Well you didn’t expect that now did you? Our first preview of Penalty of Heroes we gave to our friends over at the great gaming site Evil Avatar. So head over there and get the first sneak peek of the game.

Read the preview here (you have to scroll down a bit)

Now, Penalty of Heroes, your new game is a quite traditional in its concepts. What titles have been particularly influential in the game design?
One of the reasons why we wanted to make a game like Penalty of Heroes in the first place was to take the elements that we loved in old school games and combine them into a new one. Games that we love and have influenced us for Penalty of Heroes are Golden Axe, Turtles in Time, Secrets of Mana and Diablo. The game design philosophy for Penalty of Heroes was to take the best features of old school arcade and console games and then mix it with next generation graphics and physics.

Describe the gameplay for us.
Penalty of Heroes have four unique playable characters (tank, healer, dps, range) which have different weapon, fighting style and magic. All of the characters are in play all the time, so in single player mode you can swap between the characters as you want. If you need a character with a range weapon you swap to the range character, if you feel you need more muscles you change to the tank character. So in a way you’re controlling all of the characters.

Tags: Evil Avatar, game, Penalty of Heroes, preview, sneak peek, xbox 360

Well it seems like that it’s true : ( and it feel stupid not to mention it (though we nearly never post game news here) because  Duke 3d was one of the games that made me want to start to make games. I have tons of Duke 3d maps that I made with their level editor Build on some old computer.

Anyway I first thought it was a “George PR joke”, but it seams not to be it. I just hope that Take 2 puts another team on it and finish it (we would like to finish it :p)

Ironically I was making a sketch video two day ago where I compared Duke 4 ever (3dRealms) with Penalty of Heroes (Databox). I might release that sketch video today or tomorrow, but I don’t know yet. Don’t want it to be like a “bad-joke” about 3dRealms and Duke. If we release it it will say that it was made prior to 3dRealms closing its doors.

* If I was Bill Gates I would put in about 10 million into 3dRealms and finish it and put it out exclusively on Xbox 360.

Tags: Build, Duke 3d, Duke is dead, Duke nukem 4 ever, George, joke, maps, PR, Take 2, Take Two, xbox 360

Todays meeting was mostly focused on things related to the deadlines for SGA (Sweden Game Awards) and GGA (Gotland Game Awards). We mostly discussed different versions of the the new video trailer and what things to priorities the next weeks. We have so much to do the next three weeks that we really can’t afford to sleep, then in the middle of it some of us are going to Nordic Games. Well on top of that there’s about 2-3 major things to do also.

Anyway why sleep when you can work?

Tags: databox games, GGA Gotland Game Awards, Nordic Games, SGA, Sweden game awards

Last week me (Håkan) and Jona sat down and started to focused on animations in the game engine. It’s a task that we have reserved a lot of time for and it looks like we did the right thing since then more you work with it the better it gets.

Almost everyday there have been fist flying against the computers and words that I shouldn’t write here have been yelled at how bad 3ds Max is. It’s a big problem (generally) that the 3d in 3ds Studio Max never looks exactly in the game engine . It’s a process of trail and errors that Jona and Tobias (the 3d artist) really have and is working on.

The more we work, the better we get. The good thing now is that it’s about tweaking, … play/try the game see what works and what’s not and then try to fix it.

Tags: 3d artist, 3ds Studio Max, game engine, tweaking

We have put together a short “promotion video” for our blog. We feel that many people would be interested in our blog, but right now they might not know of it. So now go and send this video/url to all of your friends : )

In the video are some video that you probably not yet have seen. Hope you enjoy it!

Tags: blog Penalty of Heroes, promotion video, xbox 360, you tube

So it’s time once again to let you know what we will be up to this week, by posting our “sprint of the week”, “project plane of the week”, “to-do list of the week” or just simple our focus area (work) this week. As last week this week will focus much on programming. On Wednesday we have a “game presentation” and we will show some gameplay of the game to some people in the industry. So there’s a lot of things that should be done before that.

