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 #024: The 23 Hour Day

March 18th Update: As I mentioned, I will not be making a post this week due to my just-ending vacation. I planned to make a post only talking more about these references and where they were from, but no one knows! In the best interest of the sport of obscure trivia, I am not going to ruin the fun by revealing the sources myself. Tune in next week (March 25th), when I'll likely be talking a bit about the development process involving the first tier of light skills.

I've a lot in store for you this week! One would think I'd plan ahead more often with results like these.

First up, we have the requested and sometimes demanded cursor redesigns. With our little speed bump involving last week's release, I had a little time to finally catch up on these, both redesigning the old and coming up with some proper grabbing frames for any drag-and-drop functionality. Hopefully these are a bit more fitting.

Second, it should be known that I find weakness in wasting countless hours reading up on meaningless trivia on Wikipedia. Thanks to this, I have a great appreciation for our own HTD Wikipedia authors doing their research when it comes to references even as small as the source of my avatar. So I thought I would share a few of the in-game nods I have in store for HTD.

Some of you that have been around since the beginning may have seen these two assets before in various previews of the Fortuitous Cave. The Treasure Lord's hoard itself is home to several references that any 2004 raider should be able to spot one or two of.

Just recently - another side-effect of last week's delay - I created this weapon for use in the game (stats not final) based on something I saw in a recent addition to Netflix.

Images represent a game currently in development.

I haven't yet talked to Sam or Dan involving any sort of reward for spotting all of these references... but I'll be sure to make note of those who can!

This week may be a slow one, as I've thrown around the idea of taking the week off. As such, next week's blog post may be a quiet or completely non-existent one, but I'll be sure to check in to judge reference guesses as well as answer any questions if nothing else.

Week #020: Now For Something Completely Different

It may look like I haven't really done a whole lot since we finished up Maximus and got him into the game. While I did take some time off for recharging after that, you can rest assured that we're still hard at work polishing the game up. You just can't always immediately notice it.

If you've been following the progression notes, you may have noticed my entry for "character fixes/polish". This is what I've been focusing my attention on for the last week. While everything may look fine and dandy with the characters at the moment, this is because they're equipped in their full armor sets. Beneath that there are numerous graphical errors that, while hidden by the equipping of a full armor set, would have become eye sores once the characters were only wearing a few select pieces of armor instead of the whole set. Instead of putting this off until such equipment management became possible, I decided to get it done ahead of time.

Again, this is unfortunate since it's mostly behind-the-scenes work that not a lot of people will see. Even Sam and Dan were sometimes at a loss in regards to what I was talking about working on! I tried to take some before and after screenshots to show as examples this week, but I felt they weren't doing a good job of expressing just what was going on.

Instead, I have this for you.

For those of you interested in what kind of stuff I draw in the little free time I allow myself for that kind of thing, I also posted my rendition of Cave Story's Curly Brace over on my deviantArt account about a week ago.

Week #019: Choose Your Arsenal

My plans for this week's post got a little messy when I realized posting works-in-progress of Maximus was a little silly when he's already in the game.

Not really sure what else to do, since I was kind of loving the idea of taking the weekend off (or at least easy) after finishing all of that up, I figured the best idea was to show some progress on the new weapons from two weeks ago, since I kind of left that hanging afterwards to talk about Maximus instead.

Images represent a game currently under development.

Unfortunately, we had a lot more sword suggestions than we were hoping for, and since we agreed that we wanted to add other kinds of weapons to the game first, we had to be choosy about this batch. Many suggestions I made mental notes of for later (I realize there are many different kinds of swords, we just love being diverse), and some I just combined into one idea (but you can't see that one yet, hah!). Admittedly, I think the two-handed sword of my own design might have a bit of unintentional Buster Sword influence to it (and Max looks incredible dual-wielding them, FYI).

Something to always remember is that most work I show here, unless otherwise noted, should be taken as a work-in-progress of an incomplete idea. I say this mostly in regards to that mace which I'm not at all happy with yet. Kind of looks more like a street light than a mace...

Even though it was two weeks ago, it should be noted that we're always open to your suggestions and ideas when it comes to weapons, whether you have some basic ideas you'd like to see or some of your own designs you'd like to see in the game! Right now we're still looking for melee weapons, preferably not of the sword variety, for now.

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 #017: Multiple Maximus

Due to some personal problems (I can't catch a break, can I?), we unfortunately had to delay the development of a few things, as you may have noticed in last thursday's update. While I'm not comfortable stating an ETA on anything, I can assure you that I'm prioritizing the completion of human males and shadow abilities (surprise?) for their addition to the game as soon as possible.

Many of you wanted to see Maximus geared up in various ways other than full plate armor, so I wanted to be sure to bring that to the blog this week. I've been pleased with the overall reception regarding the new Max so far, and I continue to assure you that if you had something different in mind, that we'll have you covered with the design of future races.

