Throwback Thursday #3

As 2014 started, we began making proto-builds with different features to see how they interact. When you start making games, you have this idea that knowing what you want to do is half of the process of doing it. In reality, it’s about 20 percent, because as soon as you start implementing ideas, you run into all kinds of issues that you didn’t consider, which in turn take a million iterations to fix, adjust and get it all right. Some are nitpicks, some are game-breakers.

Our trial by fire was the pathfinding system, which is the core of the entire tactical game. Even though we decided that we wanted small teams of units, how these interacted with each other was critical; they had to be inteligent, but not melt a mobile processor.

2014 was the year where we clarified a little what we wanted, and the technical backbone of the game took center-stage. We even started optimizing from the get-go to make sure we have enough processor overhead for effects and eye candy.

2014 was also the year when we stuck our heads out and started networking with the rest of the world, indiedevs and players, mainly on Twitter and ScreenshotSaturday. We hope not only to build this game into the most badass version of it, but to support and inspire others as well!

So this post concluded the _long_ history of what we’ve been doing, we wanted to shine a light on the backstory to the stuff we’re doing now, make it clear that the road’s been a long one and we’re learning and doing our best just like everybody else, maybe just like you! And from here onwards, let’s do this!

Throwback Thursday #2

So 2012 rolls by, and we figure out that there’s a good reason why everyone is doing 3d games nowadays – easy modification, updating, and lighter on the performance too. That epiphany was one of the many “WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING?!!?!” experiences we had along the project. Lesson learned. Project has to be flexible, and path-of-least-resistance solutions are huge time-savers. Every time we blindly stuck to a rigid concept, we ended up wasting time grinding on it, only to find easier and better solutions by either scrapping or modifying it later.

So, the first 3d models were looking like this:

We were still hung up on the 2d animated look, so we wanted to emulate a cel-shaded effect with an outline. Very time-wasting and inefficient for performance, eventually scrapped. First units were the Archer, Spearman, Swordman and Hero unit.

Then more hero archetypes came to balance it out…

And being an off-shoot strategy, we had to sort the units into player colors, that spawned numerous shader tests would double the draw calls, only to ultimately fall back on using the standard Unity Masked Tint shader.

Everything was planned with modularity in mind from the get-go, so we made a versatile terrain kit that would work with a lot of textures, still using it. The first architectural elements proved to be too big, covering units, so we started working on a solution:

and so, the first tests to find a viable see-through shader for mobiles… unfortunately more trouble than it was worth, and ultimately scrapped. Hey, live and learn!

Throwback Thursday #1

Once upon a time in 2012, a bunch of ambitious co-workers decided to do a collab and make a quick, small game (isn’t that how they all start?). Soon after, their lunch breaks became a bit more interesting, with plans and stories of what they wanted to do.

In the beginning, the premise was a Tower Defense with some moveable units, 2d sprites on a 2d-tiled map. Now for some ridiculously early concept art:

The 2d sprites were made by rendering them and arranging them in sequence, much like the old 90’s games did, but as we were about to find out, it’s not the best solution performance-wise. Also, the tiles were hand-painted and time-consuming to make and to adjust so that they fit seamlessly. Needless to say, a ton of problems.

So we switched to full 3d, but more about that (including screenshots) later.