Chicken Police News

There were some pretty serious problems with the organization of Gamescom 2019, but most of them are solved so we are safe to say:

We're officially going to to Gamescom 2019 with a brand new, (almost fully voiced!) demo, with 4 locations, 2 interrogations and plenty of awesome characters.



You will find us in the Indie Village, Hall 10.2. Look for the name of our team: The Wild Gentlemen and of course the logo of the game (and also a HUUUUGE rooster head!)



This demo is a huge step forward for the game (with the voices, music and improved visuals) and Gamescom itself is a very big jump for the project so we are very exited.

Hope we can meet there!
The Wild Gentlemen

Last time we checked in with Alex, our 2D animator, he talked to us about character animation. A trailer, or, cutscenes in general, are closely related, but are way more complicated. In this dev. blog post, we’ll give you a glimpse at how we reached this fairly important milestone that is the release of our teaser trailer.





As everything we do, our teaser is the result of multiple members of the team working closely together. Most of the art was already completed (e.g. characters and locations), but music, sounds, and some new assets had to be tailor-made specifically for this little project.
It’s a great feeling that everyone, even those who did not work directly on the video (as it did not require programming, for example), got to express their opinions to help shape the end result.





“Planning ahead will always save you a lot of time, which is especially important when it comes to complex tasks such as cutscenes and trailers. In most cases, it is great to have at least a storyboard, or even an animatic before the final product starts being worked on.”
- Alex

In this case, because we were in a bit of a hurry, we did things the other way around and music and sounds were finished way before the video itself. Of course, László (who recently wrote about the game’s theme song in THE DEV DIARIES #7, give it a read!) did not have to work blindly – Bánk, our writer/designer planned ahead and created several mock-ups detailing what kind of scenes would be seen in the trailer. Some scenes were screengrabs or cuts from earlier cutscenes, while others were texts on a black background detailing what the viewers should be seeing there.

“This meant that I had to follow a structure that couldn’t be altered, because being even a few frames off with the scenes’ timing could be noticeable.”
- Alex

This video is a funny before-after comparison that shows how even something as simple as a few exaggerated lines can convey ideas:

https://youtu.be/AWGstF2rNkg



The trailer included cuts from cutscenes that were made before Alex had joined the development team. We talked about it before, but now it became even more pressing to have these videos remade at a higher quality, now that the team has someone who has been working specifically in this field for several years.

“The first scene I remade was the one where we see Natasha from behind, dancing on the stage. The team seemed to like it, and it became clear that I’d be asked to give every prior scene the same treatment.”
- Alex



Revamping old scenes was fairly straight-forward, since all of them provided a frame-to-frame foundation that “just” had to be followed. However, this was not the case when it came to scenes created specifically for the teaser.
Luckily, this was not the first cutscene Alex has made in his life, which meant that he had quick 2D solutions for new content. The opening scene, set in Sonny’s office, is a great example. It is the result of a technique called “photobashing,” where multiple photos are taken and blended together to achieve a coherent – in this case – backdrop for the action.



“It’s very rare that a stock photo has everything your scene needs. In most cases, some things are missing, and some others shouldn’t be there at all. You’re better off looking for and combining separate elements according to your taste and/or needs. Take the office for example… The wallpaper was a single texture, and it was clean! The weathering came from several other textures used in different blending modes. The window wasn’t there, either, and the city behind it was added as a separate layer as well. I even had to replace the original, sunny sky with a stormy one, before turning the whole image into a night scene.”
- Alex



As we are nearing the end of remaking our user interface, our gameplay at the time did not reflect the quality of the demo you’ll be seeing in the future. This meant that any gameplay footage we wanted our audience to see had to be replicated outside the engine, using the assets from our work-in-progress GUI.
Take a look at the teaser trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16XjBqsaVSM&feature=youtu.be

We really hope that you enjoyed the teaser we created – a lot of love and work went into it.

Thank you for reading through our dev. blog! Hopefully it was worth your time and you’ve seen something interesting here and there.
Stay tuned for our next post, and don’t forget to wishlist Chicken Police!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084640/Chicken_Police/

————

Find our previous updates here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1591377601110820081
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1590251069022308952
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1590249710657099888
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1593626866167457845
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1593626866163172456
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1586870834670163962
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1586870834659213636

Hey folks,

Our new Teaser Trailer has just arrived, featuring brand new gameplay, cutscenes and voice-acting too! Oh yes, It's official now: The game will be voiced!

Check out the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16XjBqsaVSM&feature=youtu.be

And dont forget to hit Wishlist:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084640/Chicken_Police/

Or how a YouTube video became an idea, how that idea became a dream, and I (Bánk – writer/designer) became a game developer in the end (what is also the beginning, of course)...

There's a video on YouTube titled "Chicken Police", where two chickens beat a rabbit. (Check it out!) It's an authentic country video of someone's yard, where it seems chickens are the absolute rulers.

