@henrik_englund - Work in Progress, Chapter 2 Thread - The Journey Down: Chapter One

Hey, you all Journey Down gamers!

Mathias, Me and Theodor, had our first The journey Down, Chapter 2 meeting yesterday. Yayyy!! No time to celebrate and relax after the Chapter 1 launch.

We can gladly tell you that all our backdrops are painted and put up on our office wall and the "main" story have been written.
Soooo, now we just need to stick to the plan and actually building the Chapter 2. We got a massive amount of content that need to be built.
In this tread i will be posting, work in progress pictures notes and random stuff from the office. Stay put for the latest new!

I would be glad for input and thoughts.

My first chapter 2 task is to re-make Bwanas wire-frame for his mouth. In the first chapter i had a lot of problem with his super happy basic shape of the mouth.
This will make the lips flow smoother.

Thanks for your time.
Best wishes, Henrik, animator at Skygoblin.

Last night after work, i was inline skating the port of Gothenburg. I totally love the harbor. It has lots of some similarities to Kingsport bay in our game.



When i got back to the office later that evening Mathias had manage to sett up a mercurial project for The Journey Down, chapter 2 and also made a WIP title screen. It feels good to have started the process of making chapter 2. I think i will spend the rest of the day building blend-shapes for Bwanas face and sending mails to game sites and web stores. Btw, if you know someone that we have missed to contact. Please tell us. : )

Edited by: henrikenglund

Been trying to get my Chapter Two sketchbooks in order. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these thingies lying all over the place. Here's a quick sneak peek at some of the stuff I've been sketchin' for "Port Artue", the location most of Chapter Two takes place in.

The harbor theme. as Henrik points out, has a strong connection to our home-city of Gotheburg.
You'll find these bridges and lamp-posts everywhere here.

My plan is to mix the Gothic Gothenburg shapes with an oddly home-brewed afro-inspired style, lots of triangles and crisscross patterns. It should lend itself nicely to a pretty unique "afro-noir" blend.

Just finished Chapter One and looking forward to Chapter Two Would love to see a post on your Linux endeavors, both thoughts around development and your decision to support Linux. I hope Linux works out for you

foh: Thanks for the kind words! I'll see if I can convince one of our programmers to do some ranting on that subject. I personally haven't really been very involved in platform-specific issues. I mostly just draw and write stuff.

Here's another sneak peek at Port Artue. Morten's lighthouse (Animating this one is going to be FUN! :

Looks amazing! So excited for you guys

I love that picture! It made me think of the Discworld games, mostly because it seems to defy the laws of physics

Amazing stuff! Looking forward to seeing how this progresses, please do share more! You guys have such talent.

Thanks guys! Glad you're diggin' the style! Here's a look at "Rascal's bridge". Next project = erasing all the raindrops that I through force of habit just merged and saved into the picture, DOH!

Kao: Just wait till you see it animated. The thing oozes of ambiance!

Stay tuned for more.

Edited by: theowaern

theowaern wrote: Thanks guys! Glad you're diggin' the style! Here's a look at "Rascal's bridge". Next project = erasing all the raindrops that I through force of habit just merged and saved into the picture, DOH!

Kao: Just wait till you see it animated. The thing oozes of ambiance!

Stay tuned for more.

That sounds most excellent! Except for the part about the raindrops, some habits die hard I really like the atmosphere and the direction this is heading in. I can barely wait, but wait I will!

This just might prove to be one of the most gratifying adventure gaming experiences I've had since Grim Fandango. Speaking of which, I got a bit of a Rubacava feel the first time I heard of Port Atue - even though the similarities might end there with my feeling of it. I do like that it's inspired by Gothenburg!

Enough comparison with games of the past however. I'm staying tuned with my eyes and mind peeled for what you guys have in store for us in the future

Edited by: Kao

Yeah it's easy to start comparing games with other games and then get all blinded and start pointing out "this is better than that" - "that is better than this" etc. I see it as super-flattering however how often people compare TJD to Grim Fandango. In my eyes Grim Fandango might very well be the best piece of entertainment mankind has produced.

As for Rubacava: Rubacava has a lot more class than Port Artue, and a way smoother beat. Port Artue is a rough place with a lot of badness going on. Have you seen the movie "On the waterfront" ? Well, it's more that and less the "Casablanca" of Rubacava.

