Saturday 19 May 2018

Old but new

Weak ago I talked about all doubts that follow me in meantime of production.. What is interesting about the doubts. They force you to thinking. In my case this resulted in 8 years production of remake but also in changing approach to game design.

Last week I shown this new approach to astronomer house which most of you may not recognize because in original game its looked completely different (or just not remember because it was not really important place in game). 

This week I want to show you new look of place that everybody who played game should know: Citadel. But before we do it let's first look on original location :) Thanks to lba.wikia.com this is really simple:


This was my starting point and based on it I begin to draw quick sketches. Sadly non of them make me feel that this is it. Happily in game there is one more concept showing citadel. You can find it in the main menu:


For this who are curious: mobile version is cropped and no longer contain this building. 


Rediscovering this was big step for me. It didn't made my life a lot easier but it was some additional information how original creators wanted Citadel to look like. I drawn more sketches and more and somewhere there concept of this building was born:


When I finished it I knew: This how I want Citadel to look in remake. Do you have similar opinion about this ?

Sunday 13 May 2018

Doubts ...

Little Big Adventure ... was released almost 24 years ago (October 1994). It wasn't for me love from first play. I tried it few times and in all this attempts I couldn't even get out of prison. For my defend I was still small kid who didn't know too much. In the end things worked out and for last 8 years I try to recreate first game. There are some successes and failures in this fields but thing is that after all this time I  still didn't gave up... sometimes even I'm curious why.

This days more and more people asking my why I won't use existing technology. I work for Unity Technologies and I know that if I would switch to it I could recreate all the stuff I have so far in few months and be further in development of game. This is fact that I know but still I working in my free time on technology that will be used for Little Big Adventure Remake... sometimes thinking if I should do that. 

At some point of development I noticed that simple remake won't be good enough. Original game is really cool and I cannot compete with it because a lot of people have it dear in form that it is. What I could do is creating my own interpretation: how this game could look if it was done this days. This wasn't easy decision to make. There is a lot of downsides like I needed to throw away old content and put a lot more effort into creating new one. Was it wort it ? I think it was ... but there is always doubts if this was right decision.

And here I'm. The same way how I started project: alone, deep into engine code trying to add another feature that will allow me to create another piece of high level code that will allow me to make another piece of game. When I will finish this there will be another different piece of puzzles I working on.  Good that I like what I do... but is things I do really have any point ?

As you can see my biggest problem right now is not that I failing to deliver stuff. For me each of this failure is lesson after which I become smarter. This are also not my skills that I'm lacking. This make this project interesting because I can work on improving them. The biggest enemies are doubts... they never really leave my side.

I personally envy people who can throw themselves into development without any doubts. Their life is so much easier. For me game development is one big problem which is constructed from sub problems. I see my role as developer to try and solve them all. Problem is that there are multiple solutions for the same problem and you need to choose which is the best for you. Because I still searching for my way of doing stuff I never know if my answer is good or not... it is like my developer life is doomed to be forever in doubts. 

From my experience so far I already know that some people will say that my answers are not good. Old game always will be in hears of it players and as I mention I cannot match this but always will be compared to it. I got used to this thought and now I don't think this is bad. If somebody think that I doing sh..y job I dare them to try and do better one and not just criticise.

In the end I don't plan to give up and even if I have doubts I still working on project. To give you taste of what coming I will share one of new stuff that just few people seen so far.

In the Principal Island there live Bob Vortix - astronomer under house arrest. In original game he live in small house at the city hill in remake his mansion will be a little bit more appropriate for his occupation: