Sunday 2 October 2011

tardy update

Sorry for the lack of updates, etc. etc. I'm going to be open and honest about where Luminesca is at the moment.

The donations the project received via IndieGoGo were incredibly generous and allowed me to spend time developing an actual working prototype, which has helped me more than I could have possibly imagined. But the funding only lasted for so long and I've had to return to full-time work so I can pay the bills. Unfortunately, progress on Luminesca has slowed down quite a bit as a result.

But it hasn't stopped completely! Luminesca is incredibly important to me and has been slowly simmering for several years in one form or another. Developing a working version of the game has opened my eyes to a lot of realities about the project, from high-level project management issues (e.g. it takes a lot of time and effort to make a game on your own) right down to the nitty-gritty quibbles (this camera is too close, and that move speed is too slow).

Ultimately, I decided that I wasn't happy with the direction that the game was heading in and that it had grown into something quite unmanageable taking my budget and time constraints into account. So I've taken a step back from the game, looked at what wasn't working and now I have gone back to the drawing board. Here's what I've come up with:



As you can see I've gone back to 2D, this time using a plugin for Unity called Orthello. I came to the conclusion that 3D art is not my forté, and implementing it has a tendency to increase the number of bugs and graphical oddities tenfold. 2D art is simple, clean and (most importantly) quick and easy to create. This means it's way more manageable for a one-man team and I have a much greater chance of actually finishing the game!

I'm not showing off the game in motion just yet as there are still some kinks to iron out, but I'm already feeling much more confident about development and I'm progressing much quicker than before.

What do you think? Do you like the new style based on this early look?

3 comments:

  1. Hey matey,

    Well I completely disagree with you when you say 3D art is not your forté! You do yourself a disservice thinking like that;-) But I completely understand where you're coming from by trying to reign the project back in a bit into something more manageable while staying true to your vision. I'm very much liking the new style - I have a special place in my heart for 2D graphics in general=D - and i'm very happy to hear the project is still on-going. Good stuff!

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  2. Thanks for the compliments! I had some big concerns about the more complex aspects of the 3D visuals. For example, fully rigging and animating character models is a really complicated and time-consuming process. There are also lots of irritating issues that crop up with lighting and shaders. While I might be able to make something cool if I dedicated a lot of time to it, time is something that unfortunately I don't have a lot of. I decided it would be better to play to my strengths and be able to quickly iterate on ideas.

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  3. Glad your work on Luminesca is continuing.

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