Bugs, performance, AI, playability, UI, design, phone optimizations... all of the things we've been working on and will continue to work on, but now it's time to focus on content again!
The game has about half of the levels completed and it's time to crank up the rest. The third episode still needs unique graphics assets and new enemies need to be created AND our second player character is about to be added into the game soon.
The small gameplay differences of the player characters are done but still need graphics and effects. It's going to be a busy 1.5 months before the holidays.
Character Art
I'm now working on all of the high-res characters for story & dialog screens and marketing materials. We have four characters total of which two are now done. I'm expecting to tweak the characters further; better hair, more gadgets, different colors & materials but the models and base textures for the two main characters are done!
I'm in the middle of rigging them with this wonderful addon called Rigify, and it's giving really awesome and flexible rigs for posing. It has saved me lots of time - I highly recommend it!
I also need to create a comprehensive facial expressions library and I haven't yet decided which route to go technically. I need lots of control over the expressions so I'm thinking I'll be using shape keys for most of it, but I'm also considering facial rigging just in case I could re-use it between characters easily. The end product will use both techniques I'm sure.
I've incorporated Substance Painter to my workflow and I love the program even though I'm really not using it to its potential, not even close! It really did help me creating cloth textures for the characters and I'll be using it a lot more in the future.
New Graphics Assets
There's some new deadly locations in the works. We recently added a deadly green goo element which gives a nice touch visually as well:
The environments in general need more animated decorations. There's going to be worker units (humans) soon so they'll liven up the otherwise somewhat desolate places, but I'm also trying to figure out animated environment assets which won't eat up the cpu/gpu.
Thanks for reading & stay tuned for more! (A new post is coming next week)
-Sami Kuronen
