So it’s been awhile.. Our site got hacked and as you probably figured, we just recently fixed it.

We have a 3 level build coming soon, so look for that. Thanks for checking out our site!

Seraphim

This news update is mostly about controls; we are seeking feedback from individuals such as yourself to tell us what you think.

Prototype 3.5

This prototype is similar to the other ones, except for the addition of wall-running and wall-jumping (with a Super Metroid-esque hold system) and some animations. I’ve also spent some time working on trying to find a good “happy medium” between too slippery and walking on molasses, and hopefully you’ll agree that the changes I’ve made are for the better (if you’ve played the previous builds). You may notice some quirks, and that’s cool. We’re likely aware of them if they have to deal with animation, but if it’s a gameplay thing, please let us know. It’s very short, but it hopefully will serve its purpose.

This game will go nowhere if it isn’t for the feedback of the masses, so here we are, offering an early build of what we’ve been working on for the past month or so. Please reference what “section” you had troubles with if it was a specific part of the level (there is text that numbers the areas) and be detailed if you can. Also, if leaving feedback for the game, let us know what your fastest time was (on the second playthrough) if you tried to “speed run” the level. If you just want to tell us how much you think our game sucks, well, that’s not very nice (or helpful!).

Controls: WASD to move, Mouse to look, Space to Jump, Space again to Double-jump. Space (tap to activate) allows you to wall-run once you jump against one. Jump at a wall and hold shift to ‘Hold’ (it will turn you around and allow you to pick where you want to jump).
Goal: Get to the highest-most platform.

Click the image to play our latest Prototype:

Animation

We have been working hard lately on getting the animation set up in first person. It has proven to be quite difficult and it still has a ways to go before it is what we consider to be ‘perfect’, but we still have time to work on it before our final release.

Art in progress

What we have been working on besides the biped and character control system is finishing up our modular level pieces for ‘The Course’. We’ve been working on these for awhile, but it takes a lot to get everything ready to be baked with lightmaps and have the collision set up and everything. The following are some art WIP shots before baking lightmaps:

News:

Music & Sound

Our track that will play in our beta is almost ready to put in game. We also have a lot of sound effects in the works. These both should really add to the atmosphere and overall feel of the game. Updates on both will come shortly.

Wrap-up

As we further our development, we are coming to more and more questions that we ask ourselves: Is this good enough? Who will play our game?

Our design document is currently locked down, but we are willing to take into consideration suggestions for the final game. Please share your thoughts will us. This isn’t just my game or my team’s game, this is the game that you can help mold. Thanks for taking the time to read my developmental updates.

In this entry in the on-going developmental saga of Radiant Escape, we are finally revealing our textured version of Fara and talking about some Summer fun.

Fara

Before we get into anything else, it only makes sense for us to reveal Fara, as you’ll be seeing other pictures with her later on in this post. So without further delay, here she is:

Click the image to view our “live art” Unity demo:

And here’s a picture for those of you that don’t have access to install Unity (or just choose not to):

I believe that Sue (character artist) did a great job with her, and it’s nice to finally have our star fully textured.

Pools

I doubt that you had any thought that we would include enterable water in a game that stars robots, but it’s okay; they are both water-proof.

Below, we have the following picture, which is a concept of some pools of water that will slow Fara down and need to be drained to allow escape from them (the diving part is just a bit of fun we were having).

This side-view image shows how you would use Flux to hit the first switch, or fall into the water and use the second switch the drain the water instead. (Yes, I used Paint. I find that it is good for quick concepts!)

Here is the article image with Fara resting her arm on a beachball and enjoying a popsicle (yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me, either).

News:

 

Music & Sound

We lost our musician, but have gained another in his place. We welcome Stephen to the team, as he will be working on the music track(s) for the IGF demo we have in store.

Also, we have gained another new member, Joel, who is assisting us with sound management and foley. While it wasn’t originally something I had considered to be a great necessity, I am now starting to see just how important it is and he is coming up with some really neat ideas that I think will further immerse players in the world of Radiant Escape.

IGF

We have reached our first month’s milestone and while we didn’t hit all the bullet-points, we came rather close and are well on our way towards our goal. We were able to get Fara textured and “rigged”, our movement system is totally figured out, and although our art is still being refined, it is almost ready for level creation.

IGF entries are now being accepted, and it’s an exciting time to be a part of the event this year as the prizes are even higher. I personally would like to use our entry into IGF to expose gamers who may not have heard of our game to it, but money is always appreciated

Wrap-up

Our next goal involves level creation and Fara’s inevitable animation (along with placing a camera on her instead of the placeholder we are using now), which should be ready by the end of this month. If we don’t have any concrete updates before then, we’ll see you at that time or near it!

This time we are looking at part of the opening sequence of the game, a storyboard showing Fara descending into the Arena. We’ll also discuss a small update on the music, our plans for IGF, and a live art demo.

