Yet another long delay in updates. How about one on a new card type? Blueprint Cards! These cards let you make new cards from other cards. Most games call that crafting. We do, too.
Read MoreViper’s Bite
Progress continues with The Land of Glass, this time in the form of a new song. I’m quite happy with this one.
“Viper’s Bite” will be the battle theme music for the Sekhtus Desert.
This song started off as the night-time, rock tune for our Global Game Jam 2016 game. I created the original draft in around five hours on little sleep, and it featured some okay-sounding electric guitar and organ. It was mostly unmixed and unmastered because I ran out of time to do those things.
I liked it then though, and I wasn’t going to just let five hours worth of work sit there like that. So I loaded it back up and re-purposed it.
The okay-sounding electric guitar is now an acoustic guitar–actually two of them, each sounding a little different from each other–and the organ is now a ney flute. Wikipedia says that instrument is prominent in Egypt and the surrounding area.
Like the last song I made for The Land of Glass, there was a nice amount of collaborating at work here. I built the basics, and my brother helped me fix a few things up, partly in pointing out which areas were horribly out of key. I’m a hair tone deaf and have problems with some of that.
And like all my other songs, this one has a nod to A Song of Ice and Fire, The Red Viper being a character from the desert city of Dorn. It’s a bit less in-your-face (and not as clever) as “When Winter Fell” or “A Storm of Sounds,” but it’s the best I managed to do without getting overly wordy.
I hope you enjoy!
The Land of Glass 2015 Progress Report
With the start of a new year comes both resolutions and reflections, and while we aren’t quite equipped with promising any of the former, we can certainly offer the latter. 2015 was a pretty busy year for The Regret of Vitrerran, and we’d like put out a kind of progress report of sorts. For those interested in the game, it’s only fair you know how far in we are; and for us making it, well, having this out in the open is very helpful.
What follows is a haphazard list of what goes into making a video game and how far we’re in. Please keep in mind that the percents are rough estimates and some categories are much bigger than others.
Read MoreDevelopment Update
Hey everyone, it's been another long bout of time between updates, meaning it's time for another apology. I really, really don't like these voids of silence, but right now, there isn't much progress to show. That might not change for awhile, either.
I've spent the last month or so working on dialogue, finalizing Herahk/Aros and Kvalt/Tylek's journeys through the first five dungeons we have mapped out. I won't lie, they've been difficult to work with. Those four characters have been my problem children from day one, and that maybe wont' change ever.
However, I've smashed their campaigns into something pretty special, and I think you'll like them, especially Herahk/Aros. I really, really like how they've turned out.
To put this into some perspective, the Word document with all of our video game's dialogue currently measures something like 30,000 words, give or take a few hundred. That's a lot. When Vitrerran is all said and done, it'll be the size of a small novel.
On the reverse, Joe has been working on more menu stuff. The last few major bits of programming we need were the buy/sell menu (complete with merchant) and a crafting menu. Well, they're in the game, though none of the assets are, so there's nothing to show for it yet.
I want to say soon, but drawing portraits for our merchant/black smith aren't high on the list of priorities yet. There's still so much more to draw first.
The future holds more work. Work work work work work work work! I plan on hitting up more levels, fully fleshing out the Sehktus Desert and Arboravin Jungle now that my problem children have fully walked through those areas. The thing is, I've already posted tons of pictures of those places, so more really might not mean much.
I also want to keep some things secret for narrative purposes.
Joe, on the other hand, is working on some card effects right now. We want our special cards to look like the kinds of foil cards you'd get out of a random pack of, say, Pokemon cards. I used to collect them when I was younger and damn it, card games need foil cards. It's just fun. A little random reward for your time.
That, honestly, shouldn't take him too long to finish up. I'm not positive where he'll go next, but I can imagine it'll be more design work or churning out more magic cards. The campaigns will be easier to balance when they're all in place; all we'll need to do is tweak their numbers.
So that's it for now. Vitrerran lives and will continue to live until it's done.
Read MoreMount Nefisigg: Snow, Castles, and Knights
As production for The Regret of Vitrerran continues, I'm finding myself heading back to older levels to spruce them up a bit or even completely add new parts. As I was building the interior of Castle Alboiss, it occurred to me that I've yet to write a blog about Vitrerran's ice level, which is strange since it's been fairly complete for a long time now and acts as the setting to our demo. It's high-time we've had a writeup about it!
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Read MoreLet's Build Vitrerran: The Aboravin Jungle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3MDux2Ce3Y
The Let's Builds are back, this time with a brand new level and from scratch. Joe also joins in on the fun, so there's two of us to talk and keep things interesting, which is for the best. We're still experimenting around with this, but we do want to keep this updated. We figure it's fun "under the hood" stuff, and you'll get a much better taste of how development actually works.
Plus, it's kind of fun.
~Chad
Read MoreA Let's Play of our Demo
We thought it might be fun to sit down and play through our own demo, to maybe offer some insight into the design work of our game and explain how the mechanics work while actually playing it. And then we opened our mouths...
I swear we had the best of intentions when we started.
We had fun though, and we hope you do as well. If this looks like something you'd want to try, please give it a download! We're still looking for feedback.
Also, if this is something you enjoyed, let us know. We had fun, and we'd certainly be up for doing more of this kind of thing in the future.
Read MoreAboravin Jungle: Trees, Wildlife, and Light
I've spent the last few weeks working on Vitrerran's jungle level, and holy crap am I happy with how it's turning out. Also, holy crap is what I'm doing time consuming! I think you'll like this one though.
Read MoreComparing Video Game Writing with Novel Writing
As development of The Regret of Vitrerran continues to chug on, I’ve taken a break from level design to return to the writing side of things. We’re getting ready to really start putting some major level pieces together, and that means the dialogue has to be finished and ready to go.
Having spent most of my free time over the last two months writing and editing long-form fiction, I’ve really been struck by how different video game writing is. That isn’t to say I find the differences surprising—I don’t—but they are interesting.
I find interesting things fun to talk about, so here go. To make my life easier (and to make this more interesting), I’m going to lead by example. What follows is the first conversation between Pakasoph and Caud told in long-form writing:
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Read MorePlay The Land of Glass Demo Now!
The wait is over, and now our demo available to play!
You can find it here on Mediafire and here on Google Drive
I feel like big projects should be measured in milestones, because let's face it, if you're working on something that you know will take years to finish, you can't spend that entire time stressing about release day. You'd go crazy!
Well, The Regret of Vitrerran hit two very big milestones in the month of April. We got Greelit on Steam, and today marks the release of our demo.
I'll be honest, I expected these to be further apart than they are, but I'm also happy to have them back to back. It really makes this whole thing feel official, like more than a hobby or "garage project."
It's also a nice package of overwhelming, elating, tense, nerve wracking, and exciting.
We hope you enjoy the demo, and the insecure artist in me needs to stress that it's a small slice of a very big, work-in-progress project.
That being said, please, please, PLEASE tell us what you think of it. We don't just want feedback, we need it. The Regret of Vitrerran can only get better if you guys find its faults, be they in sound, gameplay, writing, design, etc. That's all simply part of the process, so don't hold back.
But, you know, also find time to enjoy it. That's the end goal, and one we will hit before it's released. That's a promise.
~Chad
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