January 2024 Devlog - Getting our bearings
Alright, we know, it's been already one (1) month since the trailer dropped and we have been kind of silent so far. In reality, we are doing work under the hood, and I've already shared some of the work I've done to a smaller circle of friends; I decided that most of it didn't warrant being shared publicy for now (due to being too early, requiring polish, etc.), and a lot of it will indeed remain under the hood for a time. But I think y'all warrant a devlog for once, so I will try and be as transparent as possible:
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What you just saw was the first public, in-engine prototype footage for the game. Most of the focus so far was toward now only getting our sweet sweet models to look nice in Godot (which we somehow mostly managed to do save for issues with Godot's shadows system), but to also establish an optimal Blender-to-Godot pipeline so that getting these assets in the game would require the least effort possible for the sake of letting more effort go toward the quality of assets. We didn't manage to establish such a pipeline (yet). Game development sure would be amazing if you could just get your carefully crafted characters and animations in-engine with a simple click, amirite?
Alright, so, what else do we do in Godot? We develop the engine that will power our upcoming, innovative battle system, of course. We originally went for building the engine inside the game's main "project" (if you're confused, it's just some high-level indie dev slang) until we realised this, as well as the experimentation that comes with it, would negatively affect things for the main project. Also, using placeholder assets would be more efficient, but we're reluctant to fill the future foundation of the game with tons of useless dev garbage. So, we decided to start rebuilding allat gameplay stuff in a separate secondary project, which will be used from now on to develop our snazzy super secret revolutionary combat gameplay.
Now, a lot of the work behind the scenes wasn't consacred to the engine itself (definitely not a bad workflow guys, trust me!); under the hood, we also worked further on the aesthetic side of things: chara designs, new models, etc… As you might have guessed, aesthetics are something real important to us. Hell, we literally intended the artstyle to be the big selling point of the project, especially to our fellow Minecraft enjoyers out there that have no idea of what a "gameknight999" even is, but care about the project regardless because it could very well end up the first good ambitious MC fangame since Story Mode. Obviously, that means when it comes to adapting existing characters, we usually make em snazzy new designs to match the vibe of the game:
Beyond their designs, we also intend to make a lot more changes to several existing creatures for the sake of fitting the game's brand new vibe. Take the skeletons for example: in Minecraft, while the skeleton is very common and iconic, it isn't really considered a real "basic" enemy (it's literally a ranged attacker), especially when put next to the zombie, who easily takes the cake as MC's most basic enemy. In GKR, we decided to make skeletons able to wield a variety of weapons other than bows (swords, shields, etc.), consolidating them as the "shoto" units of the monster faction, and some of the more versatile goons Gameknight will have to face during his adventure. This is the kind of changes you will see in other aspects of Minecraft as we picture it for the reboot, offering a brand new take on the game you're used to (in total non-respect to the original Gameknight999 series which just adapted plain-ol' Minecraft as it was back in 2014).
So, in the end, what can you make of all of this?
1) So far, we've mostly worked on getting our bearings in this engine.
2) We are currently working on getting the core gameplay system to a playable state.
3) Our artstyle is awesome.
Also, for those who didn't realize until now, the fancy skeleton model wasn't made by me this time; you have to thank our new 3D modeller, Lucas "Geno" ATBK, who I previously got to work with for Mega Man Zero Online Legacy. He's also developing a very cool speed platformer called "Lunar Leaf", you should REALLY check that out and more at https://www.youtube.com/@LukasATBK
Hopefully I covered everything there was to cover, and did not make any spelling mistakes. No Youtube uploads for the time being, but we hope to be back as soon as humanly possible with some cool new development updates.
-Beat-Chan, lead developer of Gameknight999 Rebooted