I also wanted to include some development shots of how Maximus' animations are coming along, but thanks to a major speed bump involving the side view, that stuff is a total mess right now and I don't think anyone could make any sense of it. I'll try to get something like that out next week. Unfortunately (I know, I know, this post is kind of a real drag...), that same speed bump will cause the completion of males to be pushed back by at least a week, and that isn't even including the equipment yet. Sorry! I'm doing what I can.

Enough of these downers, let's move on to some fun community impact activities. First of all, I'm sure some of you noticed that I extended the length of CIP#003 to determine the order of the remaining three elements (with shadow obviously being the second). Since I can't edit a poll once it's active, I couldn't modify it to reflect this extension. Just try not to let the title confuse you. Since shadow has already been decided on, feel free to change your votes to help decide on the next three if you wish.

As for our first Community Impact Opportunity (CIO), as I teased last week...

Community Impact Opportunity #001:

Choose Your Own Arsenal #001

What else can we expect to see by the end of the month, you ask? How about some new weapons? What I want to do is get your feedback on what kind of weapons you'd like to see included in HTD. Axes? Maces? Can't get enough of swords? Maybe you have some really wild and unique ideas in mind? As long as it fits the theme of the game, we want to hear it. Here are a few additional guidelines to follow:

• Melee weapons are ideal for this opportunity. Since animations for ranged and casting weapons aren't yet complete, such weapons couldn't be added until a later date. I'll most likely hold a separate CIO when that time comes.
• You do not need to have a visual of your idea. A detailed description is fine (and I cannot stress enough that more detail will increase your chances). Lack of a visual will not hurt your chances, unless your description is just too vague to make sense of.
• While we can't include exact copies of a popular weapon (example: a Buster Sword, the Master Sword, etc.), we can create a reasonable facsimile. Feel free to include such suggestions and we'll see what we can do, but being imaginative and unique could go a long way.
• A poll will not be opened to choose between these weapons. Any weapon that I choose to design will be included in the game!

As always, we're looking forward to seeing what you come up with. While I won't promise to include every idea, I will try to add as many as I can by the time the option of changing your weapons in-game becomes available (no public ETA, you know the drill).

In closing, the last thing I want to mention is I will be moving my weekly blog updates to sunday night. Getting them together for monday nights is just proving to be too difficult for me. This may change again if I find that sundays don't work any better for me, so stay tuned.

Week #013: Whether You Have Questions or Not, I Have Answers

Another week, and while I'm still not one hundred percent, it's improved enough that I can get back into a regular schedule. I thank everyone who left their best wishes, it's nice to see I've already touched people before the game has even been released!

With less than two weeks left in 2011, I can assure you we're hard at work in order to bring you the first build of HTD before the year ends. We may have had to cut a few corners, but we're still planning on bringing all of that content to the table just within the new year. Let 2012 be known as the Year of HTD!

Last week, in order to make up for the lack of a proper blog post, I invited everyone to let their questions fly, and as promised, I'll take the time to answer them now.

Question: What's with the enormous skull resting in the entrance way? What's the deal with this so-called Treasure Lord? Is Gon even close to being on to something?

Answer: We really don't want to reveal that much about the Treasure Lord and the supposed trophies adorning his lair until we feel that it's time to do so. I, for one, feel that experiencing these encounters for oneself could be much more incredible than simply reading about them. I wouldn't call Gon's theory accurate, but I do think it has potential for future plot lines if he isn't too protective of the idea...

Question: Inspiration, do you speak it?

Answer: I tend to get this question a lot, even from fellow artists that are having trouble finding their own. Unfortunately I haven't come up with a solid answer to it just yet. Inspiration can come in many forms - as I'm sure most artists will tell you - whether it's seeing a movie, listening to music, playing video games or, of course, money. None of these have ever proven to be reliably consistent for me. When it comes to HTD in particular, I've drawn a lot of influence from many Super Nintendo and Gameboy Advance games, most frequently (and perhaps most obviously) Chrono Trigger and Fire Emblem.

Question: New races? When? Where? How? You're not going to phone it in with space goats and werewolves, are you?

Answer: Just like the Treasure Lord, I feel like it's simply too soon to talk about the future of the HTD races. We haven't really seriously begun talking about what's next, although, there is a good chance of it being decided through a future Community Impact Poll. As for the candidates, I believe we have agreed that elves and orc are a definite must, but I'm very much against sticking to this fantasy trinity and calling it a day. Not only will the elves and orc likely be unlike any you've ever seen, but I'll be making it my goal to make sure that any additional races are really unique in order to continue setting HTD apart from other games.

I really want to thank everyone again for their support so far. It's pretty incredible to see such support before the game has even been released... I can't wait to see where we are in a month or two!

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 #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!