Summer 2013: Week 2

So, as far as game development is concerned, this week was a moot point. I didn't really do anything at all and honestly I'm not sure why. I've been feeling a TAD unmotivated I guess, but I think I can fix that through some room cleaning and willpower. I actually almost forgot that I needed to write a post this week, but here I am, scraping up stuff that I've done, but not shown and creating a post!

Anyway, the only thing I made progress on this week was Dolphin Squadron. I quickly designed and made the art for a website which will be active in a few days with a trailer that has yet to be made. >_> I still have a bit to do before the release at the end of this month/beginning of next month.

In other news

I did do a substantial amount of art (by my average output) for Project Clusterfuck (game) and Project Duo (web comic). It wasn't technically this week, but it is work that I haven't shown off yet, so I figure I'll talk about it for a little while. I might make it a goal to draw a test page a week over the summer to get into some sort of rhythm, but I've given myself way too much work I feel... I seriously need to reduce my workload so that I can focus on something and stop stressing out. :U Anyway.

Project Duo!

Project Duo is a story/game/web-comic that I've been working on for some time, but have made very little progress on. If I'm going to focus on any two things this summer (3 months now :<), it will be this and something else like Orphan Adventure Game.

Story

I don't have a very solid synopsis of the story yet, but it's a story about two young adults (Decus and Sera) leaving home and going on adventure so that Decus can become a hero. Obviously it's more intricate than that, but I find that the best stories are the ones that aren't cluttered or over-hyped. Those are the stories that end up being the most charming in my opinion. This story is primarily character-driven, so I plan for it to have a substantial amount of character development and dilemmas sprinkled throughout, but I also hope to keep it pretty simple overall.

A slightly more attractive synopsis of the story is this one.

Without his brother home to distract him anymore, Decus realizes that he's the only person in his family who hasn't saved the world. Being the type of guy he is (crazy and ridiculous) he buys a spaceship so that he can search the cosmos for a world without a hero; one that he can save! Sera tags along (as the main character) because she doesn't want to lose the only person that she really trusts. The story follows the duo on a mission to find an inhabited planet that needs to be saved. Their goal is to save whatever planet they find from utter destruction. At some point in the story, they get derailed in their mission, but the goals are always the same. Be heroes. Define justice. Save the world (universe [multiverse]).

Artwork

Here is Sera, the main character of Project Duo.

Sera is the co-lead/main character of Project Duo and in many ways is a difficult character to explain. She was born on the same planet as Decus (below) and shares a special bond of friendship with him because of some hectic events that went down in the past. She has some serious trust issues and can be extremely straight-forward at times, but ultimately just wants to be happy. She thinks that she can find happiness by attempting to becoming a hero with Decus, but she's not quite as dedicated.

Decus is arguably the real main character, but we don't tell anyone. He's a "fan" favorite.

Decus is a character that helps to drive the plot of Project Duo forward. He is absolutely and utterly dedicated to any task that will allow him to reach his goals, but because of that, he's also kind of ridiculous and dangerous. He uses his unnatural levels of charisma to get what needs to be done, done, but despite this, he is also the only member of his family that hasn't become a hero yet. 

This is Alice, our resident strange-ass character.

Alice is character that suddenly appears on the duo's ship early on in their adventure and cannot be identified by the ship's AI (MAHM). She can be severely unsettling and deranged at times, but she's also a little girl. Aww, look at her. She's playing with a butterfly. <3 

This is Charlie, a mid-game/story character. She's kind of a hipster of the future.

Charlie is Decus' brother's partner-in-crime and somehow ends up as a part of the party. Tragically she's a bit of a hipster.

I was asked to sketch some weapons for a lizard race in PD, so here is 40 minutes of sketches (I'm slow).

I have a writer on-board for Project Duo so that I can focus on the art and development. He asked me to sketch him some weapons for a lizard-like race, so I drew some stuff. I hope to slowly fall out of my comfort zone with this project and improve dramatically as an artist in the process.

This is a draft of the crew's spaceship. It's like a duck. Yay!

This is the Schietern, the Project Duo spaceship. It's pretty small, but pretty cool at the same time. At least Decus really likes it.

So, that's really all I have to say today. The next part of Motivated Design still needs to be written, so I'll post it as it's own post tomorrow probably. :D

Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~

Second Semester: Clusterfuck, Voyage, Dolphin Squadron

Catalyst. A game from Clusterfuck. 

So, it's been awhile and I'm a little upset that I let myself just not update for such a long period of time, but I'm ready to get back to business.

Well, actually, let's start with a short look at my last three weeks. During break (and after Voyage) I went to a couple of parties and had some fun. I found it ironic that I left college and partied, but that's not important. I was a little upset that I didn't get any actual work done, but I'm usually overworking myself anyway, so it was fine. Then, suddenly I came back to college. I was ready to work--then I went to more parties and socialized too much. This took me over for a few days.

Now, I'm actually back and prepared to work. To be completely honest though, I feel that the partying was a pretty solid experience. Socializing at these things gives you a pretty good view of the world. I learned a few things about people that I wasn't quite expecting, but that's neither here, nor there. You are here to read about games! Our games specifically.

So, Clusterfuck 

This is video game design in action.

Project Clusterfuck has been advancing at a pretty solid rate. The artists legitimately love working on the game, but we're still in pre-production, so they haven't begun to hate their lives yet. What we're doing now is working on the concept art, developing a style, working on our stories, running into design problems, etc. The image above is from one of our first meetings where we were taking a look at control schemes. As you might be able to see, Clusterfuck is being designed for controllers. We also make sure we keep the scope in check because being in-scope is absolutely essential for any game. We want to be ambitious (because this is a project about learning our limits), but we don't want to actually make a clusterfuck of a game. Ya dig?

Updates about Clusterfuck will be made from time to time. I'm not actually sure how much the team wants to reveal about the game before we've figured things out; and while I am the game designer, I'm not the project lead. We don't even have one of those yet. Right now, Clusterfuck is just our game. As such, information about its development will be sporadic, but awesome and artsy!

Some Clusterfuck Art

Tenebrae (By Meghan)

A Story (By Hunter)

Catalyst (By Brook)

A representation for 16 of the Clusterfuck characters. Sans Project Duo.

Project Voyage and Dolphin Squadron

Progress on Project Voyage has been interesting. I try not to work on it unless I'm certain I have time to blog, so, for the last few weeks, I've gotten little to no work done on it. Jacques has created a few new songs that I'd like to show, but I'll wait until I have time to write a specific post about it. As for Dolphin Squadron...we only need like seven assets (which has become a joke around ACPC Productions). I'm sure we'll get it done sometime after the Global Game Jam, but until then, I'm back in direct contact with Brook (the artist), so I'll try to make him do it over the next few days. :P

Consensus (with myself)

WE'RE ALL JUST TOO EXCITED ABOUT CLUSTERFUCK TO WORK ON OUR OTHER GAMES.

Alas,
Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~