[DevLog] Mr. Puffin in The Dark Castle

[BigJKO]

I'm just gonna create a thread here in Game Dev, because this isn't just a jam game anymore. I'm still figuring out how large to scope the game and such, but I definitely want to try and make something out of this Mr. Puffin.

 

I'll update this first post later, but just wanted to get this started.

 

Here's some Explosions!

 

[Ben X]

That looks really sweet!

 

I was going to copy paste some of our Slack private conversation here but it's been deleted already, so to summarise:

 

Very excited to play the final product!

Needs lots of Hellboy-style environmental storytelling: particularly the owners' corpses sitting there staring at you

You should put some filters on a load of your Cwine art and use them as battered old paintings for the walls

A cheap and easy way to suggest more space without building it is to have cave-ins at the entrances to other wings of the castle (which fits with the delapidated feel)

Once it's done, you should totally make a version where you replace Mr Puffin with Hellboy and tweet it at Mike Mignola

 

[Problem Machine]

Reusing a generic cloud poof asset in all these different ways with a color tween is clever. Is that a common technique or did you come up with that?

[BigJKO]

I think Wind Waker reuses one or two cloud particles for a whole bunch of effects, just with different color variations. I know Super Mario 3D World uses these kinds of mesh particles and I imagine it reuses it for many different effects. I think it's a common technique for most games.

[theschap]

Those are great. 

[phill]

Looking great bigjko! Puffinw as definitely one of the stand out games as far as visual impact went. I couldn't believe how good it looked when I played through it! Really pumped that you're going to put some substance into the game, I think it has legs!

[BigJKO]

I've been doing some work over the last couple of weeks on this. I've started refactoring the levels to use an awesome plugin called Realtime CSG. It basically makes level-editing in Unity function a bit like the old Unreal level editor, with brush subtractions, making adding more rooms and archways a breeze!

 

Also, I've started doing hand-painted normal maps, which is a lot of fun.

 

And some more environment props.

[Jake]

I love RealtimeCSG. I've been using it a lot lately. 

[Ben X]

That all looks very promising, glad you're still working on this!

[theschap]

Those level tools take me back. Are you planning to extend the level or just rebuild it for now using the new tools?

[coughlinjon]

Wow - so THAT is how people finish making real levels... Anyone have a preference between ProBuilder and Reatime CSG? Those are the two I'm seeing as pretty good.