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State of the Art – July 2018

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Welcome to the State Of The Art, July 2018 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.

Before we reach the spoiler part of the article, I’ll give you a brief update about the state of the art, and how much work is remaining on the aesthetic side of things. There will be no pictures, GIFs, videos, or bulleted lists, so don’t worry about seeing spoilers! (Just don’t scroll down too fast. You’ve been warned!)

Missed last month’s State of the Art? The June edition is right here.

 

Spoiler-Free Progress Report

When June began, 5 out of 10 cutscenes were animated and World 7 was less than half complete.

As of July 3rd, 7 out of the game’s 10 cutscenes have been fully animated and World 7 is finished! (There’s a tiny amount of work remaining for these two cutscenes, but cut me some slack here) I also did something I don’t normally do and programmed the cutscenes to have a pause menu where you can skip the cutscenes. Does that count as “art?”

What’s next: Later today, I’ll finish the two cutscenes that are nearly complete. This month will then be dedicated to finishing the final 3 cutscenes and putting the finishing touches on the game’s artwork.

You’re all caught up. Now, if you want a sneak peek at some of the artwork I did this month, read on… but beware of game spoilers!

 

 

 

SPOILER WARNING: The rest of this article contains screenshots, GIFs and videos of later sections of the game. If you want to experience them in all their majesty for the first time on your mobile device when the game launches, don’t read on!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Paradise is Complete

My work on World 7 is officially done! It took longer than I would have liked, but the Levels came out great and it will serve as a proper final sendoff for those who complete the game. Here are the full screenshots from the three Levels I had to finish:

SOTA-7-3.png

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There will still be GitHub Issues to address in these Levels, so I’m not completely done. However, the same is true of every Level in the game at this point, so it doesn’t matter! I hope you like the look of these Levels. Since you’ve journeyed into spoiler-land, you may as well tell me what you think in the comments below!

 

 

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Two More Cutscenes Are (Nearly) Complete

Once I finished World 7 about halfway through June, I moved on to two more cutscenes. I do these chronologically, so check out last month’s blog if you’re trying to piece the story together through short GIFs. Here are some teasers from these cutscenes:

 

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Obe runs into an old friend on his way out of the Aqueduct…

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“Can I interest you in a golden circle, by any chance?”

At the beginning of this month, I had a long sound recording session with Alba and Noah. You can read all about it here. The short version of the story is that we recorded voices for all of the characters that “speak” in cutscenes. (By speak, I mean “loud unintelligible grunting”) For the past month, they’ve been working on implementing those into the game, so the cutscenes I completed in May are going to have finished audio soon.

 

 

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Back to Work

Sadly, this blog post reveals that I didn’t get as much done in June as I’d hoped. Because World 7 took a long time to finish, that delayed my progress on the cutscenes. Being behind schedule is a slippery slope!

As soon as I finish this post, it’s back to work finishing those two cutscenes I mentioned. I’ll record them and send them off to our audio team for scoring. Then, there are three more cutscenes that need my love – and one includes a full credits sequence that may just be too ambitious to put into the game. I’ll also need to take some time just to address the mountain of GitHub Issues that Jack logged as he played through the entire game. Some Levels require artistic changes to make the shadows look better. I can save those for later, but we’re running low on “later” – and I don’t want his progress to be stopped because I couldn’t take a break from cutscenes for an hour to read all these emails. Finally, there is a Level Select screen for World 7 with my name on it. Those tableaus are beautiful but each one takes a few hours to complete.

The tweet above, from William Chyr of Manifold Garden fame, is appropriate. I always expected the end of development to feel like less and less work as we neared our goal, but it’s the opposite! There is so much to do, and so little time.

Back to work!

 

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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.

4 Tools for Recording Your Game

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Recently, a friend of ours asked us to provide him some footage of Where Shadows Slumber in action for a highlight reel he’s making. That made me realize we never blogged about the topic of recording your game. I’ve gotten pretty good at recording images and footage of the game over the past few years, so why not share my tricks? It’s just one more thing I never thought I would have to do before I started doing game development, but our experience with SkyRunner taught us a lot.

So this blog post will save you some time if you’re looking for tips: here are the programs I recommend for recording images, GIFs, and video of your game!

