Finally, the Flying Golem is coming to life!

Thanks to Kersti's awesome concept art for the Flying Golem, our vision for it is coming into reality:

Pretty cool, right?

And I am working hard to accurately bring her concept into 3-D, and then into the world of Chime. Usually, I am a strict polygons-only sort of modeler, so you wouldn't believe how much trouble I had getting Maya curves to behave like this!

Meetings and Consecutive Tethering Particle

So this weekend the Programming/Mechanics/Puzzle design team had a meeting to all get on the same page about what exactly it is that we are going to accomplish this quarter on the mechanics front. We are now all on the same page, and we have a much more solidified idea of the exact functionality we need from each mechanic.

We had a small group meeting earlier today. We discussed, among other things, some gameplay improvements that can be made to Level 1. These improvements deal with making Level 1 more about exploration, and revealing the narrative to the player as gameplay progresses.

We also decided on which bell concepts we wanted to use for what purposes.

Flying Golem Bell - calls the flying golems
Gravity Bell - suspends gravity
Wind Bell - calls bursts of wind
Level 1 Bell - used for environment exploration in level 1

And on a programming front, minor improvements have been made to the slingshot mechanic. Also, the particle effect for player feedback for consecutive tether switching has been implemented and looks pretty cool. This led to the discovery of a small bug concerning the consecutive tether switching, but it has been remedied. Huzzah!

Also, this happened.

Look Development: Colour

Another treat today, Nicole Brunken has been working on colouring Lazarus' architectural line work, in the hopes of securing what colors and values will be making it into the final game. 

As it was before, our inspiration is stemming from the saturated colours of the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Oh! How colourful!

Here is the direction we have so far: 

Architectural Consensus and a Treat

Along with the rest of the Environment Team, Lazarus has been at work trying to come up with the visual mash-up of architecture that the group had discussed before. The following is a few of the sketches she's devised so far.

And here's a treat! This is one of Lazarus' environment pieces, colored by Nicole Brunken, in order to get a feel for the colours that will be used in the new environment.

Concept Art Begins!

On the Environment front, the Concept phase is in full swing as block-outs are being made, puzzles are being created, and sketches are being sketched... The following are a few pieces made by Lazarus, in the hopes of getting the style of our environment nailed down.

A Cage/Home for potential 'flying' golems.