#xenophever

A fresh and wild Wednesday Post appears!! So, for starters, sorry; last week’s post got lost in translation while we where preparing for the MAGIC. I’ve been chastised for it, and everything’s back to normal. We are fiery! The preparations are coming to an end, and our excitement rises….

This Friday, we go to Monaco, in Florian’s car for 4 hours to a lovely airbn’b, where we’ll spend the night.

After that… We show off the game at 15h30 in the Grimaldi Forum of Monaco, and then… We’ll see.

There. That’s the weekend’s program. We’ll livetweet this day and the day before, so if you’re interested in our adventure, come check it out!

To go with this post, here’s an artwork by Raquel and a small playlist Xenophever-themed! https://soundcloud.com/nisce-1/sets/funky Thank you for tuning in for our Wednesday report, remember to reblog, retweet, share depending on your social media (Links down below)

Twitter : https://twitter.com/xenocorp_team

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/XenocorpTeam/

Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/company/xenocorp/

Newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/Xenocorp

List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on. This can be writing, art, vids, gifsets - anything at all!

I was tagged by @illusivesoul. Thanks ! o/

1. Halfway Home Still in hiatus, though I will begin rereading the story this sunday. Then... Editing forever.

2. A drawing for my game Xenophever I started today, but I’m really happy with how it’s coming along. :33

3. A random start of a oneshot I probably won’t finish I was doing that just now, but I’m too tired to finish it tonight, if ever. It’s some kind of angsty post-breakup fic of Aria/Mordin from Aria’s point of view, which is a super SUPER rarepair, but I really enjoy it and its potential in term of emberish intensity, and how it’s a very bad idea for everyone involved.

4. The outline of Halfway Home’s follow up story Because yes. There is more. Halfway Home’s entire...thing is kind of a REALLY big project, but it’s been almost three years and I’m still thrilled and still really want to explore the story. Plus there are scenes and characters in this specific part I reaaally want to write.

During the month of July, the reality of what we were about to tackle was no longer to be ignored. I did not touch anything related to the game during that time, but the thought of going independant is not something I could easily ignore. I've been picturing myself as a future independant for several years, being somewhat aware of my own inability to work by usual studio's rules (sleep patterns mostly). But actually taking the leap is another business entirely.

When Florian, Louis and myself reunited, we were aware of the complexities ahead. First off now nobody would be pushing us but ourselves ; every step in the way would have to come from our own initiative. So we considered what those first steps might have to be. First off, we had to prepare an overarching plan for the entire production, consider who we might need, and of course, well, money. Reconsidering the game through the lens of the mistakes we had made during the prototype production was also top priority for us to picture exactly what we might need to build a solid plan. Design decisions, art decisions, production decisions... And don't even get me started on the administrative and financial wordings we had to absorb for the journey. But what mattered was ; we were back together and ready to make Xenophever a concrete reality.

(figure above : Flo not being too happy about my papparazzi tendencies during the first brainstorming)

Now I'm gonna be honest ; those last months have been complicated. We have made great progress overall, especially in administrative departments. Also we've taken the massive decision to betray Game Maker (I'll never forget our sleepless nights together) in order to develop the game on Unity3D, in hope to use a more malleable engine that will handle our artistic decisions with more ease. Ontop we have taken several design decisions for the game to be more fun, more accessible -with a less crowded UI and slower learning curve. We also designed a dynamic sociopolitical system, but more on that later. And Flo is working into reshaping the artistic direction overall. Still, the amount of work ahead, the decisions to take and the risktaking factor in overtaking such a journey is slightly terrifying. Hopefully our support system is here and well, and I think we're heading on the right direction. Also two of our houses almost burned in a forest fire, so that was fun. (seriously though. I have a personnal history of random dangerous events during the production of games that might or might not include exhibitionnists, but this mess was on a whole another level of apocalyptic red sky and rain of ashes. Tell me again how designing game is not an epic quest in itself.)

(figure above : dreams of unsustained cruelty)

But despite natural and administrative hazards, well, here we are. Right now we’re working on a new take on the prototype, so I’m busy coding all our new gameplay decisions in C# and almost not crying about it. But I think we’re manageing to create a way more satisfying user experience than our first take that was really heavy handed on system, and not exactly accessible to new players. Flo is rethinking the core vibe of our game in terms of visual identity and giving a new shine to our beloved Bartender, while Louis is busy with game design and production issues. Also we’re all running everywhere and in every direction at once in hope to tumble over money at some point. So during next months we’ll focus on creating a solid tutorial that will showcase a first glimpse at this universe for you guys, and tackle user experience issues from the get go. That, and boring administrative stuff.

