Once again, hello and welcome to another Cheeks of Steel update brought to you by Underdog Games.
Just before I go into the update however, we'd firstly like to wish you all a very happy new year, and thank all of you who have voted for us so far as one of the top unreleased mods this year. Your support is greatly appreciated.
So, it's a new year, and finally Cheeks of Steel has gone into full fledged development, ready for its release in May 2009. A little over a fortnight ago saw the end of our pre-development stage, which meant that a progress presentation was required, featuring the majority of the game mechanics, artistic style, level designs, and general concept, on top of any production notes. Originally presented by the entire team in front of a large audience, this presentation has been re-done in the form of a slideshow, complete with voiceover by our producer (Jamie Eden), specifically for the ModDB audience. Links to each part of the presentation can be found below, along with the first part embedded directly onto the page.
Part Two - Current Progress, Concept, Art Introduction
Part Three - Art Continued (Characters and style), Game Mechanics: Part 1
Part Four - Game Mechanics: Part 2, Level Designs: Part One
Part Five - Level Designs: Part Two, Future Development, Final Comments
Now as part of development, one of the first departments that shows instant progression is level design. So to jump right into another video, one of our level designers has carefully put together a brief, terrain development video for one of themed levels, set on a desert island.
In addition, as some of you may have picked up on already in the presentation above, we are currently experimenting with 'Cell Shading', to see which style is most beneficial. Thus far, we have tested this style on several characters and other meshes, trying to make the game appear more aesthetically pleasing. The best example of this is the prologue level, which we managed to get in full cell shading, as shown below;
Of course, levels aren't all that have come a long way in just a couple of weeks. A number of mechanics and cinematics are also beginning to shape up nicely, as well as many of the games static meshes.
For now however, we'd like to leave all this as just a taste of what's to come. And what is to come? Well, that's for you all to find out :p What I can say though is that by the end of this month we expect to have hit another major milestone in our game, and by the end of February we plan to release a demo of some sorts, giving you all a taste of the game, and open up the opportunity for some feedback and what you'd like to see in the final game.
As always, thank you for taking the time to look over our updates and please, if there is anything you'd like to see more of in future previews, don't hesitate to leave a comment and we'll do everything we can to get it up there.
Happy gaming everyone!
Ross Wilding
Underdog Games