Code
Make more AI patterns
Adjust player control (revive)
Enemy generator true triggers
Camera kontroll Concept (2d)
Menu & GUI (animation)
Particles

Level (2d)
Finalize level 1

3d
Make animations for foes

Narrative
Fraps animations for sound effects

Other things
Start to work on presentation
Sketch for trailer for GGA
GGA boot
Game play presentation

Tags: AI, code, enemy, fraps, game presentation, GGA, level, narrative, Penalty of Heroes, scrum, sprint

Today when we come the office, our beloved mascot Godan was laing dead before one of the coders computer.

We have no idea what have happen but we we strongly suspect the cleaner,  this is our penalty for  leaving food behind.

Grodans struggle will not be in wain. He will always someway appear in our game and so live on.

RIP Grodan

Tags: computer, Databox, Grodan, R.I.P. cleaner

Today I’d like to share a new recording. Like the previous one I posted, this video demonstrates the process of drawing and coloring an enemy concept in photoshop. All I knew when starting was that it should be a quite heavily armored average male warrior controlled by Maag, the leader of Jedna. His equipment will vary but in this case I felt that it would be cool if he wielded a large shield, making him suitable for a little more dynamic and interesting AI. I didn’t use any reference whatsoever, I’m painting directly from my head and experimenting with different shapes to create an interesting armor.
It took about three hours to finish but the video is at high speed as usual.

Part 1

Part 2

Tags: AI, amor, concept, dynamic, painting, Penalty of Heroes, photoshop, shield, Video

Every Monday now for the past four weeks we have presented each of the heroes in the game. So I thought it was appropriate to post a picture of all of the characters together.

Here’s a round-up of all the facts about the heroes:

Llaknel
Llaknel is a young and skillful fighter and fight with two Katars. He was born and raised in the city of Era in the land of Nimo. He’s the current general of King Salo’s army and the princess’ personal bodyguard. Llaknel’s father was the late general who died protecting the king years ago and therefore Llaknel does not feel comfortable following his father’s footsteps. Llaknel also finds Kimo to be naive, but stays loyal to her and the King as he hopes for a change in Nimo. He is the leader of the party and reconsiders every action very thoroughly.

Zedwig
Zedwig is a short but heavily built man who wears thick armor and fights with raw strength. He doesn’t use weapons, but wields his shields which he smashes his enemies with. Zedwig is a cocky man, but trusted amongst his friends. He was born and raised in the city of Jedna, but fled to Era when Maag enslaved his people. He seeks revenge and wants to set his people free and get rid of Maag once and for all.

Kimo
Kimo is the youngest one of the four heroes and is trained in politics, combat and healing magics. She is the heiress of King Salo’s empire and loves the people of Era. She is in love with Llaknel, but is aware of the complications with him being responsible for her as he also figures as her general. However she finds it amusing to tease him, making his position awkward. Zedwig and her share friendship and the same sense of humor.

Darwin
Darwin is a skinny old man, who always carries his crossbow with him. He fled his hometown of Giza as it was enslaved and corrupted by people that gave false promises about a better future. Darwin has lived in Era for just as long as Zedwig and knows all of them very well. Though he is old fashioned and somewhat an outsider in the party, he is still a good friend and a skilled armsman.

Tags: character, concept art, Darwin, Kimo, Llaknel, Penalty of Hereos, Picture, Zedwig

It’s Valborg’s eve today here in Sweden. The other guys of Databox Interactive seem a bit drunk, but not me. Not yet. It’s only 4 PM and I have blogs to write, before I disappear into the mist of cheap beer and Jäger.

To understand what Valborg really is you need to go back to the medieval age. In 1300 AD an underwater castle was built somewhere off the Lapland coast of Sweden. Mermaids and Surströmming (fermented herrings) were the servants, crabs were the soldiers and of course a whale was the king. Due to the variation of creatures living there, the reign of the mighty whale did not last long. A civil war inside the very walls of the castle shattered the empire, leaving the creatures to find shelter somewhere else. The whale was displeased by this act and swore an oath, never to trust any mammal, fish or mutation again. He disappeared at sea and was never seen again.

