Logo / Box Art concepts

You guys may have noticed the new header at the top of this blog. That's a bit of a prototype for the logo I'm hoping we'll be able to have commissioned for the game. I'm not that great at font metrics, but after several hours of tweaking and path-editing in Illustrator, I think I've got the vectors down to how I want it. All that's left would be to send it off to a pro to give it a nice paint-over so that it can be used in our promotional art, title screen, and etc.

And now for some fun stuff. Here are a few sketches I did starting from back in January coming up with the logo:

AutoTiles, pt. 1

Save for a bit of a graphics card issue I had yesterday, the past several days have been mostly about improving the coordinate system and putting features from the new collision system I demoed for you guys earlier back into the alpha. I've also been working on improving the map loader.

An interesting problem presented itself yesterday when beginning to implement AutoTiles into the alpha. I will explain after the cut.

Video: Ice

Collision Masking

Work continues on the alpha.  The built-in movement and collision routines with the main tool I'm using to develop FaeSaga in are a bit of a double-edged sword.  On one hand, it allows for rapid prototyping of what the game will sorta feel like when it is complete.  Collision detection can be powerful stuff, as it can handle per-pixel stuff automatically.  On the other hand, fine control of these routines often come with irritating caveats, or aren't available at all.  Therefore, I've spent most of today working on a replacement movement and collision routine for the main character.  (Video after the cut)

Game Mechanics and Compositing, pt. 1

So, I was plowing through some Lagoon yesterday (pic related), and playing through parts of it again reminded me of a couple of things that come to mind when I'm thinking through FaeSaga.

( Read More ) 

Dialog Mockups

Sometimes I can't decide on a damn thing.  Well, at least when it comes to tweaking the finer details.  These mockups show my decisions on how to create menus over time.

To your left is a very recent mockup.  There are more interesting screens after the cut.

( Read More )

The Toolchain

So, one of the things which I think will make it possible for us to easily extend FaeSaga and spin it into an even more expansive universe over time is the toolchain.  Many of the resources for FaeSaga are externalized to allow for resources to be readily swapped out and tested, and I have written a variety of tools to facilitate this process.

Here are some of the current tools being actively developed in FaeSaga's toolchain.
(Screenshots after the cut!)

Alpha

One of the reasons I'm posting today is because we marked Feb. 1st on our calender as "First Alpha Build" day. That means, no matter what, I was supposed to get some sort of a prototype ready to present for today. Well, after some setbacks, and a lot of caffeine, I'm pleased to say that we're well on our way towards that goal. What I have for you all today are some screenshots of the alpha in progress.

Now, let me first make the disclaimer that what you will be looking at is a work in development. (Actually, it's basically a bunch of art placeholders for the code I've been churning out here.) Most of the hard work over these past months is going on under the hood, and that will continue to be the case for quite a while, or at least until we start paying for some more replacement assets. All existing art assets you see in these screens belong to their original owners, and I won't claim any rights over anything I didn't make specifically for this game. Same goes for any music you might hear in any videos -- I'll try to give proper credit where I am able, and make sure all this stuff's in the realm of fair use.

Now, onto some screens !

First Post

Well, all blogs have to start somewhere, right? Nice to meet you all. I'm Nobu, the project lead for a game Subsoap is currently developing called FaeSaga. :)

What you are (hopefully) looking at right now is the development blog for our project. It is one of the first steps in the process of unveiling the existence of this project to the public. Development on the project itself has just begun, but I've been designing specifications for it for several months now. The team is small right now (and I can't introduce them all yet!), but I'd like to tell you the roles of the people currently on it. However, before that, I'd like to thank Andrew Sum for helping put this project on the right track when it first started, and some very useful advice thereafter. Thanks!

About Me -- There's probably a lot of you who have heard of me from projects I've done in the past, or possibly from some random thing you saw or heard on the internet. If you haven't, that's okay, because for this blog in particular you won't need to know any of that stuff. My job as project lead basically means that (as of right now, at least) I'm doing the majority of the development and coding for FaeSaga. Most of the game's design decisions, general art direction, initial testing, and such is what I'm supposed to be concentrating on. On top of those duties, I will also begin to blog publicly about my current work. I've also had past experience with composing music for games, as well as some general art interests, but for Subsoap, my primary function is to see FaeSaga gets made. Therefore, I will sometimes contribute some resources on the side which are related to the project, but won't be doing much (if any) of the art or music assets for the game.

Brian Kramer -- Brian's the brains and business end behind Subsoap, and also the Executive Producer of FaeSaga. Part of his job on the project is to make sure I do my job, and not to get too distracted from our long-term goals. He also pretty much bankrolls everything, and gets the final say on greenlighting any important financial decisions. Brian's also gonna be hopefully helping me translate my super geek-speak into more practical things when I get neck-deep into my coding work (ie: updating the blog when I'm indisposed, or adding posts to elaborate on game developments when my posts ramble on, or don't make sense).

James Aaron Christie -- James is working on the web back-end for the project, which I'm told is a very important thing.

Subsoap has some other members, but they're not involved with the project (yet!). I'm sure they'll introduce themselves when they're good and ready!

Stay tuned for more posts. I've got a lot to say, since we're just getting started :3