We had some requests about two week ago that people wanted to have a look at us working at our office. So here’s a video, though from our old office (we just moved), of us at work. This is how it looks like when things are running smoothly and everyone is in.

At first you’ll see Nixi working on some concept art, then a quick look at Jona texturing, over to Jakob coding, to Dwarf making level art, to Andreas play testing, back to Jakob, and then to Jona and Nixi again. The man with the camera is King Klepot aka Håkan.

So, time is starting to run out and the things to do starts to really pile up and in the middle of is half of the team is going to Nordic Games next week.

Code
- Sound & Music (Jakob)
- Change diffuse light (Baba)
- Calibrate particle effects (Baba)
- Optimize code (Jakob & Baba)
- Vertex shader (Baba)
- Game over screen (Jakob)
- Movement & camera (Nixi & Baba)

Animation
- Collision boxes (Tobbe & Jona)
- Frame on character that will detect damage (Tobbe & Jona & Nixi)

Level optimization
-Level 1 (Dwarf)
-Level 2 (Dwarf)

Trailer
- Content (Stoff)

Exhibition booth
- Get all measures & printing details (Stoff)

Other thing
- Gameplay test on Friday, demo done on Thursday

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

The level two was decided to be a swamp kinda level, mainly composed by swamp elements, but also with a cross fade from the forest in the beginning, the swamp would even stretch a bit into the level 3. Actually most levels will have similar planning like that to ease the transition between the environmental graphics.

The feeling of the swamp environment was changed after time, from the beginning a muddy section of the open forest area to the up-to-date widespread evil and dark much more strange looking area it has become at this point.

The references for the latest sketches are mostly made up, the trees thou have partly influences from actual far east swamp vegetation but they are much more exaggerated and mutated of course. Well things still are to be added (mostly minor items thou), anyhow not grouse enough for the moment:P but overall a glimpse of that to become can be found in the sketches.

Everyone has more than their hand full and on top of it Easter is coming this week. Which probably means that we’re losing some work days since some of us are going to visit our families. Also we might have to present last weeks canceled presentation. Well that’s life : )

This week sprint looks something like this:

Code:
Continue work on shaders
Implement other features

2d:
Concept art for bosses
Concept art for alternative enemies

3d:
Continue making enemies
Put textures on 3d models

Levels:
Continue making level

Narrative:
Explanations for all people and enemies in the game

Marketing:
Sleep and fishing : p

Today I finished writing the last level. Yeehaa! As usual I can’t say much about it, hence spoiling the goods. But some interesting new story elements have been brought in, as some new events in the game play. These events will hopefully give the players a taste of what our definition of hack n slash is all about. I really do have high expectations of this game. Everyone has been working their /&%¤# off so far and we still have A LOT more to do before releasing PoH.

Once in a while when I design the levels it comes to the point when it seems like a good idea to make a mood painting of the surroundings. It could be in the beginning of the research or for the writer to have something to relate to, for commercial uses or just for the hell of it.

Anyhow, the main idea is to give an overlook of the referred level and it’s core-elements, color setting, general feeling and so on. Here are some samples of such pictures, in this case mainly for presentation purposes.

Yesterday I started showing off my paint skills in order to give the graphic and the level designers a more detailed view of my levels. It does not look great, but at least it will give them more information of what and where the different challenges on each level are. I only hope my time line/pictures/manuals are clear enough so they can understand what is going on as I write.

Speaking of levels. Today I got half way into the sixth level. Unfortunately, because of you who read this DEV-blog, I cannot leak any information regarding the content or coolness of the level. What I can say is that if you like pink ponies or naked 90 year olds, this level is NOT for you. Neither are any of the other levels for that matter. Whoops! Sorry to spoil your pink or naked expectations. Btw the fifth level is going to be intense. Dammit I did it again.

Ps: And so will all the other levels be…
Ps2: Doh!

Because of lectures and misjudgments of our animations, we didn’t make last week sprint goals. We’ll make it up this week instead, which means working 10+ hours/day

This week sprint looks like this:

Code:
Physics and collision system
AI system

Graphic 3d
Animate all characters with textures
Model enemies for level 1-2Artists
Make list of all the enemies

Level
Sketch on level 5
Continue building levels
Make level shares list

Narrative
Continue as usual
Trailer
Suggestions for the next trailer

Level editor
Implement scripting according to schedule
2d menus

By the way, the spring seams to have arrived : )

I know that we haven’t showed you so much from the actual game. But I promise you that in the next month we’ll be showing of some in game shots and maybe even some videos.

So I thought it was time to show you how the drafts and sketches of the first level in the game looked like.

Stoffer (narrative) and Håkan (producer) told me that the start of the game would be in a grand city (the heroes hometown) and it would later transcend into a nearby forest.

As reference material to the city I used pictures from Minas Tirith, the ruins in Oblivion, the Roman Empire, and inspiration from modern cities. So it’s a mixture of all of that : )

The inspiration material for the forest I used different pictures of forests. The main object for me is to make the forest more interesting and alive that in normal “forest levels” in side scrollers.

At first we had “Scrum sprints” that lasted about 4 weeks, but after the first sprint we decided to divide each 4 weeks sprint into 4 smaller “weekly sprints”. This so that the goals were more easy “to overview” and reach. This is roughly what the sprint of this week contains:

Code:
- Physics & colliding system
- Implement character control (hit, jump, magic and so on)
- Sketch on AI system

3D graphics:
- All the main characters done and animated
- Model enemies

2D graphics :
- Textures for all the main characters
- Concept of gems & gem system
- Graphics to the teaser

Level editor:
- Implement scripting

Narrative:
- Continue as planed

Levels:
- Continue making levels

Start on teaser

Today I finished the rough outlines for level 1. Some questions still remain though. Is there lack of information about the main story? Is there too much information? And is it good enough? Of course it’s good enough=) I just hope my combination of story and humor will fit. Dwarf and I are working together now on level one with the design as well. Exchanging texts and sketches with each other let both of us have lots of material for building a level. Mainly I write a shortened script with narrative and playable checkpoints which I present to Dwarf. Then he makes sketches of what I’ve written, which we finally present to Håkan who decides if it fits with our game.