 

 

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Saad Khawaja’s Instant Screenshot

During the process of marketing your game, people will often ask you for a full-resolution screenshot of the game in action. To fulfill this request, you need to get the dimensions of the screen exactly right. For example, our game is made for phones in Portrait resolution. If we give someone an image that is in Landscape resolution, they’ll think the game is made for computers or game consoles instead. Getting the resolution right was really important to me, and I recognized quickly that the Microsoft Snipping Tool (more on that below) wasn’t going to give me the high quality screenshots I wanted.

After trying out a few plug-ins on the Unity Asset Store, this is the one I came away with: Saad Khawaja’s Instant Screenshot. It’s free and very easy to use. You can adjust the size of the final image, or set it to the current screen size which is super useful. You can take low quality images or blast the pixels up to an insane level. (I could probably make a banner-sized image with this tool!) Once it’s in your project, you’ll see it in the “Tools” window and after you click that it comes up like any other Unity window. Trust me, you will not regret making this tool part of your routine.

 

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Snipping Tool

This one is just for Windows users, but there’s a program installed on every Windows machine called “Snipping Tool” – have you ever used it? Find it in your Search bar and save the shortcut. I keep Snipping Tool on my hotbar! That’s how useful it is.

Above, we discussed how sometimes you really need high-resolution screenshots at the exact size of the screen. However, often I need to record segments of the game for internal use. In these situations, like if I’m logging a bug in GitHub, it’s not helpful to have such a large image. My philosophy is that the image should be short and wide with the bug in the center of the picture. This way it will fit in nicely with the text of the bug report. I generally include some kind of note where I circle the problem, or draw a funny confused face. (This probably annoys Jack, but I’m sort of hoping it softens the blow of finding another bug in some far off corner of the game)

Fortunately, you can do all of this with Snipping Tool and you don’t even need to download it! Simply click the snip button, drag across a corner of your screen, draw on it with your mouse, and copy/paste the image where desired. You don’t even need to save the image to your computer if you like to live dangerously. Make Snipping Tool your go-to for capturing bug report images, and include as many images in your bug reports as you can. It will really help your team!

 

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ScreenToGIF

The image above is a GIF, and it was recorded using ScreenToGIF. The best way to explain the GIF file format is that it’s basically a digital flipbook. I may be dating myself here, but did you ever have those little Disney flipbooks as a kid where you could flip through them with your thumb and see the animation play out across a hundred tiny pages? That’s a GIF. They are all over the place, they’re great for advertising your game in motion, and the Internet loves them.

Before ScreenToGIF, I found it really difficult to make my own GIFs. I forgot what program I was using – who cares, it didn’t get the job done! Download this program for free here, and I promise you that you will not regret it. There’s a ton of settings you can tweak to get the image size, file size, and quality you want. It’s extremely user friendly. You can delete frames after you’re done recording too, which is such a nice feature. I’ve never had a problem posting these animated images to Facebook or Twitter. I’m not being paid off to say this: use ScreenToGIF!

 

Open Broadcaster Software

I wish I had a better option for recording video of our game, to be frank with you. (Note: I am always Frank with you, dear reader.) This program Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) was the main way I streamed on Twitch a while back when I used to do that. I then realized that it didn’t just stream your image to the Internet – you could also just record footage and save it to your computer. Neat!

Download OBS for free here. It’s not bad, but it’s not perfect either. It can record footage and capture audio too, which is helpful for progress updates like the image above. However, getting the screen resolution just right is pretty difficult. According to Alba and Noah’s finely trained ears, it does not do a good job recording sound from the computer either. But I’m willing to admit that could just be my fault… there are a ton of settings to configure, and I have no idea what I’m doing!

It doesn’t do your editing for you either: I recommend Adobe Premiere or Final Cut. Sadly, I know of no good free editing tools! You’re on your own, I’m afraid.

 

That’s all for now, folks. I hope this saves you a few days of frantic searching, downloading, and deleting. Thanks for reading, and happy recording!

 

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What programs do you use? Do you like my suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment below! 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.

Audio Update: Voice Recording

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Last week, I visited Alba and Noah at their home studio in Queens to record some vocals for Where Shadows Slumber. (If you have no idea who I’m talking about, read the intro blog they wrote last year right here) They’ve been working hard on the game’s audio since we brought them onto the project in September. There’s just one hangup, though – Obe’s voice, as well as the voices for the game’s other characters, are not in the game yet.

Voices are tough to fake using synthesized instruments. You need to capture the performance of an actor who understands the emotions of the scene before them, especially when you’re scoring animated cutscenes. Fortunately, since I’m the one who made the game’s cutscenes, I know exactly what weird noises Obe is supposed to be making! I also love acting and have been involved in theatre since grammar school. I can’t say I’ve done a lot of voice work though, so this was a new experience.

