Hello there!
We've been pretty busy these past couple of weeks but we wanted to share some of the progress with you guys!
To give a bit more context...
Our initial plan for Realis was to have an explorer from another dimension walk through an abandoned version of our current planet, one where most life on earth had vanished for some unknown reason. Our explorer's mission as a scientist from their own reality was to uncover said reason for humanity's extinction, in order to document it and hopefully avoid the same fate in their universe.
While this does seem like an extremely complex topic to explore accurately, we wanted to bring awareness to issues such as climate change and war in a lighter tone than usually seen on most post-apocalyptical, cli-fi videogames. Therefore, we knew we wanted to have a clean visual look for our game, with lighter, desatured colors and full of foliage.
Concept Art
The concept stage of Realis' development was quite a lengthy process, as we wanted to first establish a clear visual look for our game, which is an important step towards visual storytelling.
Bo the Scientist
Our little scientist suffered many changes throughout the brainstorm phase! Bo went from being an astronaut, to a delivery boy and even an octopus at one point!
We soon decided that Bo would be an ape scientist/environmentalist (more specifically a Japanese macaque, also known as a snow monkey!)
Color variations baby!
After some feedback from the team, we finally arrived at a more familiar design :D
Environment + Props
Since our game takes place in a single room, we took our sweet time deciding on the correct room shape!
Since the game is designed to be an abandoned setting, our 3D artist needed many prop concepts to work off of!
All good 3D models start off with a good concept !
Modeling
Once all concepts were approved, our 3D artist started working on modeling the character, props and environment.
Character Model
Here's Bo in all his glory! It was quite a challenging and lengthy process bringing the 2D concept to life but most definitely a time well-invested!
Environment + Props
We started by clean modeling all assets in a single Maya file, which would then facilitate the room building process. So far we have over 50 different props! wow!
Still a work in progress!
Programming
While the visuals were being developed, our programmer started working on the core mechanics of our little game. We first programmed the player movement and the main objects that the player will interact with, using placeholders such as cubes while the 3D artist worked on final art !
Over time, we slowly implemented some extra features, such as a camera that follows the player, as well as extra props to interact with and even a crouch feature, which will allow the player to access otherwise unreachable props!
We're currently working on implementing all 3D assets and animations, and we're already encountered many bugs (both figuratively and literally !!)
Here's the most recent version of our game !
Thank you for reading and until next time ! Stay safe and make good choices :^)