Decades passed by and no one seemed to really give a sh*t, until one day when a drunken sailor from Malmö saw something he had never seen before. Lying there all huge, but helpless was the stranded whale. The drunken sailor felt sorry for the late king and decided to help him. He fed the whale, cleaned him up and got him a place to live.

Unaware of the fact that the whale needed water for its survival, the sailor was convicted for attempt of murder. The next day the sailor was hung. Unfortunately the people could not move the whale as forklifts had not been invented yet. Moments before the poor whale died of hydration, he shouted out: “Valborg” (probably with the same impact of epicness as in Brave Heart). Because of the randomness of that situation and because no one understood the meaning of that word, people just looked at each other, cheered and of course started drinking.

So now you know why everyone is completely hammered a** drunk on Valborg. No one knows why, people just look for an excuse to drink.

Tags: ad, Brave Heart, Databox Interactive, drunk, fermented herring, forklift, mermaids, sailor, surströmming, valborg, Valborg eve, whale

After a lot of nagging from one of the 3D-artists I decided to make a concept of Darwins weapon, a crossbow. Darwin comes from a place a place that lies ahead in the development of machinery and therefor he has a technically more advanced weapon than the other main characters. The crossbow is equipped with a small magazine of bolts and a scope, mainly to make it look more interesting but also so that it makes sense that he doesn’t have to reload after every single shot.

Tags: 3d, artist, crossbow, Darwin, model, shot, weapon

After a couple of days in Prague, I’m back at the office in Sweden. The writing is put on ice this week as I’m currently working on feedback from the story and the level’s built. This week I will work with our sound effects guy (Josef) and I’m eager to see what sound he will put on the characters’ animations.

I’m also working on the upcoming trailer. Nothing is really determined for the moment, but as usual it’s going to kick ass. I have tons of ideas and the hard part will be to decide which one will fit our game the most. The obvious choice of curse would be something like THIS

But that wouldn’t really fit our game now would it!?

Tags: Dolph Lundgren, feedback, office, Penalty of Heroes, Prauge, Sweden

SGA (Sweden Game Awards) and GGA (Gotland Game Awards) starting to close up, so we have to focus on getting all system running and working together. So this next month we will be focusing on tuning things and not to implement new features.

Code
Make more AI patterns
Adjust player control
Get particle and light effects onto the characters
Get gem system to work
Enemy generator

Concept (2d)
Menu & GUI

Levels 2d
Continue working on levels

3D
Make more animations and get the to work smoothly

Narrative
List of sound effects
Start to work on presentation
Sketch for trailer for GGA
Test the story on regular people

Other things
Take screenshots
Move to new office
Start on the last sprint

Tags: 2d, 3d, AI patterns, animations, code, GGA, levels, Penalty of Heroes, screenshots, SGA, sprint, story, trailer

Darwin is a skinny old man, who always carries his crossbow with him. He fled his hometown of Giza as it was enslaved and corrupted by people that gave false promises about a better future. Darwin has lived in Era for just as long as Zedwig and knows all of them very well. Though he is old fashioned and somewhat an outsider in the party, he is still a good friend and a skilled armsman.

Tags: crossbow, Darwin, Era, Giza, party, people, skill, skinny

The references for level 3 are mainly mountain and rocky ground, the path to the city of Jedna that is located on a high mountain. Then you travel further in the level also more and more of the outbound city industry mechanics are to be seen, also a path/transition to the industry area are going to be implemented near the end of the level.

Inspiration for this is mainly regular rocky terrain and real life steampunk looking engine and structure. Well, some of the level design visuals are not finished (mostly the graphical style of architectural environment, that I’m actually going to research later today) but here how it looks at the moment at one point of the course. (Have in mind its a draft and not the end visuals)

* Jens comment *
Dwarf wrote this post some month ago, but it wasn’t posted back then because we didn’t want to show so much of the different environments in the game back then.

Tags: design, enviroment, graphic, mountain, Penalty of Heroes, punk, research, steampunk, style

Yesterday we had the presentation about the marketing of PoH that we were supposed to have like 3 weeks ago, but then it was canceled due to the fact that some people got sick. Overall the presentation went really well and it lasted for about 20 minutes and then we talked and discussed for about one hour. We got a advice to start to use Twitter so we probably start to twitter in a few weeks.