When I first thought about creating Chicken Police, it was meant to be a short, 5-10-minute animation. A snappy, simple, funny but also raw satire only showing traces of film noir characteristics. It was meant to be black and white, with an insufferable alcoholic as the hero, but that was all. It was more of an animal parody of the 80’s and 90’s buddy cop movies, rather than a hard-boiled detective story.




The story spread its roots in my brain early on. I began to create motivations and backstories for the characters. Not only the main heroes, but also those who appear only for a short time or are just mentioned. Simply because it was a lot of fun. This time, I had no real objective with all of this. Then somehow, as the characters were coming to life, it began to interest me more...

"HOW CAN A WORLD LIKE THIS WORK?"

How can predator and prey live together? What would such a place be like? What about its social structure, political relations, its culture? What kind of place is Clawville?



The story began in 2011, when I started writing the base of Chicken Police. It was a slow process because I had no plans with it. Animation? Graphic novel? Novel? I planned all of those, until one time (in 2014) I got the idea: why not turn it into a video game? I loved video games ever since I was a little kid, I grew up playing them, and somewhere deep in my brain a small voice was always shouting at me, demanding to become a game developer... "You are destined to do this!"
So, let's make it a game. Ok. An adventure game. Yes, of course! But... how?

By this time Chicken Police has clearly become a hard-boiled noir story. Rock-hard fists and easy chicks, corrupt, drunkard cops, and two ruthless roosters in a world ruled by predators. The story of Sonny Featherland and Marty MacChicken became whole and enhanced. I didn't even know which one of the many ideas in my head to work on.
Then came...

THE BIG FALL

The movie Zootopia was announced in 2016, and while watching the first trailer I broke out in cold sweat. It floored me. The base of the story was so similar to my idea (an isolated city with predator and prey animals seemingly living together in peace, but under the surface it’s the exact opposite...), that the world started to spin. That's it? For a day or two I was sure I'll scrap the whole idea that I've been working on for years. Goodbye Chicken Police...



But then I watched the actual movie and all my fears were gone. While Zootopia's base is similar, in the end the movie put emphasis on a totally different matter, not to mention how far it was from the dark and hopeless setting of Chicken Police.

THE BIG BOOM

Meanwhile life of course goes on. A million things happen in one's life. There's no time for doubts. I myself am a writer, and besides RPG Maker, I have no idea about game programming. (So, I didn't know a thing about it!) I could have tried visual novel creator programs, but Chicken Police was too ambitious from the start for those. For a while, the game was put on ice, while my life went on. My son, Ábel, was born. I don't have to say how much the world turned with me again.



I met Lina, a talented and ambitious girl at my workplace, where I worked as a cameraman and editor, and she simply and honestly told me I was stupid when I showed her this old idea of mine. To be precise, she told me I was stupid if I let it go to waste... (By the way, Lina's helping us with the project in the social and networking fields.) And she was right! I've put time and effort in it for years, why would I let it go?

That's when I started (still all by myself) designing the actual video game. My goal was to create a Kickstarter campaign. I was working on the title for months, then I scrapped all earlier designs and started everything from scratch. I reached the point where I had the entire story and the main gameplay laid out. Péter, our current programmer, had been and old friend of mine by then. We worked together on another game’s design earlier, which turned out to be too big for us as our first game, so we put that aside. Péter then introduced me to Tamás (who's the heart and soul of our project), whom I've shown the pitch document of the game just for feedback. Could I send it in its current state to sponsors and publishers? His answer was I could, sure, but I shouldn't. Instead, let's gather a team with the help of his experience and connections, and let's do this together...



Besides the birth of my son, I'm sure this was the other big turning point of my life. Soon I quit my job and became a full-time writer/designer/game developer alongside Tamás, Péter, and Zoli, our current graphic designer. This was in 2018. The wild Gentlemen was born, and from then on, I can say that my job is literally my dream come true.

AFTER THE SHOCK - THE REAL WORK BEGINS

Of course, after the initial shock and enthusiasm comes reality. Human and technical limitations, finance, and of course being faced with imperfections of the game's concept. I have no reason to complain, I work with an extremely creative and committed team, all of whom consider the game a labor of love instead of just a job.

After a few sleepless nights we met our first real challenge in the form of a small Hungarian gamer event, PixelCon.
This was the event that would reveal whether the game would appeal not only to the few who had already grown to love it, but to a larger audience seeing it for the first time.



IAN LIVINGSTONE AND CHICKEN POLICE!

It's kind of a pretentious subtitle, for sure, but we really did show Mr. Ian Livingstone our game (he's the father of GamesWorkshop, Warhammer and Fighting Fantasy, and one of the "midwives" of Lara Croft). He liked what he saw very much. And not only him, but simply everybody who sat down to try it! The stream of positive feedback was truly humbling. From that point on we knew we're on the right track. So, the road's laid out before us, we just have to walk it...



