Week #030: Gemstone Dwarfs

Promotional concept artwork of Hugo and Trixie, the gemstone dwarf poster children.
Images represent a game currently in development.

Brave and burly, the Gemstone Dwarfs hail from cities of crystal grown on the water's surface. Using their mysterious ability to crystallize liquid matter through touch, they intricately craft their cities, expansive underwater mines, and can even walk on water!

Height roster in the game's discarded pre-alpha hand-drawn graphics style.
Images represent a game currently in development.

My philosophy while designing the dwarfs - as it is with anything these days - was breaking the mold. I feel that it's important for any media today to grab the viewer's attention with original ideas, and while games can also do this through unique mechanics, I feel that it's still important to explore these options from an artistic standpoint. I frequently feel that I wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't.

Variations on dwarf appearance including hairstyles.
Images represent a game currently in development.

With the dwarfs, I sought to do this through both visual and character design. Most will still recognize them as the beloved stout warriors at a glance - like several of you did even from the early teasers. But when you dig deeper than that, you'll find that they're different from the usual mountain-dwellers.

Modeling sheet for the gemstone dwarfs.
Images represent a game currently in development.

I hope everyone enjoys this preview of the Gemstone Dwarfs coming soon to HTD! I'm currently looking into other methods of further exploring their background and just who they are as a race, so I hope you look forward to that, too.

Week #027: Meanwhile, at SND Headquarters...

It sure has been a while. Again.

You can more or less prefer to my previous post on why things have been so slow lately. We're still hard at work to catch up to where we were before, but from what I've heard and seen, things are coming along nicely!

I was personally very happy with the vast amount of creative ideas everyone came up with in regards to pets. We haven't even had a chance to start going through to pick our favorites yet, but I can tell they're going to be a ton of fun to work with. But that doesn't mean that we're not still open to more ideas! Just be sure to direct such ideas back to that previous post, or wait for our next big call-out, to ensure that your ideas aren't lost in the shuffle.

Meanwhile, I thought I would take the time to share what the art team (we're a team now!) as a whole has been up to over the last few weeks.

Before Bill took his extended vacation, he was happy to lend his love for creatures to HTD. Sharing in my philosophy in regards to originality, however, he wasn't happy doing anything that might've been done before. This little guy unfortunately comes from before we decided on the change of direction in regards to the game's graphics, but the design will still see some life.

Images represent a game currently in development.

As for me - in between assisting Evan with the development of the new graphics - I've been working on creature designs of my own, including but not limited to the Reanimated Hero here. Most of the other things I've been working on are far too young in the development stages to be shown just yet, including my own "Project Endless", which is a story for another time...

Images represent a game currently in development.

As for the new graphics (can you tell I've been practicing my segue skills?), Evan has been hard at work getting the human males ready for action... again. It should be noted that this is a pretty early work-in-progress that was all I could grab at such short notice. For example, the final in-game graphics are still planned to be cel-shaded, and, you know... textured.

Images represent a game currently in development.

Another testament to my philosophy of originality comes from our newcomer, Josh. Spiders are one of those generic creatures that just makes me want to gouge at my eyes, and not because of arachnophobia. How out of ideas do you have to be? Spiders? You would never see giant flies as enemies (even though that would, by relation, make them an original idea). When Josh had the idea of a half-spider-half-octopus, though, of course I was quick to jump on board.

We hope you enjoyed this sneak peek at some of the ideas we've been working on for HTD! Hopefully once the new graphical system is in place, I'll be able to start bringing you more regular updates once again.

Week #026: By Popular Demand

(05-12-12) Update: We've been getting so many great suggestions that I decided to keep this open for another week before we start narrowing them down for a poll. Keep 'em coming!

It sure has been a while. On Thursday, Dan filled you in on the graphical overhaul and why things have been so slow for us lately. It's certainly been a busy, chaotic time.

But I'm happy to say that I feel more positive about this project now than I ever have. You shouldn't let this speed bump worry you, because things are looking up! I should also be sure to mention that there are absolutely no hard feelings from me in regards to this change of direction; I do not feel that my job with the company is in jeopardy, and I do believe that this change is the best for everyone.

