Bands and orchestras
December 11th, 2009
Sometimes it's intimidating to look at the credits of modern games: it's not unusual to see hundreds of names scroll by. How can we possibly compete with that? We're just four guys -- why should gamers play our game instead of big titles like Halo, Assassin's Creed or Gears of War? Do I think there's more ...
Season thumbnails
December 9th, 2009
Here are some thumbnails I made to try out some level ideas based on the seasons. It's important to work out the basic color palette before moving on to the textures. Thumbnailing is an easy way to compare ideas and pick the ones I like best. Which ones do you prefer? What makes them stand out from the rest?
Learning from linear level design
August 12th, 2009
I thought one of the best things about Lugaru was the freedom to try a level how you wanted to. This is a very different style from the more linear levels I designed while working on Darkest of Days (which just released a demo). Even though you have to make a smaller area look good in games that keep you ...
Rabbit facial expressions
August 11th, 2009
One challenge we face with Overgrowth, and with the Overgrowth webcomic, is mapping human emotions onto animal faces. Today I decided to experiment with that in my little sketchbook. Even though I'm not an artist like Aubrey, I mentioned in a previous blog post that it's always useful for game designers to practice drawing! I was still not ...
What are indie games?
August 9th, 2009
There has been a lot of talk about independent games recently, but nobody seems to agree on what 'indie' really means. Since we consider our game Overgrowth to be indie, I thought we should nail down a definition for the word! Technically, it means that the game is not funded by a publisher, which is true in our case, but ...
Camouflage, A Tempting Stealth Mechanic
August 6th, 2009
A lot of people have been asking us about stealth in Overgrowth and how we plan to take it a step beyond what was done in Lugaru. An exciting avenue of stealth, which Lugaru didn't explore, is camouflage. I can think of a few reasons why this might be awesome. Ease of Implementation In the real world, making legitimate ...
Armor Types in Overgrowth
August 5th, 2009
There are a few different styles of armor in Overgrowth, made from different materials. These materials affect how the armor works. For example, in the above image, the rabbit is taking a blow on a wooden buckler, causing the armor to splinter. It wouldn't take many hits to render the armor useless. There are two broad categories of armor ...