This week we were focused on making prototypes and testing out different mechanics,

For programming, we added support for multiple features, such as the weapons wearing down with use or a sleeping monster that needs food to remain asleep. There is also the possibility of exploring for broken down components to reconstruct a vehicle (as a win condition). We also made existing features toggleable, so for example we can disable the need for ammo or change what resource is used for what,

During this week the artists focused on further developing the visual style and figuring out how to implement it in engine. We started working on the art bible for the game and  defining shape language, atmosphere and mood, colors and how they all work together. Especially with the isometric top-down viewpoint, readability is very important so the player can focus on the gameplay without being distracted by other visual input.

Shader prototyping:

For developing the visual style of our game in a coherent way, we need a base shader which we can then iterate on and make variations of. It is supposed to be a toon shader together with a outline material which resolves in a more simple imitation of the well known Moebius style. First we needed to figure out how the shader graph in Unity works and how to achieve a toon shader. Trying out different approaches and variations If you add a texture to the shadow part of the toon shading you can also achieve a very different stlye. After testing we had some different variation of shaders. Assembled in a small scene with some fog and a quick campfire vfx you can already see how the variations look in a environment with the mood we aim for. 

The fire vfx will be the focus of the scene and therefore should be the brightest and most intense light source. The current quick implementation doesn’t yet fit the visual style but already can be used for further prototyping.

For the outline material we created a shader which draws an outline based on the changes of normals and color. In a material instance you are able to change the threshold of each to get the result you want.

We explored the different pipelines of Unity and Unreal, although we made the decision to go with Unity.

   

Generally, we did some tweaking to numbers to see what felt fun, and we also fixed some minor things (e. g. the wolves properly run away from the fire now.

Concerning the Game Design elements, we made some further concepting.

For the Mechanics, we also designed some thumnails to visualize what the players will be able to do.

Finally we started working on an Art Bible document, to clarify the choices we are taking for the art direction.