Just what does it mean to you, the player, though? It is sad to say that very few of my graphics will be appearing in the final game now, but you should expect the same overall style regardless of this new direction. Dan and Evan seem devoted to sticking to that style, and you can be sure that I'm devoted to making sure everything maintains the same (or improved) charm.

This brings us to the purpose of this blog. I have no plans to discontinue it, but the amount of final assets you see may wind up being limited. What you can look forward to seeing is more concept art and test animations for characters and creatures alike. I'm planning to make a post highlighting just what myself and the rest of the art team (we're a team now!) are working on, but I didn't want to clutter this homecoming post and distract away from what everyone's really interested in...

Community Impact Opportunity #002:

Pets! That's Right... Pets!!!

Images represent a game currently in development.

OMG is it finally time!? It is. As you can see above, this little fellow is what I have in the works as HTD's first out-of-combat pet. The fun, of course, won't stop here, and we felt it only proper to let you, the players, decide on what kind of pets you want to have with you in HTD. Leave your demands in the comments and we'll sort through them, decide on what will work and what won't, and I'll create a poll in the coming weeks to narrow the choices down!

Please be sure that you're logged in to Blogger when you leave your suggestion, so that you can be properly credited if it comes down to your idea winning.

Until next time!

Week #022: Newcomer - Bill Cass

Due to the nature of interface design that I've spoken about recently, it was rather easy for me to outright forget about making a post last night. By the time I remembered, I wasn't even really sure what to go about posting.

With the addition of Bill to our team, I thought I'd take a bit to talk about him and just what he'll be doing for HTD. I've known Bill for well over a decade, and knew from the word go that he would be the one capable of matching my style without even blinking. My goal is to have him focus on what I don't necessarily excel at, and vice versa. Therefore, I'll still be handling all character animation myself. You won't have to worry about later animations looking slightly off as if they were handled by someone else or anything.

Images represent a game currently in development.

One thing he can definitely excel over me at is creature design. This is a part of the application process we put him through; to design an enemy creature for use at a later point in the game. To be clear, this is not something we're looking at including anytime soon, but are definitely filing away for a later date. I was personally really blown away by this design and some of the ideas Bill had, and I'm eager to push ahead and make it happen.

For his first assignment, Bill is hard at work on the first tier of water spells that are set to be added next week.

Week #018: Bitmapize!

Around the middle of last week I decided it was time to get around to designing the beginner leather armor set. But I wanted to do something different. Something more than just posting a quick sketch and calling it a week.

Prior to coming on board here at Sam & Dan Games, I had messed around with the process of doing live streams for some of my more extensive sketching sessions. This never struck me as viable for the blog, since it would be hard to contact people when deciding to do one on a whim, and I wasn't keen on doing them on some kind of schedule. Time lapses sounded like a good solution!

I had the filming under control, but had trouble figuring out how to go about editing the footage. Windows Movie Maker just doesn't cut it, and I still haven't found a versatile, free and legal alternative. Eventually, fed up and frustrated, I contacted Gon and he suggest we just film the session from inside a time warp. He's capable of such things, you know.

Direct Link

Big thanks to my friend Cassie for giving me a hand with the leather armor design while I was occupied with the shadow ability graphics and a few other things this past week!

Images represent a game currently under development.

So there you have it. I'm really curious how much interest there is in stuff like this; if there's a lot, I'll be sure to try it again in the near future (although things like equipment and spell creation might not be the most interesting to watch). Be sure to let me know!

Just a reminder that this week's post coming a day earlier is not an error; I've pushed the usual post date from monday to sunday to ease off on the tension of getting a post together on my already-hectic mondays. It already feels much more comfortable to me, although that may be thanks to having this post ready since thursday night...

I'm also hunting for versatile, free and legal video editors for a potential future in "The Making of HTD" videos, if anyone has any experience on that front.

Week #014: Welcome to 2012

Week #011: Sick Stylin'

One day, I will make an HTD boss themed around sinuses just so that I and the rest of the world can have an outlet for our rage. He will do nothing but sit there and take it, just as we are forced to do.

Community Impact Poll #002:

Human Male Hairstyles

Another slow week due to sickness, unfortunately. But I still wanted to get the poll up. CIP#002 will remain active until December 22nd, two weeks after the next post on the main blog. Unfortunately we were only able to decide on seven choices as opposed to the nine the female had, but we felt this was enough.

The poll itself is, of course, found off to your right right here on the blog (votes left via comments will not be counted). You only get one vote, so make it count!

Images represent a game currently in development.

It should be noted that with the first release of HTD now rapidly approaching, that my posts may continue to be on the quieter side for the next few weeks. This doesn't mean that work is done; far from it! We just don't want to spoil absolutely everything about the game before you even get a chance to play it.

I will still continue to bring you these weekly blog posts, and they'll be sure to pick back up once the new year is upon us!

Week #007: How Fortuitous...

This week we're going to take a look at the process involved in the creation of the game's first boss area. This was one of the first of the game's assets I tackled, second only to my initial work on the game's player characters. Despite this, we haven't shown much of it off yet. It took roughly a week and a half for me to finish this with my limited environment experience, which is sure to grow and quicken as work on HTD moves on. Please keep in mind that these images, as always, represent a game currently in development.

The earliest documented work-in-progress of the "Fortuitous Cave" area.

Early on, I really didn't have an idea of just what Sam and Dan had in mind yet. Taking what brief ideas they had given me I started to put ideas down on paper (so to speak), which we then refined gradually (as you can see above) as the stage began to take shape.

The pictured dragon (his name is Clyde) was only a temporary resident
and you should expect future residents of the Fortuitous Cave to be much more menacing.

Once we were happy with the layout of the stage, I started to polish it all up. This part of the process easily took longer than the early design phases for obvious reasons. Part of it was talking Clyde into sleeping on the couch while we refurbished. I don't know what his deal was, I mean the Fortuitous Cave doesn't even get cable.

Do you have any idea how tough it is to convince your construction crew
to use the cement mixer to keep the lava from cooling? Sheesh.

At this point, I started messing around with environmental effects, to enhance the mood of the place. This didn't go over too well... Many of them looked tacky, and ultimately we didn't have the time to spare, as the new tenants were ready to move in. But hey, those lava pools will save bundles on the heating bill this winter. After we cut our losses, I finished up the necessities (still no cable, Sam can be such a scrooge).

Clyde was convinced that the new rules were made just to inconvenience him...
but come on, you're only level 57, and high-class places like these have standards, you know.

Week #006: Trick or Treat!

Notice: I've updated the progress lists, but notice that I've narrowed my sights, so that they are no longer symbolizing such an immense scale of content all at once. It could also be identified as an optical illusion to make progress look a bit more explosive... I'll let you see it as you choose!

When I first started this blog, I had already been working with SND for several weeks and had a nice amount of content to show for it. While the speed of content creation hasn't exactly changed (though everyone has their off weeks), the rate at which we're presenting it has, which has caused the unfortunate lull in content lately.

What I would like to do is cut back to showing less content per week, but making the content more meaningful. Instead of seeing minor updates or very early works in progress, you'll see more concept art and completed game assets. With the main blog showing more development screenshots as development progresses, I believe this will round out into a pleasant package.

Something that our spectators should keep in mind is the extraordinary circumstances we're working under. Not only are we making our developmental progress rather public from the word go, which most game developers don't do (most games aren't made public until a year or two after they've entered production!), but there are only three of us! Some of what you've been seeing has even been completed only a day or two prior to being shown. This is something I'd like to resolve with the new pacing of showing content.

This week, I thought I would show the concept design of the introductory epic cloth armor set, modeled by our human female player character along with another of our three winning hairstyles, "Yesterday's Breeze".

Week #005: Winners and Whelps

Tonight's post comes to you a little later than usual, as I wanted to wait for the first Community Impact Poll to officially come to it's end so that I could talk about it (as if the results could have changed that dramatically in just an hour or two, but whatever, play along!).

As stated, these three hairstyles will be made available for any human female player character in the initial release of Hero Tower Defense. I am rather pleased with the results myself, as I believe these three styles offer a nice balance of diversity. Remember that the runner-ups are being placed aside and may still make it into HTD some day, so no complaining!

Be sure to stay tuned, I'm sure the male's hairstyle choices will be decided through a similar fate...

This week I thought it would be nice to take a break from "Cheryl" and take a look back at the little treasure whelp, who we haven't looked at in quite some time. I would actually like to get to introducing his daddy here soon, but I feel like there's still plenty of things to go through before we need to look at new content... and some things might be better left unseen until you have the game in your hands, yeah?

One other thing I really wanted to clarify was a few things about the notes on progression. As you can see (and I'm sure some of you already did), I stuck them up on the right side bar so that they can be more conveniently and regularly seen. However it should be noted that these are a pretty limited view into my world. For example, at the moment they're really only tracking the progress on the human female player character, and just because they aren't being regularly advanced doesn't mean that I'm not getting work done elsewhere (for example, the HTD logo). As such, they should not be considered a countdown to when the game will be released.

Speaking of the HTD logo (which has primarily been shown over on the Sam & Dan Games blog), while keeping in mind that it is still very much subject to change, please feel free to drop your thoughts about it to me here, I am still actively taking notes to refine and improve it!

Week #003: High Heels and Hairstyles

This week I'll be talking more about HTD's starring female lead, codename "Cheryl".

There have been mixed reactions (from both the community and the higher ups) in regards to the human females sporting high heels. In the aftermath of last week I encouraged you to stay tuned for my solution, and I'll go ahead and kick things off with that.

Images represent a game currently in development.

As you can see here, the presence of high heels in the base character sprite design allows for a lot of freedom when it comes to boot design. Along with the previously previewed high heel design, shorter, thicker heels are possible as well as boots with flat soles. Keep in mind that none of these designs are necessarily final. It should also be noted that the base design itself is still up in the air, for example, the thigh-high boots have recently been scrapped.

You might be wondering what we're going to do in the case of, say, an open-toe flat-sole boot design. While I didn't include an example of that above, I assure you that we've already thought of it and have solutions in the works.

Finally, as promised, this week will kick off the first of my Community Impact Polls (CIP), deciding on the girl's initially available hairstyles. Here are the nine potential designs, with some other notes below.

Images represent a game currently in development.

The three top voted designs will be included for use in character customization at game launch, while runner-ups will be referred to for future design inclusions. You can only vote on one, so take your time and choose carefully! Community Impact Poll #001 (which will be found on the bar to the right) will remain open for the next two weeks.

See you next week!

Week #002: Introducing "Cheryl"

As you may have noticed, oh, right about now, I'll be making my posts between monday night and tuesday morning, at most, a full day prior to the main Sam & Dan Games blog's dedicated tuesday HTD post.

This means two things. One, that Sam and Dan will be able to easily summarize what's going on here in the tuesday evening posts, for those who don't yet follow both blogs (or simply don't want to). This will especially be helpful when we start holding more community-interaction polls.

Two, it means that if you follow KXN@HTD as well, that you'll be getting that weekly fix a day early! If that isn't incentive to tune in, I don't know what is.

Now, speaking of polls, I was a little surprised at how many people were interested in seeing stuff I do in my free time. Joke's on you, since I'm pretty much all HTD all the time lately. However, I went ahead and added a link to my deviantArt to the side area there, for those interested. Don't forget that this poll will be open for another week yet.

Oh man, just shut up, Kevin. We want to see the art! Okay, okay. Without further ado, this is HTD's human female player character, code name "Cheryl".

Images represent a game currently in development.

Sam and Dan really have me hooked on the idea of community interaction, so what I'd like to do for the first community input poll (CIP..?) is decide on Cheryl's initially available hairstyles. I could just throw together a few choices and have you guys vote on them, but I feel like we can do better than that.

I want the community to help pick the options for the poll itself, too! Just include your ideas in your comments. The more clear details you offer, the better chance you'll have of getting your idea picked. References are also welcome, even if they're just images of a certain character's hairstyle you really like. You don't have to be an artist to contribute! After I gather the ideas up and post some mock-up sketches, I'll open a poll to decide which of the hairstyles will be initially included in the game.

Looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with. See you next week!