 

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The Setup

How do you record voices, anyway? Well, I made the trek out to Queens to visit Alba and Noah at their apartment to see their setup. They set me up with a microphone stand and a pop filter, with a few sound shields to block out unnecessary noise from the refrigerator. From where I was standing, I could see the cutscene video as we recorded. My goal was to match the visuals on the screen with the noises from my mouth.

On the software side of things, we recorded in ProTools for a bit until it kept crashing during sessions. Noah and Alba eventually decided to just record everything in Logic since they were going to edit the final sound in Logic anyway. It worked out great!

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Here’s a better shot of the microphone stand, pop filter, and sound dampener:

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The microphone used is a Miktek CV4.

I recorded voices for Obe, the forest guardians, and a few bit characters that are only in one cutscene. Noah showed us a crazy sound synthesizer that takes your voice in and spits out animal sounds, like a growling dog or a roaring lion. That was good, because my impression of a lion sounds nothing like a lion!

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Alba and Noah helped to coach me as we repeated sections of the audio.

We even received aid from the innocent creatures of the forest, as we danced in harmony together:

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Their adorable bunny McFlurry mostly hid under the couch. This was a rare sighting.

The funniest part of the day was when Noah and I teamed up to record chatter sounds for the prison guards, who are chasing Obe from a distance. The game has no recognizable English words – or words in any language, for that matter – to make sure it’s easy to localize in China. (Their government is very strict about the influence of “outside” languages.) So we invented our own nonsense language and shouted like idiots for a few seconds before cracking up!

I’m sure that will sound better in post. LOL!

Here’s a transcript, for those interested in the deep lore of Where Shadows Slumber:

GUARD 1: era adbabalao at babt!!!

GUARD 2: ebbebe ebebebe ebe ebe beyhehehe!!!

GUARD 1: arbababaldlalao ehehr ehe!!!

GUARD 1 and GUARD 2: aanndna hehee!!!!

GUARD 1: wod! wod! wod! ow dow dowmee ndenebedo!!

Shakespeare must weep from the great beyond, mystified that he could never attain such beautiful prose.

 

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Thoughts About Voice-Over Work

Voice acting took a lot out of me. It’s really hard! We were focusing on the cutscenes during this session, and I was determined to do them all in one take. Essentially, for each character in the scene, I recorded their voices from the beginning of the cutscene to the end. That means doing about 90 seconds of voiceover per person per cutscene, and we did multiple takes. Additionally, we would skip around and redo certain segments (a gasp, a scream, a laugh) to make sure they came out right. Between trying to keep up with the video and trying to change my voice to match the character, I don’t know what the most difficult part of this was. All I know is that I have a newfound respect for voice actors!

Now that I think about it, screaming was probably the most challenging thing to get right, because it’s so easy for screams to sound campy. For that reason, it’s a little embarrassing to shout at the top of your lungs in front of other people. It also just really hurts your vocal cords! We should have saved that for the end, so I’ll remember that next time.

Actually wait – the hardest thing was when we recorded breathing because I almost passed out! We wanted to get some audio of Obe breathing as he’s running quickly. This would go in the game’s Levels, not in a cutscene. For some reason when you record yourself breathing it becomes really difficult to actually breathe… I got a little lightheaded as we recorded his idle breathing, running breathing, and struggling breathing. Something about keeping a steady rhythm messed up my actual breathing and I had to take a few breaks. Maybe I’m just terribly out of shape?

As you might have guessed, it’s all very challenging! I encourage you to find your favorite voice actor on Twitter or something and send them an encouraging message for all their hard work.

 

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Support PHÖZ Online!

I really appreciated the opportunity to go out to Queens and hang out with these guys for a day. It was a much-needed distraction from my usual routine (wake up, stare at a computer for 12 hours, sleep). Voice acting is an exhausting endeavor, but it was exhausting in a different way than what I am used to, so I had fun!

You should support their work online by going to www.phozland.com and signing up for all of their various social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter). Also, please listen to the selected songs on their website that come straight from the game! They sound so beautiful in isolation, and you’ll gain a new appreciation for all of the hard work they’ve done so far.

 

 

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We hope you enjoyed this update about the game’s audio. Have a question about sound that wasn’t mentioned here? We’ll forward it along to Alba and Noah! 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.

