Welcome to State Of The Art, June 2017 edition! This monthly progress report is written by Frank DiCola and is focused entirely on how the game’s visuals have improved in the past month. Without further ado, let’s explore the major leaps forward we took in June!

 

The Forest Is Starting To Look Finished

Where Shadows Slumber begins with a few short tutorial levels that teach the Player how to play and start the story off with a mysterious event. This takes place in the Forest, or “World 0”, as we’ve been calling it. I’ve recently begun calling it the game’s prelude, which sounds more profound and less technical.

Take a look at this video of the second Level of the game, “Bridge”, in action:

As you can see, the Level is entirely functional and artwork has been attached to every facet of the Level. The things that are missing are either out of my hands (audio, footfall particles when the protagonist walks) or things Jack and I want to leave for the end of the development process (polish on the Draggable “grab” effect).

The toolkit of 3D models I use to build Forest Levels is really coming together. Level 2 served as a good model for how I’m going to decorate Levels 1 and 3. Those have not been started yet, but you can expect them next month!

 

World Select and Level Select Menus

Where Shadows Slumber is a journey that takes you across a desolate world with a variety of biomes. You begin in a Forest, but you’re soon kidnapped and put into a volcanic Jail. You escape, but only by traveling down a haunted, marshy River… and that’s just the game’s first act!

We found it necessary to group these biomes into Worlds. Furthermore, each puzzle in the game is its own Level. So we needed a screen that allowed Players to view each World and then select the Level they want to play. I wanted to make each World screen inviting, yet spooky. I also wanted to use as much of the existing art in the game as possible.

Below is a video of the World Select Menu in action, including transitions:

Notice how the transitions from World-to-World mirror the shadow mechanic of our game. Including that was extremely important to us!

Please know that this menu is not finished yet. The decorations for this menu are entirely downstream of the actual art in the Levels. That’s why I’ve only finished a few of them so far. Believe it or not, while these screens may seem flat, they’re actually produced with 3D models and camera trickery!

It’s a cool effect… but that means I need to finish all of the Levels in a World before I can go on to the menu. Dependencies in game development are annoying, but it’s more annoying to ignore them and then come back to find a lot of your work was erased or made worthless because too many underlying elements changed.

 

We Built This City

The toolkit for the City (World 4) is one of my favorites in the game. The inspiration for this slum town environment was a combination of the poorest regions of India mixed with the pueblo towns of South America. The result is a city that looks hewn out of a mountainside and packed to the gills – once I add the people, that is! During your travels, you’ll go from the poorest area of the City all the way to the King’s palace. Who knows what you’ll find there?

Here’s a screenshot of Level 4-1, where we introduce the concept of Doors that teleport the main character. Check it out:

 

Over time, this toolkit will grow to include fancier parts of town, including a really cool Level we have planned where you ascend one of the city’s towers. Stay tuned!

 

Wolf Attack

Last time we saw the Wolf he had just been modeled. This month, I gave his face a fresh coat of paint and worked on his animations. Now he can express a wide range of emotions, from “angry” to “really mad” and even “about to kill someone”! Check it out:

 

Works In Progress

Worlds 3 (Aqueduct) and 5 (Hills) have progressed slowly over the past month. Whenever we’re not sure of how a World’s puzzles will look, it’s harder to focus on the art for that World. I like to pick out a really solid puzzle and work to get it to a professional place, but the level design for these two Worlds is still very much a work in progress.

Having said that, I have at least started both of these Worlds using dummy scenes. This design is subject to change, however. I’m still deciding on the key colors for the Aqueduct. Blue feels a bit too obvious. The Aqueduct should be dark and cavernous, but I also want it to be a departure from the two Worlds (Jail and River) the Player just experienced, which are kind of depressing and muddy.

As for the Hills, it’s very difficult to create a scene from nature using entirely modular pieces. Sometimes you just need to make something that specifically works for a certain puzzle – especially background mountains. The Hills have a lot of moss-covered rocks and grassy cliff faces. I’m having trouble making puzzle-piece 3D models that can be assembled to look like they fit together to form the rolling hills of Ireland. Expect progress on this World to be quite slow.

 

Thanks For Reading!

That’s all for now. In the future I’d like to make this update strictly contain videos of the game in action. Screenshots are great, but this is a game, and I want to push myself to film more sections of it and analyze it from every angle (animation, color, sound, feedback). Look out for that in July’s update!

 

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We hope you enjoyed this update about the game’s artwork. Have a question about aesthetics that wasn’t mentioned here? You can find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, or Twitch, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.