Whim Independent Studios - Development Log #14

Hey guys, back with the 14th development log!

Selatria:

Among one of the biggest changes in preparation for the new pitch is that a standardized art style was developed. Our initial version of the game/pitch was criticized for having different art styles between the faces, the sprites, and the monsters. In our new pitch, we're planning on having an art style that's consistent throughout the game. 

In charge of the consistency is Jennifer Gilliland. She's a freelance video game artist who has worked on Selatria's environmental art assets, UI icons, and original character designs for a few upcoming characters and enemies you'll encounter within the game. As of recently, she has been working on re-designing the faces, monsters, and sprites you'll see in the game.

Here are some examples of Mage and Melanie:

There were many factors in the decision to use this particular art direction.

1 - I wanted to respect Selatria's art design. Through the many faces that have been done for the game, +Jonathan Flynn has defined the unique artistic style of the characters for Selatria, and in the consistency push, I wanted to make sure the style/essence was kept with slight modifications given via suggestions from the team, and with a small face modification to be more consistent with the sprite art. With this design in mind, the current designs of the characters that are on blogs, banners, promotional cards, etc will not be invalidated. And the concerns that many players/funders have brought about the art direction can hopefully be put to rest. Monsters and sprites will undergo tweaks as well to fit the tweaked designs of the characters.

2 - Lots of indie role-playing games (especially fellow RPG Maker ones) have a generic anime look with their characters. We need an art style that people can look at and know that it's Selatria. I wanted to keep that defined vibrant look of the characters so that people would know that it was our game.

 So the emphasis was put on 1: Respect to current art direction of the characters and 2: A defined look for our game.

Tbere will be more designs and new screeenshots posted in future dev logs as we get closer to the launch date for our Kickstarter campaign. Though I don't want to commit to a date just yet, stay tuned for Selatria's Kickstarter pitch to launch later this summer!


ANTics:

We're about 1/4 done with the development of ANTics. Our lead programmer Gerren Willis has done an awesome job at taking the helm of programming the game. ActionScript guru, I'm telling you! I've been mapping the game design out mostly on paper. What levels do the bugs spawn? How do they spawn? What are their mechanics?

We've decided that we're going to launch with 20 levels and 5 bosses. You won't be able to save your progress, so the goal of the game is to survive the onslaught with some candy intact in one go!*

*Not counting taking playing breaks in the middle. You can pause the game and come back of course!

Here's a sample of the boss theme by Christopher Nuño:



Work is still underway on the actual look and feel of the game. It will be a 2.5D game with 3D model sprites working on a 2D plane.

This is a very early build of the game, and the design of the candy will eventually be re-designed to match the style of the bugs. Consider it a placeholder! Still lots of work to be done.

There was so much more I wanted to post about. Changes to Selatria's voices, new equipment we'll be working with in the future, upcoming game mechanics, new company logo in the works, bloopers from our recording sessions, and progress on new abilities, but I think all of that is best saved for a future log. I need to write these more often!

Until next time.

Oh! Check out our company SoundCloud page. I will be updating that a lot with some Selatria music very soon!





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