is the latest member of Studio Anjin, picked up by Kyle Riley after seeing a few of his works. Fr0sty has served as a co-animator on Nanokin's character art, and also produced a good handful of monster designs for the game. Fr0sty has ambitions to go on and make a full fledged fighting game someday, and specializes in hyper detailed animation work on large scale sprites.

- Q: When can we play Nanokin, and how much will it cost?

- A: We're not far enough quite yet to say, and at this moment the best answer I can give is simply when it's done. If everything goes according to plan (and a lot of times, it doesn't, such is the way of game development and life in general) seeing it before the end of the year is our best guess (but don't hold us to it if we slip into 2017!) As far as cost, we haven't decided, when the game is complete and in the testing phase I feel we can update you all with a proper answer, as for the moment though we still have to get the game on and through Greenlight, and that's just the start of it all!

- Q: Is there anything else you can tell us about Nanokin?

- A: There's going to be ice cream... in the game we mean, not for you. There is sadly no ice cream pre-order bonus, but we strongly encourage eating your favorite ice cream anyways before, during, and after playing Nanokin!

Until we see you again fellow Nano-Keepers, stay safe, stay awesome, and keep your eyes out for more news in the future!

[studioanjin]

So, here we stand, 100 Nanokin strong!

That’s right everyone, we’ve finally hit the big one double zero, bringing us just 35 common monsters away from initial nanokin completion (Plus forty or more bosses, and maybe a few extra Nanokin peppered here and there, we’re not telling!) This marks a huge milestone for us as we slowly roll over into our third month of production on the game.

To commemorate the occasion, we’re showing you 15 of the game’s Nanokin! 15 is a full world’s worth, and the world in question we’re presenting to you is Oceanus, the aquatic themed section of the park. Within lies a food court, a seaside port town, mysterious treasures, island adventures and all manner of bewildering oceanic creatures, crawlers and bosses!

Without giving too much away, the gang will be cracking a kidnapping case in the area, taking them through all manners of nautical nonsense. It’s best described as a cross of a 70s era cartoon caper meets The Goonies, not all the details are fleshed out yet but there will be plenty exciting adventures awaiting players in this early game area.

Now onto the messy stuff, the move to Unity has been great, however, Nanokin isn’t a simple game by nature. We haven’t been able to provide proper in game screenshots yet simply because getting the maps working in a way that everyone on the team can go in and create is proving troublesome, but doable. As far as in battle mechanics go, we’ve been able to produce AIs duking it out with eachother using various battle tactics and status effects, it’s coming along excellently, but like anything will take time and polish to be in a showcaseable state.

For just two and a half short months though, the project is making tremendous leaps and bounds, week by week we get a little bit closer to our goals and while it’d be nice to get ahead of ourselves and say we’ll be done before we know it, game development is never quite that simple. For one, as you’ll notice above, some of the art is inconsistent due to having three seperate artists on board and one future layer of polish will be touching up every monster to be consistent with one another. Some discrepancies are fine here and there, but a consistent art style can make or break the limb customization system, little things like that will always eat up so much more time than we could imagine, and that’s to say little of the overall game balance of skills for over 600 different limbs.

There’s also bug crushing, getting the various builds out to testers, and testing the game in and out ourselves to make sure the game feels challenging, but balanced and fair. A common difficulty most small team RPGs tend to suffer is pushing too far in one direction or the other. Too easy and skills, customization, and the like will feel non-impactful, ruining the pacing of the game and making customization a total waste. Too hard and we’ll be forcing players into dominant strategies with no real margin for change-ups or errors. Finding that middle ground will be one of the toughest challenges in getting Nanokin to feel excellent, and will likely be the longest of challenges to overcome.

All that said, just know we are shooting for a release of “Sometime - 2016” and so far we’re 100% on track for that deadline. Next time, we share some music! What exactly does the world of Nanokin sound like? You’ll soon find out, maybe if we’re generous we’ll share a couple of pieces! Until we meet again fellow Nano-keepers!