Meet The Stranger

Filming is about to happen for the Into This World Short Film and I am finalizing the other character in my cinematic tour de force to end all tour de forces. After my ITW short film comes out, it will pretty much make all other tour de forces before and after feel worse than watching Birdemic with a disapproving parent that doesn't "get it". Sorry Alan.

The other character in the short is known as The Stranger. In the game, he will be your local arms dealer and also upgrade your gear. He is very handy to have around but he is also not be trusted. While doing his usual scavenging, I think he might have found Ol' Uncle Willy's secret stash of meth and other recreational drugs.

Wow, this post apocalyptic wasteland sure does look like a well kept apartment building in the background. Hmmm... I'm calling shenanigans.

Hey, Classic Gameplay There, Bro.

My love for ye olde video games of yore heavily influence my decisions in making Into This World. One of these aspects is how the player controls the two playable characters:

The EDU Mech

The EDU Mech will fill the position of the "Heavy" archetype. This is usually reserved for soldiers, barbarians, or tank like characters in video games. The Heavy is for the most part slower but has a lot of firepower. Even though the mech moves slow it dishes out the damage in spades. In spades I says! It's essentially a God damned sexual Tyrannosaurus.

Just like him.

Drea

Drea is the classic "Ninja" archetype. She can pop out of the mech and hoof it if the player (YOU!) feels so inclined to do so. She's not a high heels type of gal so she is pretty nimble. Wall jumping, sliding, rolling and diving, all that shiz. The Ninja archetype is usually highly agile, but is balanced by the amount of suckage in the health department. Drea likes to jump but doesn't do much damage.

While the Edu mech has the ability to fire weapons and makes use of projectiles to keep enemies at bay, Drea will make use of her close ranged survival knife. She's gotta get in close and attack quickly.

Just like him.

Getting To Know The Regurgs

These fine gentlemen are known as The Regurgs. There are a couple of drawings in the Art Section (hint hint, go check it, yo).

The Regurgs are soldiers that have been eaten by the planet and then regurgitated for the planet's evil biddings. And not good biddings mind you because bidding are never good. Always evil.

These enemies will give Drea and her EDU mech some much needed enemies that will shoot back at her with projectiles and explosives. I still need to make the grenade throwing Regurgs and missile launcher Regurgs.

Pre Production Photos

I just wanted to share some photos I whipped up for the Into This World short film I'm directing. It's coming soon for the Kickstarter campaign. This is the concept behind the film: Drea versus pixelated enemies. This will be easy to make. Right? RIGHT?!

And a quick look at Drea's gun. No prop building behind the scenes on this piece. I really didn't want to take the time to explain it all. I think iI was busy watching Cinema Snob reviews at the time. Let's see... Foam, parts of a Nerf gun, flexible thin foam, misc screws, plastic bottle top, other stuff, etc.

New Wins!

If you saw my last post (and why the hell did you not?) you saw that I hated the way some of my older sprites and animations looked like (pardon my language) poopoo.

I used the enemy known as the Vespa as an example. The Vespa is also know as the mutated wasp. He is also known as Honey Bear when he comes over for dinner and a movie at my place. Even though he didn't stay the night, last Tuesday, because someone wants to take things slow while other people in the relationship want to get straight to the dirty stuff. But I digress. Despite his personality flaws, I did The Vespa the favor of redoing his sprites.

This is the very first Vespa that I did. This back when I wanted to keep the enemies very colorful and somewhat cartoony. looking back on this I still do enjoy the design. I haven't seen this in a couple of months. I might incorporate the face design in something else.

This is what the Vespa turned into after I decided on a certain color palette I wanted the enemies to follow. I wanted them to look more organic and mutated. And since most of the background comprises of guts which are primarily pinks, oranges, and reds. I thought green would be a nice contrast. Still, this animation is just... ugh.

This is (hopefully) my last rendition of the Vespa. He is more sporadic and I really enjoy his wings a lot more. They have a greater sense of speed. The second version of the Vespa looks lazy. The new one looks more menacing in it's behavior. I still made this one move around but staying within the 32 pixels in width (the wings overlap, I don't care) so it can chase you up narrow passageways.

 "I just noticed you need to shade his head more when it turns. Just saying."

 Hey. Nobody invited you to this party.

Old Versus New

Whenever I start a game project, I tend to get better with my animations over time. I tried putting together a River City Ransom game (FAILED!) and the first couple of animations I put together for that game were amateurish at best. Then over time I noticed the later animations and character designs got better and better. Which in turn made the older animations stand out too much with their shittiness. Or is it shittyness? How dare you red squiggle underline my spelling!

RIVER CITY EXAMPLES: OLD VS. NEW

This is the Glen character from my River City Ransom game. See the difference in his old ground flip compared to his new ground flip. If you can't see the difference, you had better get yourself checked out by some professionals.

Glen's Hadouglen (har har har) fireball move. The old version has little to no impact when Glen unleashes his fireball. The new version has way more frames and life to it. There is no way the older moves could exist in the same game with the newer moves. They look too stiff to be alongside their new counterparts.

Vespa

Erythro

Here is an example from Into This World of two different enemies. The Erythro and The Vespa. They are completely different from each other but the effort of animation put into both of them are on two different levels. Where as, I am proud of the hard work that went into The Erythro, I am ashamed of the Vespa and it's lackluster movement. Look at the thing. Can you not feel the power behind those wings? It's almost like Mothra is flying right passed your face.

The Erythro has it's own animation for flying upwards. The Vespa on the other hand, would have the same exact animation as flying forward, up, down, x, y, z, across the 8th dimension, etc.

I have already begun going back to the older enemies and rebooting them to give them more life and character. No more nudging pixels. I am going to take the effort and draw them frame by frame. And I mean it! Maybe! Definitely maybe.
Now I am going to watch the movie Definitely Maybe. Oh, Ryan Reynolds, you dreamboat.

Drea's Costume!

And there you have it. The final costume. The actress couldn't fit her arm through the wrist portion of the prop anymore so her robot arm looks a lot longer. It will be a quick fix (I'll tell her to lose some weight in her fat wrists, duh).

And I call her "the actress" but she actually is my lovely girlfriend. That's how she got the part for the film. Me being the director, I put her through the sexual gauntlet of the casting couch. Wink wink! Either that or she's an amazing actor and I wouldn't want anyone else playing her. 

Well... maybe Fran Drescher. That voice of her's is so soothing and angelic.