Project Aron Windows game

17 comments by MyDopefish on Apr 17th, 2011

Today's topics:
01. Character model and concept
02. Closed testing
03. Team members and recruitment update
04. Soon in a future near you

01. Character model and concept
There's been some progress on the first playable character model, with the concepts and initial brush work for it. We have also created concepts for the style of our third faction, which you can see a concept of a male and female below.

02. Closed testing
For Project Aron we've decided to throw away all of the original movement and physic handeling from the default UDK, and reworked everything from the ground up.The first closed testing build has been sent out to our followers, and the initial feedback seems really positive!

These were the implemented features of that build:

• New friction
• New air-control
• Walking
• Crouching
• Sprinting
• Sliding
• Jumping
• Crouch-jumping
• Wall-running
• Wall-jumping

If you've recieved a invitation to the closed testing, but haven't yet tried it or filled out our survey, please take a moment of your time to try it out and give us some feedback. The more you tell us, the better we'll be able to tweak the game to perfection.

Below you can see a comparision video of the physics from UDK and Aron, aswell as a speedrun of the closed testing level. Please note, everything you see in these videos are placeholder art and shouldn't be considered part of our final style or quality.

UDK vs Aron physic comparison

Closed Testing 01 - Speedrun

If you want to participate in our closed testing, be sure to track the game and follow us here on Moddb/Indiedb.

03. Team members and recruitment update
We've had some restructuring in the team, with some members leaving us for other ventures, and some people having to ramp down their activity on the team. This have had a positive effect as we're able to predict more clearly what we'll be able to create for each milestone.

The drawback is that the scope for our first release have been scaled down to only feature player movement and the time trial mode. We'll continue working to implement the melee and spell combat after that.

Core team:

• (Project Lead) Tobias 'Dopefish' Lundmark - Linkedin
• (Lead Programmer) Firtina 'toxicFork' Ozbalikci - Linkedin
• (Lead Sound Designer) Seann 'Big Dirty' Maria - Portfolio
• (Sound Designer) Hrishikesh 'Rishi' Dani - Portfolio
• (Environment Artist) Jonathan Armstrong - Portfolio
• (Level Designer) Matt 'MJL' Lefevere - Portfolio
• (Character Concept Artist) Patryk 'CZERW' Reczko - Portfolio
• (Character Modeler) Matthew 'Lapis' Tan - Portfolio
• (Writer) Andrew Dobbs - Resume

Additional help:

• (Composer) Ryan 'Morphed Productions' Olson - Resume
• (Voice Acting) Ricky Grove - Site
• (Technical Artist) David 'leviatan1001' Miranda - Portfolio
• (Cascade Magician) Steve 'Elude' Bryan - Video

We're still mainly looking for additional coders, animators and a environment concept artist. Of course we're still open for all applications, so if you're interested in joining us write an application to: zombiraptor@gmail.com

Every application should have a short description of your previous experience, and come with a sample of your work or portfolio.

04. Soon in a future near you
As mentioned previously, we'll have to scale down our initial release to be a time trial only version of the game, but with that goal we hope to present a open testing build sometime around June/July.

Here's a list of some of the upcoming features that we hope to implement before June:

• Ledging/Climbing
• Dodging
• Vaulting
• Auto-stepup in mid-air (so you can jump in staircases)
• Updating air control with acceleration and deacceleration
• Proper slope behaviour
• Proper fall damage
• Landing roll

We also hope to have a story animatic ready for your viewing pleasure by then, featuring voice work from the ever so talented Ricky Grove, and a original theme by Ryan Olson.