Asunder

For those who are unaware, we've been building Asunder using the cocos2D iOS library, and (for the most part) the decision to use it is one that we haven't regretted. Yet with the recent release of Unity 4.3 and it's 2D support, we've begun to think of the possibility of jumping ship.

This is somewhat of a huge decision, as most (if not all) of the code we have written up until this point will need to be re-written (albeit the logic will more or less be the same). There are, however, a lot of potential pros; mostly concerning the amazing community support that Unity has (though cocos2D does have it's fair share of awesome devs out there) and the potential for releasing on Android.

Asunder Development Blog - Week 14

Because a couple of the member of our team have recently started studying again this year, over the last couple of weeks we've been trying to come up with a new work schedule that works for everyone. It's been a very frustrating time; trying to find even the smallest morsel of time for us to work together as a group.

Unfortunately, after many attempts at scheduling and a lot of thought from the team, we've decided that for now we're going to have the put the project to bed.

While we are all pretty sad to see this happen, in the end there wasn't much else we could do. This is a project that we all went into knowing that we weren't getting paid; it was purely something that we wanted to do, and as such more necessary obligations in our busy lives have had to take over.

We are still committed to seeing this project through to the end. When we will get back to making this a reality? We're not sure, and we plan to work on little pieces of the project when we find the time. Yet the one thing we want to say before we wrap this all up, is Thankyou.

Thank you to everyone who read our blogs, followed the Facebook page and talked to us in person about the project. You have no idea how much we appreciate your support, and how much it's helped us progress over the past few months. You guys rock.

Asunder Development Blog - Week 13

This week we mostly focused on implementing the rest of the platforming mechanics that will be present in the first character story. While most of the mechanics seem to be somewhat easy to implement, we still keep running into problems, particularly regarding collision.

One of the most difficult aspects of implementing a platformer, that we have found at least, is the mixture of physics and non-physics systems required to implement some of our mechanics. Generally speaking, you usually don’t want to mix the two, as non-physics behaviour can cause problems within the physics world calculation. However with a lot of ur mechanics, we found ourselves having to mix the two in order to have a certain level of control over the physics system that a purely physics based implementation just doesn’t provide.

After 3 months of working on Asunder, we also decided to have a little mini-celebration with home-made cupcakes (pictured above!) :D. We still have a lot more work to do to get this thing released on the App Store, but we’re still confident as ever that we can make it happen.

Asunder Development blog - Week 12

Another interesting week for our development team.

Having switched our focus to the final section of the first character story last week, we've been hard at work trying to get the rest of the platforming mechanics and 1st pass art assets implemented.

We've also been having a few important discussions as a team regards to the scope of the project, and what we can get done in order to (hopefully) have the game out by this year. Suffice it to say we ended up reducing the scope of the project quite drastically, however we've done so in a way that allows us to continue working on the project after release if we find that people enjoy it. At the very least, we'll have something on the App Store we can be proud of =]

Last but not least, this week we also showed a very rough prototype of Asunder at the first Pub Play testing night with other developers from Melbourne (photo attached). We ended up getting a lot of really interesting feedback, and also got to check out some of the other development projects devs are working on at the moment.

Artist Takeover Post #2 - Week 11

aka; Artist documentation that she actually does work post.

aka; Artist procrastination post.

aka; Artist can't sleep because she's nocturnal post.

So we've decided to skip ahead a bit in our game dev to the area in which the thick of action and suspense takes place, which SPOILERS it's the city. To get a rough idea of what we want the level to look like, I did a rough paint over of one of Ben's sketches of what a potential level may look like. Following that is an early days concept art of my idea for the city area and some of the possible assets we may use for doorways and windows, platforms etc.

Basically  I wanted the city to be very vertical, lots of thin skycrapers, I envision Charlie leaping over balconies from tower to tower, clambering up ladders and such. I also wanted to incorporate sexy sexy parallax. So I decided to utilise the classic sunset city backdrop to emphasise the contrast between foreground and background with the skyline utilising the parallax to maximum effect. I also really like the mood that the oranges sets as it brings closure to the level.