State of the Art – April 2018

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Welcome to State Of The Art, April 2018 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.

Missed last month’s State of the Art? The March edition is right here.

Also, don’t be fooled by our last blog post. The “Easter edition” of our blog was actually just the Where Shadows Slumber April Fool’s gag for the year. We hope it gave you a few laughs! Don’t worry, we aren’t adding any of that stuff to the game.

SOTA-Discord

Sorry Caroline – no skins!

We all had fun making that, but now it’s back to work. Here’s the State of the Art!

 

 

SPOILER WARNING: This post contains screenshots, GIFs and videos of later sections of the game. If you want to experience them in all their majesty for the first time on your mobile device when the game launches, don’t read on!

 

 

 

SOTA-Header.png

Mustard River

The infamous “mustard river” is now complete! These Levels used to be in real rough shape, but now I love the way our ashen rocks contrast with the yellow of the water. This World is home to Walkers, a mechanic we introduce in the first River Level. I won’t drone on too long, because I think these GIFs speak for themselves. Enjoy!

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Level 2-1, “Docks”

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Level 2-2, “Cage”

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Level 2-3, “Guide”

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Level 2-4, “Ebb”

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Level 2-5, “Ferry”

There are new Walkers, too! For a long time, the denizens of the River were weird copies of Obe in scraggly shorts. As you may have noticed from the GIFs above, I gave them a bit more unique personal features, such as different hats or clothing. Overall, they probably still look too much like generic video game zombies. Regardless, I hope people will realize as they play the game that these Walkers are to be pitied, not feared.

 

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Check Out Our Snazzy Level Select Menu

I’m really proud of the Level Select menu that Jack and I have been working on together. Rather than just do a few buttons with numbers on them, we really went all out to create a beautiful experience that takes you through the story of the game as you choose what Level you’d like to play. Check them out in action!

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When the full game is done, this menu will be the best place to track your progress. How many Levels have you completed? How many are left? Which ones would you like to return to, to show your friends? During gameplay however, the Player won’t be directed here too often, since Levels flow directly from one into the other.

 

 

 

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Polish: The Home Stretch

I have begun the process of finishing the game’s final 15 Levels. These puzzles have been finished for a while, and they even have some “first draft” art. However, as I say all the time, my goal for each Level is to make it look like my favorite Level, and make the player say “oh wow, I love the look of this one.” That’s a delicate process that takes a lot of time – many, many hours spent per Level!

CemeteryRain

 

So right now I have just one of the final 15 to show you today, and you can see it above. This is in World 5, The Hills, and it’s called Cemetery. It features tombstones that turn into ghosts when you cover them in shadow. The theme of the World is putting these spirits to rest in their graves.

This Level is nearly complete – there are two tiny touches I’m dying to put in. First, I want to give that Draggable pillar a bit more personality. Right now it’s just a green hyperrectangle (Jack taught me that’s what a 3D rectangle is) but it should feel like it belongs more. Second, I want to add animated blades of grass that bounce and bob along with the rhythm of the falling rain. Personally, I think making convincing rain is more about the effect the raindrops have on the ground rather than seeing actual particles in midair. When it rains in real life, what’s easier to see: the rain in midair as it falls to Earth, or the water collecting in puddles on the ground or forming little rivers? Observe the world around you next time there’s a storm. I’m right!

Anyway, those changes all take a lot of love so I’ll be poring over it more this week before I head off to PAX East!

 

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Last But Not Least – The iPhone X!

I finally bit the bullet and purchased the iPhone X so we can test how the game works on its sleeker, thinner, taller (!) screen. The phone is beautiful and feels great, and you can see a proof of life photo above. Jack will probably have to do some programmer-fu to make the camera zoom out a bit on these phones, but that’s fine. I love playing on the iPhone X because of how smooth it is, so a little camera troubles are no problem at all!

That’s about it for this month’s art update. I wish I could have gotten a bit more done, but we had to attend SXSW earlier this month and I spent a lot of time preparing the art for that build. It was a great show, but travel always takes time away from being in the “flow” of creating artwork. Since I’ll be at PAX East this weekend, you can expect the same lame excuse next time!

We’re nearing the final days of working on Where Shadows Slumber, which is a really weird thing to think about. I suppose we’ll still be doing a lot of post-launch stuff, but I’m not sure what I’ll do all day, every day once the game is done. Anyway, I know what I’ll be doing all day, every day in April… [ o_o] ART!

See you next month for another 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.