This Tumblr will be our devblog, but not only. This feed will be our platform to communicate with you directly. We'll talk about our successes and our mistakes and we'll share this glittery world with you as we build it. Feel free to drop by, say hi, subscribe to our feed, ask us questions, and we'll be there to answer them.

We're also on Facebook! And Twitter! And Youtube! Thanks a lot for your time and attention. Now I'm off to do weird things on Excel that only game designers do.

(figure above, from left to right : “tired concern in the breeze“, “I see toilet glitches that are dead“, “Spiiiiiiine“)

The weird concept of Xenophever assembled itself into my tired brain four days before having to present a pitch to my videogame class as an end-of-the-year project. I had rattled my head for a good month so I could gather as many ideas as possible given I had just thrown away my original concept, way too personal and fucked up for the casual setting of a school project.

So instead I went for a glittery nightclub for aliens. Close enough. I had this coming to be honest.

Like your regular normie nerd, I carry this irrational love for everything astrophysical coupled with an utter inability to remember the scientific details of what I learn. And I do have a serious history of messing around with nightclubs in creative projects, though no clue as to why nightlife is a recurrent theme of mine. I've only been to a real nightclub once, only so I could destroy my vocal chords trying to have a conversation about VR gaming in Europe over the sound-quakes of a questionable DJ.

Yet, there is something I hold dear about the idea of nightclubs. Maybe it's the very concept of excess as a way to celebrate, to vent, to hide. Maybe it's the flip side of loosing control. Maybe neon lights are just that dope.

Or maybe I simply thrive on shoving a bunch of strange fictional people together and see what happens. Don't judge me. I design games for a reason.

So here I was at last, presenting Xenophever to my classmates with the original Powerpoint that fathered them all. To be honest I expected the project to die that very day, but two game artists asked to get on board as I was preparing myself to get reassigned somewhere else.

(yaaaay)

Funnily enough, most of what was presented in this original Powerpoint is still applicable today, but words don't make games. Prototypes do.

The first intention for Xenophever was to go 3D. To be honest that was mostly due to the team composition than to any gameplay or art necessity, but we still cut the cake in half ; the artists were to build something on Unreal Engine 4 while I was to come up with the first version of the paper prototype and its set of rules.

The first version wasn't that representative (nor that presentable), but it allowed us to pinpoint various problems before having to code them -which future me was very grateful for.

(I lost so many pawns that day)

After a first 3D test on UE4, we realized the current team did not really work for multiple reasons, and that 3D sounded good on paper but didn't really suit the competences and preferences of the lead artist Valentine -nor mine. So we rebuilt a team of 5, a team that was to become the first iteration of Xenocorp and worked together all through the school prototype, and we decided to return to a the more cartoonish rendering of 2D. And I finally admitted that I felt more comfortable working on Game Maker than UE4 (I had missed some courses that sounded essential for the game's ambitions, and could picture myself trying to solve issues on hard code more easily than using pre-built scripting boxes).

So now we were together. That's roughly the time when we started to come up with the archetypes for the aliens, even thus their first versions were a farcry of their final concepts. We also rebuilt another paper prototype in hope of gaining clarity over our problems. This time Valentine helped (I think it shows somewhat).

(I actually pinned it to a wall for the pic, because screw gravity)

Despite a very chaotic and unsuccessful first school workshop together (we do not speak of it), we could propose the first testing room to our teachers in time. There was barely nothing in it besides an animation that was not isometric in a world that was not that isometric either, and a moving system that was not what we had in mind. But the idea was there.

So here we were, the group of five that ended up working on the game. Louis, game designer and producer, Valentine, lead artist and character designer, Florian, animator first and foremost, and Maxim, user interface and environment artist. And me.

We flew apart during the course of the summer so we could relax.

RELAX. HA.

That's not a word I'm very familiar with.

During the whole month of august, I locked myself in a house with two cats and buffed up my Game Maker knowledge. I already had a bit of experience with the engine, but coding AI and complex game systems ? Not really. So I learned.

I wanted to have something tangible to present by September, with most basic systems implemented already in a bare-bones version of the game. So the AI and different alien species with their natures, a vague drinking system, satisfaction and stress, all the structures we had decided would be in at this point, and basic interaction with the NPC and between NPCs. And I kind of nailed this.

Here is what the game looked like back then.

(if you’re confused, well that’s understandable)

Also I wanted to work a bit on the paper prototype but my cats enjoyed the spot way too much for me to get anything done.

(figure above : cats being inconvenient for game design, or sacrificial table (interpretations may vary))

The path to completion for the prototype looked rough but manageable. It's a good thing I worked on the engine and the project during the summer more than going to the beach, because I sincerely doubt we would have been able to finish it in time if I had waited for the first day to finally explore the engine's possibilities.

But to be honest, that summer Game Maker camp was the easy part.

And what followed is a story for tomorrow.