As for the  city itself, I wanted it to feel communal and have some organic material to make it feel somewhat homely. I didn't want it to be completely sterile and cold, so I plan to have some foliage within the city itself. Though there still needs a little more design work to find a happy balance where the assets don't look TOO fantasy orientated but also not too bland.

Hopefully in the coming week we'll see more of the 1st pass assets being churned out. Exciting times!

Hey look the artist finished something! Bree does Asunder icons/banners 2013; the blog; the experience.

Asunder Development Blog Week 10 - Writer's Thoughts

Hey everyone reading this, Beck Turton here, I am the writer for Asunder.

I suppose I'll start off with saying this is the first time I've written for anything even remotely like this. Most of my writing up until the point when I was asked to write for this game has been a few fictional stories and a lot of random poems. It's certainly been a challenge right from the start but I've loved every moment of it so far and hopefully I won't end up curled up in a ball crying by the end of it (we'll see).

I'm not entirely sure how I came up with the story for Asunder, it was a mixture of a lot of different things, being a gamer who LOVES RPGs, reading copious amounts of fictional novels and having a big imagination. I think personally I'm just in love with the idea of a story with real, relatable characters and a mysterious plot that keeps you guessing. It's also good to throw in a few morals in here and there and BAM you've got yourself a story. Well hopefully anyway.

The biggest challenge for me in writing this story so far has been the dialogue (I cringe at just hearing the word dialogue actually). It's really hard for me to convey all that I want to in just a few simple lines of conversation. What about the character's relationships? How much sarcasm is just too much sarcasm? (I say there's always room for sarcasm in my opinion, but hey sometimes you've gotta be seriously. Seriously.) It's hard also not to make it sound too cheesy and too stereotypical. But it's also quite possible that I am over-thinking everything, but my brain sure does love to do that.

This week I am (surprisingly) working on dialogue, and attempting not to pull my hair out, we'll see how I go. I'll have to report back to you soon to let you know if I've gone bald in frustration. Hopefully not because I like my hair.

But in all seriousness, I am really enjoying being the writer for this game, it's new and exciting and a goal that I look forward to completing one day soon.

Asunder Dev Blog - Artist Takeover Post 1, Week 9

Designated Artist #1 Reporting!

Hopefully this week we will be implementing some more lush and vibrant environments and beginning to develop areas more relevant to actual gameplay than precursor environments!

I have to say that one of the most exciting parts of working on Asunder is seeing the assets being plunked into the game and seeing the characters inside the world. Much kudos to Ben for making it really come to life. One thing I try to keep in mind whilst I develop the assets is a rich colour palette to create juicy scenery that keeps the aesthetics interesting. The colours are the easiest part for me personally, and the most difficult area to master is when to put down the pen and STOP RENDERING. Luckily Designated Artist #2 (Goldie) is much more proficient in that area and she pops out assets very quickly!

Anyway I think I've hogged enough of the Asunder blog spotlight for now!

Asunder Development Blog - Week 8

Been another busy week for the Asunder Dev team.

First of all, we're happy to announce that we now have a new artist on our team to help tackle the ever-growing list of assets! We spent our first work session this week getting her settled in; going over all the assets that need to have ready for our first complete demo build.

Speaking of which, we're planning to eventually have the game shown at one of the IGDA (International Games Development Association) Melbourne meetups, to help gather support/testers going forward. We'll keep you all up to date on when we rock up ;).

In regards to our overall progress, we're starting to kick things into gear. We now have the first 3 areas of the game pretty much built out, and we're now focusing on creating the rest of the characters for the first level, and we're beginning to build the next few areas. We've also begun designing the final areas as well.

If you haven't followed our Facebook page, we've uploaded new artwork (as we do every week), and new gameplay footage of the aforementioned first 3 areas that we've completed thus far. Link to the page is below if you want to check it out :D

We want to thank everyone who has supported us so far in development by liking the page, or the development blogs on Tumblr. We really appreciate it!

Hope you've all had a good week.

-The Asunder Team.

Asunder Development Blog - Week 7

First development blog for the year!