Storyboard

Sometimes it is best to just write something out. For example: an item description or explanation of how the item works in theory. Other times, it’s appropriate to render out or sketch some storyboards in order to visually portray a rough draft of how you see something like a cutscene taking place, with different camera angles and whatnot.

Below is a sequence of camera positions for Fara’s entry into the Arena from above. Since most of the game is first-person and cutscenes will also be in that view, I wanted to visually showcase some dramatic angles for the shots. It’s one of the few times the player will get a glimpse of Fara in third person, so we needed to add that extra emotion to it.

Sequence

 

News

We are still working on The Course, and we have gotten a lot of the modular pieces done. We are currently in talks of how a level editor, if possible, would work.

Currently, our general art pipeline is:

• Create set pieces along with textures
• Import into Unity and set up a level or structure
• Export from Unity and bake lightmaps
• Re-import and throw a directional light in the scene to give the specular map something to shine from.
• Yay, it’s so pretty!

This however, does not lend itself to easy setup for a level editor as lighting is baked externally. So, unless we offered a “kit” that you could import into Unity (which would give you the proper scale of levels and the pieces themselves, unlit), that wouldn’t work. So, we are currently in talks of rectifying this situation. We may not have a good means of offering players the ability to make their own levels, but we sure would love to have that as a feature!

Art Demo

This art demo showcasing a small section of tentative art for the hallways section. It is mentioned (in the url) that it is used for wall-jumping, but you are currently unable to do that in this build. Wall-running and jumping ARE now close to being done, but aren’t ready to show off yet. What we are ultimately trying to achieve is the feeling of Super Metroid’s wall-jumping sections in 3d. Here’s hoping it works as well as we expect it to!

Click the image to view the demo:

Music

Just wanted to drop a little update on the music as well. Due to my musician’s lack of formal access to the internet, he’s been playing some tunes he’s been working on via Skype on his iPhone. Even though (as you may have guessed) this produces less than stellar audio quality, what I’ve heard so far was nothing short of amazing, and I can’t wait to share some of these tracks with you guys and girls.

IGF Schedule

We have decided to enter the Indie Games Festival this year and are working to produce a 5-level demo for the competition. With this announcement, we’ve devised a schedule of milestones that we will be working towards to have certain parts of the game ready. One important date on that list is September 31st, as that is when we are planning on having our demo completed by. While we won’t post anything on here until after the game is posted on IGF’s official website, that’s a relative date to mark your calendars for if you are looking to take a plunge into a sample of our game. We are very excited to be entering this wonderful event and can’t wait to let you all have a taste of what we’ve been working so hard on!

Wrap-up

That’s all I have for this update. I do want to formally appologize for the delay. This most certainly was not a “weekly update” from the last time I posted, but we’ve been quite busy working diligently on making this game the best game it can be. I hope you will continue to follow us as we bring this game to existence and that you will take the opportunity to peek into the progress of our journey along the way.

While I can’t promise an update next week, I assure you we will post as soon as we feel we have something fit to show. Until next time, I bid you farewell.

This week is all about the starting area in the game “The Course”. We’ll take a look at some concepts for the development of the hallways and talk a bit about plans regarding the music for the game.

Concepts

The first batch is some initial concepts of the hallway design. Radiant Escape is being designed with modular props in order to speed up level production and hopefully (planned feature) offer the chance for players to create their own levels down the road. It’s a process we’ve been utilizing since the beginning and is how a lot of games create their maps, so it only seems fitting that we utilize this technique as well.

The second batch is a refined version, almost ready to be put in-game. Lightmaps are yet to be baked, but the normal maps are already implemented. Click any picture to view a larger version.

Batch One

Batch Two

News

We have found musicians (two really, they might BOTH help us out) that expressed interest in producing some tracks for the project. We already have our main menu theme (one that can only be heard on the Nitro Game Injection Podcast here during the Stemage interview) done by Grant Henry, and some sample tracks from the original game concept, but we are planning to do several new tracks, and are shooting to have a new track play every 5 levels or so.

Music

Speaking of music, you may or may not recall me talking last week about syncing music to gameplay and all that nonsense. Well, it works. It may not be as apparent in the demo I’m about to show you, but what we will do in the final setup in the game is split the “beat” track off from the main track and set the “music recognition” scripting to pick up on that track only. This can be used for anything from setting objects to pulse to making the environment ripple. We’ll likely just make objects pulse with it, however.

Here’s the demo (click image):

Wrap-up

Well, that’s it for this weekly update. We’ll see you next week!

Today we are going to look at how Fara has come along so far. She’s not completed yet, but is rather close. A friend of ours named Sue is assisting us with Fara.

This is the first “form” model, in order to show how her form will be modeled out. It’s basic, but is the foundation of what Fara has become.

This is the revision made to show how Flux fits inside of Fara’s chest. Also, Fara’s body is beginning to take more form/shape.

