Development Blog

Hello guys,

After some reconsideration, I decided to re-purpose this blog as a development blog.
It will act as an online diary of sorts, where I will record the smaller things concerning the development of my game project - "Legends of Zeranoth".

Hopefully, I will record stuff on a daily basis, but we'll see.

A lot of things have happened in the time between I left this blog and today.
The game's story changed a bit (which caused an artist to quit) and a musician joined the team a week ago.
I really like his style and hope to showcase it in the near future.

However, when it comes to the graphics, I hit a snag or two.
While I'm pretty good at pixel art, let's face it - I'm not an experienced 3D modeller.
The reason I considered 3D is because:

• You make the model once and then animate it. Unlike spriting, you don't have to re-draw everything for every single frame.
• I'm a huge fan of classic PlayStation games and their low-poly aesthetics (which will likely be the next trend, since pixel art has been done to death).
• I got a full version of 3DS Max 2012 for like 1 Euro in a local store, so why not give it a try?

Well, quite frankly, learning a new tool while trying to hold on to a fulltime job is barely doable.

You know what would have been really cool?

I saw some pretty amazing low-poly models made by the guys from Hive Workshop. These guys create 3D models for WarCraft 3 and they're pretty good at it. Maybe it worth to ask them for help, but how?

I'm also considering making a quick prototype in The Games Factory 2.

I've read an article about the making of Blizzard's latest online card game Heartstone and it inspired me to do this. There, they made the complete game prototype entirely in Flash before the main team even started working on it. Essentially, they pointed at the PC in the corner of the room and said "this is the game, now re-make it", which is pretty neat, but unconventional. However, it gave the project a much-needed structure and showcased what's so great about the game.

Hopefully, I will able to do the same soon enough.

-Michael