A lot has happened over the last couple of weeks. After drilling down a solid a list of art assets needed for the first level, Bree (our artist) and Ben(our programmer) have been busy producing/implementing environmental assets. Our writer (Beck) has also been hard at work writing the dialogue, and expanding on the characters/story.

Throughout development, we've tried to make sure that we're always implementing something new during our work sessions; whether that be an asset, mechanic, music etc. regardless of quality. We find this beneficial for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, it allows us to break shit! The earlier we discover that a particular asset is too big, or if a mechanic doesn't work within a level, the better. This also allows us to get a general feel for how all the major elements within the game work as a whole.

Secondly, and probably more importantly, it helps us stay motivated. Seeing a nice piece of artwork in photoshop, or making a box behave the way you want it to via code is all well and good; but the collaboration process is something that, we've found, can really help rally the entire team and push us forward.

We will be posting new artwork (and maybe even new gameplay footage) to the Facebook page very soon, and we're also hoping in week or so to have a new build on Test Flight, so stay tuned for that! If you'd like to help us test the game, we've included a link to signup for play testing if your interested :D.

Hope you've all had a good week!

Asunder Development Blog - Week 6 We have had a pretty quiet development week as we wind down for the holidays.

As promised however we now have a new build on Test Flight for you guys to try out, so if your interested just click the link below. If you have any problems installing/signing up for Test Flight, or if you want to leave us feedback on the build, or even if you just want to say hi, drop us an email at [email protected].

Test Flight Recruitment Link - http://tflig.ht/UijfEt

As mentioned, during December we will be taking a break from development to spend time with our families, and do all that holiday stuff. So from all of us in the Asunder development team, we wish you guys a great holidays! Thank you for the support you have given us so far, we really appreciate it =].

P.S. We forgot to feed the programmer the necessary litres of coffee, and so he decided to give artwork a shot to make you guys a going away present. Suffice it to say there is a reason we keep him chained to the desk and out of reach of any art supplies.

Asunder Development Blog - Week 5 It's been all about dialogue/cutscenes this week!

While we really want to make sure that these deliveries of narrative are short and sweet, we want to make sure that we pack as much character into the look and feel of the dialogue bubbles and cutscene actions (fading, camera movement etc.)

As such, the programmer has again been hard at work on building a system that will allow us to easily create cutscenes for all the levels going forward. In addition, the artist has been continuing to work on environmental assets, and has also completed the preliminary speech bubbles that you can see in the image above :P.

Hopefully by the end of the week we will have the cutscene and dialogue systems finished. Once that's done, we can really start building the basic narrative structure/progression in the levels. Very exciting stuff!

Hope you guys are having a good week so far, you shall hear from us soon ;).

Asunder Development Blog - Week 4

My god did a lot of stuff happen this week.

Had a very important meeting with the team on Friday, discussing the story and how it's going to be delivered. Also had a huge talk regarding the final product itself, and as a result I feel more confident than ever that we can get a product out ;).

Artist is hard at work with environmental assets, the writer is busy smashing out some dialogue, and I'm going insane tweaking the platforming mechanics! We will hopefully have another Test Flight build out by the end of November for you guys to check out.

If you still haven't signed up to be a tester for Asunder, just click the link below and follow the instructions. Hope you guys had a great week :D

We now have a Test Flight account for Asunder all setup and ready! So if you would like to help us test Asunder as it goes through development, then just click the link below ;)

Been spending most of today's work session trying to fine tune the physics platformer mechanics for the main character. We want to make sure that jumping and running feel as smooth and as natural as possible, because that's what the player is going to be doing most of the time.

Physics platformers have always been a bit tricky; it's not an exact science. Had quite a few problems regarding whether or not to say that the character is 'grounded' or not. Originally we had it so that the player was considered 'grounded', if they collided with the floor. This, however, was insufficient, as it didn't take into account the possibility of falling off platforms.

Other problems included slopes, which would result in the player skipping down them, rather than remaining planted to the ground as they walked up/down any slanted surface.

The good news is that for the most part these problems were fixed today, and the movement is feeling pretty good, fairly soon we will be setting up Test Flight account to allow you guys to start play testing and telling us what you think. We shall keep you posted!

Hope your all have a good week!