This was the last “game presentation” we have before the final one at GGA in the beginning of June. Though we have a game play panel presentation in a few week, but that presentation is just us getting feedback from the “game panel” playing the game, so no real presentation is needed.

Tags: feedback, game, game play, GGA, Gotland Game Awards, presentation, Twitter

We haven’t talked so much about the new people on the PoH and what they will do. So I think feel it’s time to present them now : )

Programming
We haven’t really been on track with the programming for about 2 month and we have been about 2-3 weeks behind scheduel constantly. So we had to do something about it. That “something” was Andreas. Andreas will join the programmer team (Jakob and Baba) but he will focus solely on AI programming, this so Jakob and Baba can focus on all the other stuff such as engine optimizing, shaders, gameplay code and so on. Our producer Håkan has also step in as a programmer and he will program about 50% of his time (about 1h/day :p).

Music & Sound
We have the “know how” in the team but not the time to focus on music and sound, since it takes quiet some time to make. So we invited two new persons to do this.

Pontus Rufelt will make all the music for PoH and you have already heard a bit of it in the “teaser trailer” (yes it’s his music, it’s not music taken from Hans Zimmerman). Pontus is the first “external resource” that we use, but when we heard his creations we all said that he was the guy to make the music.
Josef will make all the sound effects for the game. We know and have worked with Josef on other games such as “In Other Words”.

So welcome Andreas, Pontus and Josef!

Tags: AI, engine, gameplay, music, Penalty of Heroes, programming, SFX, shader, sound effect

Before I post what we discussed on todays weekly meeting, I just want to post a picture of the “Databox team” (we who makes “Penalty of Heroes”).  Some people are missing though, from left to right, Dwarf, Jakob, Baba, Jona Nixi, Stoffer, Håkan (in the tree).

We had a short meeting today since we have a lot of things to do. Things we discussed were the use of shadows in game (we have done some research of it), when we should release screenshots (more “tech” is now in and it starts to look more like the final game). We also discussed how we should divide the programing tasks (we are 4 programmers now) and the sound fx and the music in the game.

Today and tomorrw we will have some nice visitors at our office, so we planed a bit of that and we also cleaned the office : ) We probably post a post in here about the visitors in a few days.

* It’s great spring weather right now in Sweden around 20+ Celsius (68+ Fahrenheit), blue sky and it’s been like this for about 2-3 week now (I’m outside right now, really nice to have wireless broadband)

Tags: game, meeting, music, office, Penalty of Heroes, programming, screenshot, sound fx

Hello there dear readers, this is Tobias dropping in for an update.

Lately Ive been doing a lot of texturing and animation work which generally isn’t a very fun process to watch since it involves alot of smaller tweaking and jumping back and forth between different applications.

Part 1

Now on the other hand, I have the honor of showing you a short video of when I’m modeling the base mesh of one of the grunt enemies in PoH.

Generally, modeling a base mesh isn’t very troublesome since Ive made a habit of studying concept images and discussing any question marks with our lead artist before I start. The problems with creating a character start later on when more of the technical matters come into picture.

Part 2

I guess the biggest issue I had with this character was to get the right proportions. Getting the right chest-leg and chest-arm ratios and so on. Other than that, hands are always a pain in the *** to model.

Enjoy!

Tags: concept, image, mesh, modeling, Penalty of Heroes

The last weeks we haven’t had weekly sprint due to Easter and also because we had to finish up things we haven’t completed. Now it seams that we’re starting to get back on track and in the near weeks you’ll be able to see that : ) Our team is also growing a bit, but we’ll tell you more about it in the next few days.

Code:
AI programming
Get shadows to work
Sync normal maps in the engine
Vertex shaders
Basic collision

2d:
Help to fine tune 3d models

3d:
Fine tune animations

Level editor:
Fine tune bloom
Make levels more complete

Narrative:
Research

Tags: 2d, 3d, basic collision, easter, level editor, narative, normal map, programming, vertex shader