This version is nearly the complete form of Fara, minus some revisions and is before any unwrapping or texturing setup. As you’ll see in the next picture, the bolt decoration on the forehead was decided to be removed.

The finalized form of Fara. Notice the glowing accents on the body and the eyes. The model is almost completely unwrapped, except for the head. Some smoothing groups on the chin needed revision, but that was a quick fix.

Beyond this point, Fara will be fully unwrapped and textured. Beyond that is the rigging and setup for posing and animation. We will post a stylized image when that is all ready.

In other news, in regards to the story, it’s all finished. What this means is that the game is nearly completely designed and is ready to begin full production. At this point, we anticipate a release this year, but anything can still happen. We are hopefully optimistic though!

As for distribution platforms, we have seen the successful publishing of Unity games on the Steam platform already, so that might be a viable option for us. I will do some research into this outlet and various other outlets. I also would like to continue to post “builds” on Kongregate, as that was a great place for us to receive feedback.

Me and James are working on defining the styles for the environments still and Sean is working out the “parkour” system, so that it is intuitive and realistic. I am currently working on getting a demo together of an audio visualization (ability to see the effects of music visually) sample, but it’s pretty complicated stuff. This hopefully will be the framework for how music is displayed in the game as it affects the environment.

Until next time!
Seraphim

Well, we posted our 3rd prototype and got a lot of good feedback (good AND bad) from those of you that have played it. I think that’s one of the reasons we continue to work with the Unity engine, regardless of the challenges we face: posting a web build is easy and accessible.

“What’s next?” you may have asked yourself. Good question!
We are currently working on the story for the game. Something I’m now willing to reveal is that we’ve altered the story so that it’s not a billionaire (or whatever I had put) that has captured Fara and Flux, but a group of elderly robots named the Ceruleans. These robots are looking to acquire only the special and advanced robots in the world and weed out the rest. Another thing that I have decided is that the game is going to have three different areas in the Arena:

The first is an obstacle course, primarily indoors, in order to get you used to the neo-parkour gameplay. No darkness, just speed and skill. Water is introduced here (slows you down unless you drain it with a switch).

The second is the darkness section that you may have already played, primarily outdoors, where things such as pendulums and crushers will be introduced. You’ll also get access to speed boosts and jump boosts in this section.

Lastly, there is a “chromatic polarity” section. In this section, you will need to change the inherit “color” of Fara (green or blue) in order to bypass obstacles. As an example: running on a wall, sections of it might be a different color, and you must switch colors while running across it to continue. It’s a bit inspired by other games, but I believe it could be really interesting and add to the gameplay of Radiant Escape.

We are currently working on refining the modular pieces we use to construct our levels, and defining each of the three sections. We are going to be a bit before we post something playable, but we likely will offer some “live art demos” like we have in the past, so you can still see a dynamic representation of our progress.

Until next time!
Seraphim

A stylized gameplay trailer is ready for viewing. Check it out:

Ah.. Spring. Love is in the air, flowers are blooming, pollen is killing people’s will to live.
It is such a magical time.

We have a new prototype ready to meet you. It’s loved you before it was even born. Hopefully you and it will become something special, something real. Not some Hollywood “oh you killed my husband but lets get back together anyways” type stuff. REAL love.

This one is the real thing. Yes, levels are still short, but it’s about the gameplay! Pulse works, lights turn off, you can double-jump, you actually RESPAWN when you FALL, and a bunch of other ‘tings.

Check it out here:
Prototype 3.0

Controls: WASD to move, Mouse to look, Space to Jump, Space again to Double-jump.
Goal: Get to the elevator at the end of the level.

Feedback is welcome and appreciated for this build.

What’s Next

Next, we’re gonna be revising the game visually. We need to define how the game looks, and this starts with dynamic set pieces (it sort of gets old using the same blocks over and over). This also means Fara will be making her debut soon as well.

Gameplay-wise, we will be adding such features as wall-running, wall-jumping and sliding. The most important near-future addition, however, will be obstacles. If you think of that show “Wipeout”, you’ll have a good idea of the kind of things we will have in the game. Players need a challenge, right? I haven’t yet fully documented how Flux will make his appearance, but I know you’ll be throwing him about and piloting him to activate switches and such.

Until next time!
Seraphim

We are currently working on refining our style. It was very basic for awhile, and while there is a certain amount of appreciation that could be given to such an approach, we felt that the game needed more. So here’s the preliminary of what we have so far:

We’ve also been working on some holographics (beats the pants off of simple blocks) to represent our “movement utilities”. Currently only the speed boost is near completion, but I think it’s looking quite nice in our environment:

And so, that’s about it for this update, oh wait, right.. Fara. I’ve been working with an artist I met on the Unity forums named GameLvr (in exchange for code) that is modeling and animating her. Here’s a recent progress render showing flux stored in her chest:

And THAT is it!

Till next time,
Seraphim