Here's a process pic from chapter one I found lying around on my harddrive, I thought someone here might find it interesting. I apply pretty much the exact same process now while working on chapter two. It's all done in photoshop

.

Edited by: theowaern

Hey! Could u post a bigger version of this process?

ANtY93: I've got another process pic coming up soon, that one is bigger. Glad you're interested!

Here's some spankin' new Chapter Two concept art for y'all!

I'm currently toying around with Bwana's new look. For various plot-related reasons, Bwana winds up a little more hard boiled in the second installment of the game. I'm currently leaning towards this rugged dock-worker look. I previously made a sketch where he had a long coat on, for that nice noir look, but Henrik vetoed against it for animation reasons. A decison I have full respect and understanding for, considering all the wacky stuff we will be exposing Bwana's poor mesh to.

Hope we get a little bit of good weather in Episode 2! (or a "find Bwana a hat/umbrella because he refuses to go out in that rain" puzzle)

Really loving the insight into the process!

Awesome stuff, theowaern! Thanks for sharing

Just made some tweaks to the arm rig of Bwana. For chapter 2 he will have the feature of longer arms and the possibility to reach his head with his hands! I know, its pretty awesome guys!! It will be so mush fun animating for the next chapter.

Link to awsome bwana GIF

Edited by: henrikenglund

Hooray, thanks for keeping us updated! I'm so excited to see more!

<3 <3

jfrisby: Bwana needs no umbrella, he's got superdreads! Thanks for the kind words.

Cheeseness + PeachyAnne: As long as people keep enjoying this, I'll gladly keep on spamming!

Here's a pic I just took of our coffee table. It is currently the happy home of Henrik's strange orange plant and my Journey Down plot strips. It's like notepad.exe, only linebreaks require scissors. The plot is almost starting to make sense! Yay!!!

If only I could zoom in to see the words!!

The plant is super cute too!

PeachyAenne: I think he grew it from a seed he found in a fruit he ate. Typical Henrik behavior.

Here's another process pic - this time featuring one of the new environments of chapter two. It's lacking polish but it' sort of represents what the finished pic will look like. This one I actually painted years ago when I started work on Chapter Two - before the HD release of Chapter One was even thought of. Hopefully it gives some insight into the process from thumbnail to pseudo-finished backdrop:

Edited by: theowaern

Beautiful, as always Hope to see The Journey Down in a Humble Indie Bundle in the future! I think it would be a nice fit, you've pretty much done all the work already: You're on Desura, Ubuntu Software Center and all major platforms. Amazingly done, impressive work from a small game studio and too me that's proof that you're all passionate about games and making games

Talking about vegetation, what are you growing in the flatbed scanner? We recently got some "Örtig" from IKEA: Ikea.com
Watching them little seeds growing and turning into bigger and bigger plants is surprisingly soothing. And then I'll eat them!

I love learning about the process of games, especially TJD! Thanks for sharing! <3

The artwork is beautiful as always!

We are growing dill and parsley in the scanner. Outside on our balcony are we growing zucchini, chilli, bambu, melon, basil, ginger, coconut tree and habanero. O boy it will be a feast! Farming rocks! I can recommend Jungleseeds.co.uk

Edited by: henrikenglund

Nice! I'm gonna have a look at that web page Too bad my balcony is pretty windy, I have to bolt the pots to the floor... sort of.

OnT: I noticed that DoubleFine had The Journey Down on their poll for DF Game Club a month ago or something like that. It didn't make it to the top, but at least it's in good company (Games like DOTT, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Simon the Sorcerer etc etc).

What, no cacti!? Kidding!

You have quite the green thumb, Those poor plants would die if i tried my hand at planting.

Foh- That's great to hear about TJD getting recognition from DoubleFine!

Love the garden tour -- a beautiful place for game design to be coming from..

@foh: I'd been pushing for The Journey Down to be one of the DF game club games too! We pick games, and play them, and then chat about them once a week.. It's a pretty modest-sized group (maybe 40-60 people), but it'd be fun. Greg Rice, the producer of Double Fine Adventure, said something in a chat along the lines of [The Journey Down] "has crazy good pacing."
It might be worth it for Theo or Henrik to get in touch with @GregRicey about trying to do it... Maybe offering to come by to answer questions during the chat, or give some small discount on the game to entice people to try it out for the occasion (or I guess they could play the free version).