EGX Rezzed is happening in less than a week, and we’re gonna be there! Well, I say “we.” I actually mean the rest of the team—such people who already live on or adjacent to the right continent, who could find their way to the convention floor without stowing away aboard an airship. Which—I love you guys, but I’ve seen enough pulp movies to know how that turns out.
So it’s just me, Rutskarn! Just me, hanging out, cranking out the last of the dialogue scripts. Checking the comments on the blogs. Hiding visual puns in my copy of the build, then deleting them without pushing the changes. Writing this post. Crying softly.
If you’d like to avoid a similar fate, check us out at the convention! It runs from March 28th to March 30th, and it’s found in the allegedly beautiful Birmingham, UK-style. We’ll have (indeed, already do have) a playable build of the game for anyone who wants to check it out.
We’ll also be streaming on the 6th of April…but would you rather watch Arvind grapple with as-yet unforeseen pre-release glitches, or would you rather experience the magic of discovering them for yourself?
Now, some of you’ve asked for more behind-the-scenes dev stuff, and it just so happens we’ve got an appropriate post prepared. Kicking the mic to myself for a look into…The Evolution of a Level.
We’re about to take a look at one of the levels in Chapter 3. The focal point of this chapter is a temple on the border of the slums and the city proper—specifically, the grand temple of Banka-Mundi. We’re mostly going to focus on a specific street leading to it.
Most levels start out as a rough sketch from me, the lead writer and scenario designer:
But don’t get it in your head that I’m a level designer. Among other things, I’m too busy writing the entire game to do that. My preliminary sketches are generally unsatisfactory in one of a few ways:
-Too angular or straightforward
-Doesn’t make good use of our assets
-Doesn’t account for stuff we might add later
-Missing subtleties of Indian architecture
This is where a review from Arvind, the lead developer, comes in. He and Mikk (the artist) usually confab and figure out how things should be specifically laid out. Once they’ve agreed on a design, it’s just a matter of laying in the art assets already completed and whipping up any new elements required:
And there you have it! One handsome street. Exactly how I envisioned it.
Only, you know. Good.
Posted In: Unrest