With great excitement we let you know that we started work on Loophole. Our first game, and submission for the upcoming Game Jam organised by the Sandbox.
Read More about that on the official post on Medium.
A big difference with this Game Jam is that game developers will be able to use their custom assets in their own games, without total exposure on the marketplace. This brings the level up and can massively contribute to the quality and overall consistency for the game.
Meet Loophole
Loophole is half an adventure, half a riddle to solve. In a 4×4 terrain, a cascade of events will reveal to the user the plot, and through intuitive puzzle solving and immersive explorations, the user will gradually connect the dots and arrive to a twisted realisation. Or Not?
Landscape design
Our workflow heavily involves Magica Voxel and other 3D software like Blender. Starting in Blender we sculpted a landscape that we later converted into Voxels, and we further customised in Magica.
We followed an awesome approach by Entero Positivo that involves a conversion from Magica Voxel to Game Maker file. So essentially in Magica Voxel, every single voxel corresponds to a block, and each of the palette colors is mapped to a block biome (for example shades of gray will be converted into cement blocks upon conversion). Read the full story here with a fully detailed workflow.
We wanted to follow the same approach because it would allow us to have a more holistic perception of the landscape, as we were shaping the storyline. At this point, it would have been inefficient to make the adaptations in Game Maker, due to the limitation of the tools. On the other hand, the environment in Magica Voxel was far more easy to manage, and allowed the creation of consistent and refined block structures.
At the time of writing this post, we have sent the file to Entero Positivo who kindly offered to make the conversion, and we are standing by for deployment in Game Maker.
Custom Assets
There will be custom assets created specifically for the game, but we always take into consideration the overall usability of the asset in the contexxt of the community. In that sense, it would be great if our assets could have an underlying neutral feel, but still maintaining a character on their own, and being consistent with our story.
Asset interoperability and cross-game consistency in the broader sense is something our team is heavily interested into exploring. Coming from a web design background I can personally make the comparison with using 3rd part design assets in a website or UI. It is a challenge to keep a mixed style consistent within the same environment, but this limitation might eventually become a trigger for clever solutions.
Here is a list of some custom assets we are working on
- Spaceship: A modular collection of sci-fi parts that can be composited or used as standalone entities.
- City structures: A modular system of city buildings
- Generators: Devices that harness energy
- Key Fractals: Key elements for Quests and game progress
- The Portal: One place to rule them all
Next Steps
As soon as we have the map deployed as a Game Maker experience, we will start building the logic and develop the game. In parallel we are working on finalising the assets, in order to make them available for the game environment.
Stay in the loop and learn more about our progress, workflow and challenges.