The "taste" of the game

[( Tchey )]

I don't know the word in english, and i can't find something good in french neither. Ambiance ? Background ? Universe ? Plot ? Soul ?

Right now, the visual of the game is mostly placeholder. There is no harmonization between the different elements. Inserters look like a puzzle game, science labs look like a dark steampunk RTS, the character looks like a retrofuturistic (spandex pewpew) hack'n slash...

Where do you want to go ?

The official plot is about a polluted and dieing Earth, and the character just crashed onto an alien world, trying to colonize a new planet to save humanity, right ?

This can be steampnk, retrofutur, cyberpunk, realitic moderne, kitsh, futuristic medfan (as in WH40K), neopostapo, and much more. But it has to go "somewhere" with "coherence".

[slpwnd]

Very good constructive critics. Thank you ! We are painfully aware of the game being artistically inconsistent. Let me explain why we believe that is the case.

We are two programmers. That is it. The team. We have cooperated with more than 5 freelance artists in the past months who have done the art / concepts / 3d / sound for us. In the conditions we have been working it was a success get something functional out. The quality suffered naturally.

We could have spend that time and resources on making a very limited part of the game very polished and consistent. However instead we decided to go pretty much ahead with the programming part and fill the art void with placeholders or temporary creations. So here we are. The inserters look funny, the walls are just black squares, the main character is blinking when mining (did you notice ?:)), the sounds are incoherent.

We are too aware of all this. And we know we need a direction. Actually at the moment our concept artist is working very hard to produce concepts for a lot of elements in the game. This will give us one sense of where the game could be heading. It should be sort of in the atmosphere of the three theme pictures we have already (guy looking on, furnaces with belt and turrets in front of the factory).

And this is one of the reasons we asked for a relatively high sum in the indiegogo campaign. We just know that there is too much work to do on the art side. We can't do it and therefore we would have to go and pay people a lot of money to do pleasant looking, consistent and easy to comprehend graphics.

So please post your ideas about the direction of the game in the art style. We are happy to consider them.

[Catox]

I believe you must have some ideas of what you'd like the game to feel like already, somewhere in the back of your head. There must be some existing cultural elements, video games, movies, books, in which the mood correspond to what you want to achieve.

With what you've done at the moment, I'd say it makes me think of a mix of Alien or Mad Max movies, games like Dune 2 probably because of the 2D style of the map, or Dune because of the mood produced by the music.
It's very dark, and it's good, and with the 3 concept arts you talked about, I have a feeling of a technology that evolved in a very practical direction rather than an aesthetical one. In this context, I'd say it's the curvy shapes of the turrets and of those flying saucers that doesn't fit much, rather than the "funny look" of inserters.

But it's really your vision that matters most.

[kovarex]

Where do you want to go ?

The official plot is about a polluted and dieing Earth, and the character just crashed onto an alien world, trying to colonize a new planet to save humanity, right ?

This can be steampnk, retrofutur, cyberpunk, realitic moderne, kitsh, futuristic medfan (as in WH40K), neopostapo, and much more. But it has to go "somewhere" with "coherence".

Dark heavy industrialisation is something we were aiming for, pollution, heavy not so polished machines ...
It might get more polished and futuristic in the late game with advanced technologies.

The steam engine + pipes + transport belts is something we would like to keep (the style, there are some alterations that have to be done)

I'd say it's the curvy shapes of the turrets and of those flying saucers that doesn't fit much, rather than the "funny look" of inserters.

This needs comment

a) Turrets images were introduced to the game more than 8 months ago and it is just a placeholder, from some free graphics source.
b) Flying robots is some random image of ufo I just altered a bit to have some placeholder for the testing.

These have nothing to do with the look we are aiming on ...
Please, keep in mind, that we didn't plan to release the alpha so early at all, because we knew there were pictures like this, we just had to do it to try to move on with the dying campaign.

[Xinvoker]

And a good thing you did!
Frankly I don't have a very artistic eye, and I like the look of the inserters, their animation is pretty well done. Never occurred to me that they don't fit. There are yellow cranes in real life, aren't there? Plus we need the other colors to tell them apart.

I imagine the mining drills tall, but I hope their aren't, so I can keep an eye on the status of the resource fields.

[Catox]

I'd say it's the curvy shapes of the turrets and of those flying saucers that doesn't fit much, rather than the "funny look" of inserters.

This needs comment
[...]
These have nothing to do with the look we are aiming on ...
Please, keep in mind, that we didn't plan to release the alpha so early at all, because we knew there were pictures like this, we just had to do it to try to move on with the dying campaign.

Oh I do ^__^
My comment was not made to criticize but only to give a description of what your game feels like to me at the moment.
If anything, in my understanding, that means you're doing a good job generating the mood you want for the game even though there are still placeholders in it.

[MatLaPatate]

If you want any "taste", just say me, I can try to do it, at least for the translation part. I already asked you about that, but I think none saw that because you're too busy ^^ Edit: now I've been answered.

[slpwnd]

It's very dark, and it's good, and with the 3 concept arts you talked about, I have a feeling of a technology that evolved in a very practical direction rather than an aesthetical one.

Very well said. Quite agree. I personally like the steam-punky direction the best so far. This is something we need to decide on quite soon.

[( Tchey )]

I vote SteamPunk.

Oh, and you want this guy in your team : Glimmar.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/455 ... tm-galore/

[Gafda]

Steam punk may be a good idea. But could it be possible to customize the game ?
For example allow the user to change textures.

[kovarex]

What I would like, is to make the style change depending on the game state.
Imagine having steampunk in the start, and in the very late game, it would become more cyberpunk.

I could imagine having more sets of gui templates, and researching some advanced technology would change the gui from steampunk from cyberpunk.

Player will have chance configure the gui appearance, that is quite obvious

[Gafda]

Nice ! Do the style change with the player progress ? For example, if the player kill many creepers, make masse pollution or cut many wood the style can change.
So a "bad" player can have the darkest skin.



Ow, and do you need sommes help you make graphic ressources ? ( damn, french translation of Android keyboard is boring)

[MatLaPatate]

( damn, french translation of Android keyboard is boring)

LOL. I guess it explains the strange sounds of your "english" ? ^^
/French: lol, en fait je viens de comprendre qu'Android traduisait ton anglais en français ^^. Correcteur orthographique ?

[Gafda]

Android translate "mass pollution" to "masse pollution". It transforms all the words it's horrible !

[ssilk]

Revisiting old threads...

This one is worth reading it all, cause it explains some decisions. Nonetheless it can be said it is implemented.