REBOOT 2019

Because we have already written a separate dev.blog on Reboot, I'll be brief here. It was extremely inspirational for us that the demo we took to this event caused quite a stir and helped us connect with publishers and opened gates that are still wide open before us. It was a fantastic experience, and this time we received a ton of useful advices and observations beside all the overwhelmingly positive feedback.



AND BEHOLD, HERE WE ARE NOW...

We'll be making a huge announcement soon, but I can't disclose any specifics yet. What I can tell you is that we're working on the game night and day, and on a new demo which will be public this time. The premiere of the demo will be on GamesCom, a month from now, if everything goes according to plan.

Meanwhile the voice acting of the game is in the works by a world-renowned studio, responsible for the sounds of titles like The Wolf Among Us and Horizon Zero Dawn.



It's an incredibly tiresome but also inspiring phase we're in now, and although I know it'll be harder every day until the release of the game, I also know the fruit of our labor will be sweet and no matter the reception, we know we've created something truly unique.

Because we put everything that we are into it, and because... we have no other choice. :)



All of you who read my retrospection, thank you very much for your attention.
I hope it wasn't too cheesy.

Stick around and read our earlier posts too:

- Bánk



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084640/Chicken_Police/

————

Find our previous updates here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1590251069022308952
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1590249710657099888
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1593626866167457845
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1593626866163172456
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1586870834670163962
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1586870834659213636
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1589121999170324421

Hello and welcome to a tour into the world of audio. Please let me be your guide today and show you the (one possible) way of creating a video game's main theme song.



Music plays an important role of setting the mood of a movie or video game. A sad melody makes you cry, a playful instrument cheers you up. It's that easy, right? Well, the answer is both yes and no.

It's easy, because the classic noir has a specific instrumentation, we can call it signature sounds as well. So it's basically easy to pick the right instruments and create a music with them.

However, it does matter what kind of musical notes those instrument do play. A main instrument has to play a remarkable melody to catch your ears and make you whistle. It shouldn't be silly or happy because the game's theme is dark and moody, it's a detective story with crime involved. The melody should also reflect on the main characer(s) personality, where the cop is an alcoholic bloke and he is way beyond of his best days.



Bánk's knowledge about Noir is priceless. He helped me a lot with example songs, detailed description and more. The guy knows literally everything about that era of film making. Really! We had numerous talks about the direction to take and decided to go with one I would call: "simple yet effective".

The instrumentation is a classic jazzy-swingy stuff:
Drummer uses brushes and sweeps the snare monotonously-ryhtmically. Maybe he is bored with it but his face doesn't show anything.
Bassist smokes a cigarette and has a slightly deformed body due to the fact he lies on his upright bass all the time. The pianist seen better days as well, his glass is empty and is desperate to have another drink but he has to finish the song first.



And then, there is the broken hearted saxophone guy. He gives his best and plays with all of his heart. His instrument cries out a simple yet powerful melody. This was the very first image I pictured in my mind about the main theme.

We wanted the main melody be played with saxophone and base the whole track on it. This also serves as a homage to the genre, we want to show respect to the musicians of that era. People often ask me "how do you come up with a nice melody?". The answer is:





Research is critical here, I wanted to know about the musical style and instrument as much I possibly can. Again, Bánk's suggestions and examples helped a lot to find the right direction and mood. Then, I jammed on the keys a lot, spent time with finding good sounding chord progression and melodies. I wanted the saxophone to play just a few notes without overcomplicating or overplaying it. Paper, pen and writing notes in a classic composer's way is not a method I use.

I like to record everything I play and later I listen to them a few times because there might be some useful parts that come handy. It's also easier and simpler to revert to a previous idea in case a new one fails.

How do you know when a music is good enough?
Short answer is that music is a very sensitive material and is it good or bad depends on the listener's personal taste. Slightly longer answer is that you never know. From a composer's point of view it's never good enough. There's always something that could be changed and would make it better but at one point you have to stop.



At this point the composer needs feedback from people, see their reaction when they listen to the music. Feedback is very important, it helps developing the music further. I had a few iterations on my hdd and showed the version I thought is the best to the guys. Based on their feedback modifications were made, however, I'm proud of the fact that the version I showed them was already good and they are satisfied with it.

This means we are on the same page and the direction is just right.
I have to mention Bánk's idea of adding (female) voice to the end of the main theme. It gives me goosebumps all the time I listen to this music, hope you will feel the same.

As closing words, I would like to present you the latest iteration of Chicken Police's main theme. Enjoy! - Laszlo 'vincenzo' Vincze /StrayBoom Music





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4gGhlLZ2Bg
(Disclaimer: main theme is not final and might change in the release version of the game.)

Thanks for your attention, folks!
Stay tuned and don't forget to spread the word:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084640/Chicken_Police/

————

Find our previous updates here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1590249710657099888
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1593626866167457845
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1593626866163172456
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1586870834670163962
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1586870834659213636
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1589121999170324421