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 #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.