Devlog #12 - Model Progress | Demo Talk | Overall Development

Heyo peeps! It's back to the grind.

So, let me show you what I've finally made progress on. I found something I've been happy to work with, for a long while I've been struggling on my modeling skills and what I want for the style of the town. But thankfully, I feel like I got a good style for the game. I might also go with a complete redesign of the game when it comes to art. Originally, the game was meant to be textures that were real looking. But uh, dunno what I was going for on that. I guess the high PBR world got to me. And I want to keep the style of the game real and still kinda cartoonish, but still dark in some areas and light. So, I might go over everything and hand paint the textures by color instead of a premade substance material. I'll update people on this.

Take a look at the first ever model I created for the jazz club building, it sucks, right?

Now, I have something even better to represent. While it isn't finished, It's going to be way more better down the line. Take a look at one of the buildings I have in the game and I'll share off way more down the line. Obviously, to some people, this isn't that interesting, but to me, I'd like to share off any game development progress. All is history and it is amazing how interesting this can be down til the end.

I also had an idea with the models to add something interesting to try out. When going up to the building door, it'll transition to a door opening animation and bwomp, just a small and nice detail instead of somethin' like HOLD "E". I love when games look more alive. Here's an example:

Now to the demo part, I've been writing the story of the demo for a minute, but I think I finally got it. The demo will be free, as it should be, it states demo. It is more of a short story game. It'll be a first person click and point while playing as a character from the main game itself. But you'll be talking with Frei face to face. It is basically an opening to the game and shows off the story of the game, but in a different game form. When I thought of this game, I wanted to call it "A Date With Frei." Which is the main character in the game you play as. While it isn't the main title of the game, consider it a date with him, I guess.

Okay, I can share just a bit about this, I guuueeeessssss. You've all been very patient. :)

So, I have a lovely artist who is very talented, I wish he would make a public social media or something because I'd love to share what lovely talented work he has been making for me, and he is just a lovely artist overall. If he ever does make a social media, I'll most likely update this devlog (if I forget, someone update me, I'm extremely ADHD forgetful if that makes sense.)

Seriously, he's talented and here is what he has made for me and I can talk more about what I want to do:

I've been thinking of working on a story demo for a minute and it's just going to be a dumb prologue, but it is going to be in a low-poly and simplistic modern style. The 3D model of Frei is currently untextured and not fully finished but when it is, I'll update peeps, this person who worked on it is a friend, and seriously, a great artist.

The demo finish date? Unknown, but it isn't my big focus right now, as I have this artist doing the models for me while I still work on the main game, when I have everything else, I can work on this small prologue, this won't take me a lot of time since it is a simple low-poly scene and basically small tell-tale like game. It's super silly, but at least it is something that is canon and something I can represent fully for the Steam page. It will be free and downloadable for all. Here is another screenshot of the fellow. He is the depression goat.

When I have more details about this, I'll update everyone.

The main game-play itself, yaayyy! And me yapping.

I feel the game-play in my head is constantly changing. I'd like it to be story focused but still have some silly elements to it as well. Mini-games around the map, collectables, side-stories, y'know, open world stuff. The main story is something I want to focus on first before I go doing other things. I'm trying to tweak the big stuff, like the player controller. I want it to feel nice and smooth. Right now, it's janky. I feel like it's because of the animation, currently the animation is not final. But I want to get a good player animation that feels right. I also want the speed to feel just right. And not worry about collision as much. Basically, I'm just working on the main sprite of the character before I do this. I don't know why I haven't done much progress on this. I think it's because I want to save time and

My biggest focus right now and development is getting the town done and getting the map layout done. This is going to take a good minute. Mostly because modeling, I'm not limit players from seeing the same model over and over again. Details will be on models for players who enjoy to take a peek. Don't worry, for people who also see the filters and such, I'll have options to disable these things. Accessibility is big for me too, if I have anything on release that isn't there, please let me know.

I feel like a lot of mechanics come up over the time of development and it kinda works to me. I had an idea to add a camera system, and I'm still thinking it over. Camera system meaning you snap photos and it saves to an album in game. If I add that then it might be something I'll add for a purpose. But players who just enjoy snapping photos for memories would enjoy this. Because I'm one of them. I'm also thinking of a mechanic that would make the interiors a first person view always. But this is still a thought. I'm just thinking, if I make the view a 3rd person perspective in the interiors, then I'd have to think of a better way to layout the buildings for the 3D modeling part. Which is simple, I just like to be fancy with my work, I guess haha. Anyway, who knows. I might just do both at the end of the day. Doubt it, but we'll see.

I want this game to be a lot less annoying when it comes to mechanics and feeling responsive, also really quick. This meaning interactions don't feel way too slow, things don't feel overly complicated, players can actually understand things. After playing countless amounts of games recently, you can tell some polish or not a lot of polish went into it. I probably keep mentioning this stuff a lot, don't I? It's the ADHD talking. I want the main area to feel polished and look great. As I want this to be HIGHLY memorable to myself, and at least the players. But I promise, no sewer level will be added, wooo.

This Devlog was supposed to be released a lot sooner but Christmas, I am someone who spends the holidays alone really, development time slows down through this time of year for me to kinda relax and chill. I am taking just about a small break, literally a week, so this doesn't matter, haha. Then back to the grind, this week break kinda already started like, a few days ago. So, I'm about to get back to work in a few days. I would like to release this near new years. So have a great one, people.

We're Getting Deeper Into The Abyss is about a lot of things that I can't really express, every time I try and think about the story in my head, I get fuzzy. I get a lot of emotions I can't really express, but I feel excited because I can't wait to show off what I've really been feeling deep down to others all along. Thank you for all the support during development and I hope not to be slow next year around. You'll see a lot more of me.

DISCORD: https://discord.com/invite/tkWcbjsBvr