Greak: Memories of Azur News

[h3]Welcome to our Spooky Dev Log![/h3]

It's October... the month of Halloween! What better month to talk about the horrible creatures in Azur!? In this Dev Log, we will tell you more about the creatures of the Plague as well as the process for creating one of the basic enemies that the player will encounter in the game.

Several years ago, a meteorite hit the lands of Azur. The fragments of the meteorite dispersed through Azur polluting the lands, and a threat of strange creatures known as “The Plague” arose. These are infectious creatures similar to bacteria that are known for consuming everything that gets in their way.

From hazardous lands to aggressive enemies, the Courines must always tread lightly when walking through unpopulated lands.

For this devlog we wanted to go in depth on how we created the basic enemies that the player will find. When designing new enemies, we follow this process:

Step One: Starting from a cool idea

When adding a new enemy into the game, we usually start by creating model sheets with different designs and try to have a clear idea on what will be the purpose of that character in the game. However, sometimes a cool idea can come unexpectedly from one of the team members! For example, in this case , our art team came up with an enemy that could split in two and could continue fighting.

We thought it really captured what a creature from The Plague would be: Relentless, organic and hard to defeat. We decided to explore this idea further.



Step Two: Behavior Proposal

To avoid creating unnecessary animations, our Lead Programmer creates a behavior proposal using key frames from the first draft. This allows us to have a feel from the enemy inside the game, and play around with the idea.






Step Three: Polishing the Design and Color Pallete

After the basic behavior has been decided, we make visual adjustments to the character so it can fit properly with the rest of the characters. We also try on different color pallets through scenes of the game so the character is not lost in the background or stands out too much.



Step Four: Key Animations
From here on now, we create all the hand-drawn animations from a rough sketch to cleanup and then color. Here are some examples of the finished results:



Step Five: In- Game Implementation

Finally, we connect all of these finished animations with the game character. In this step, the enemy behavior will have some minor changes in order to fit the proper timing of its new frames.
Additionally, tuning all of its stats like speed, damage, etc, will be done as an interactive process when playtesting the game. Very rarely we will make adjustments to its animations to fix some of the issues until we find the right balance for them in the game:




We hope you liked this month’s Dev Log! Stay tuned for more updates on the development of Greak and Happy Halloween!



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1311070/Greak_Memories_of_Azur/

Hello again!

Welcome to Dev Log #3! This time, we will talk about a region in the lands of Azur called the Swamps of Bremul and the development of some of it’s mechanics.

Azur is the name of an unexplored cluster of Islands located in the northern hemisphere of the Alassya Planet. The lands of Azur have different regions with very diverse ecosystems. From mountains to tundra, Azur stands out for its vast natural resources. Within the different areas in Azur are the Swamps of Bremul which after being taken by the Urlags, are home to a large number of dangerous enemies.

Concept Art of The Swamps of Bremul



Throughout the game, it is very important for us to keep adding different platforming elements for the player to explore the world of Azur. For this devlog, we wanted to delve deep into how we created the Interactive Ropes that you will find in this location.

The basic pieces of the Rope Physics
In order for the ropes to look and behave in a natural way, we had to rely on the Unity Physics engine to do most of the work for their movement. Then, we made the characters behave around them accordingly.

The rope is created using multiple invisible pieces connected between them with Physics Joints allowing them to react as if they are linked to one another.

We then use a line that goes through each one of these links to make it look like it was a single interactive object.



Blending the Ropes with the World
To make the Ropes blend in with the rest of the world, we added a texture in the line that connects the invisible pieces.

We then added a few additional details in order for them to stand out as an interactive object in the environment. For example, the counter weight at the bottom or the tiny gear at the top to represent the Rope anchor point.



Player Interaction and Animations
In order for the characters to interact with the rope, it will check if they have come into contact with one of the invisible links, and when that happens, it can attach them to that point and interpolate their position.

Characters will always face the direction the rope is swinging towards. To make it feel a lot more responsive, we made different swinging animations that will be set depending on their speed. In this case, the characters will quickly turn around when they need to change their orientation.



Stacking characters in a single Rope
Sometimes, when moving with multiple characters, there will be times when they all grab the same rope. In this case, it could become confusing since they would collide with one another.

To prevent this situation, we made them stack on top of each other and allowed only one character per Rope Link.



In Game Result
Finally, here is the final result on how the ropes look in game!



We've got some other interesting surprises waiting for you at the Swamps of Bremul! We hope you have as much fun playing around with them as we did experimenting with the different ideas to make them work!

Thanks for reading this month's devlog, and stay tuned for more next time!

We are super excited to announce that a new Greak: Memories of Azur demo is available from September 12th - 20th during PAX Online - EGX 2020!

We took everyone’s feedback into consideration, and we worked to make some changes to the demo to make your experience with Greak: Memories of Azur even better!

Among some other changes, we've added the following:
- Fixes some third party controllers having input lag on PC.
- Added a new core mechanic which will allow the player to Regroup characters together by holding a button when the other character is visible on the same screen.
- Added the option on the main menu settings to allow you to change the input bindings on Keyboard and Controllers.
- Added additional support for keyboard controls in the game.
- Added new walking/running damaged animations when main characters are in critical health.
- Tutorials input commands will now dynamically change depending on which input device was last used.
- Tutorials will now display the current active character that is selected by the player.
- Fixes a bug where characters were unable to jump while attacking in some cases.
- Fixes an issue where the player can interact with the Pause Menu at the start of some Loading/Narrative screens.
- Fixes some enemies staying as targets after being defeated.
- Fixes a bug where the Mimic mechanic can be used before it's available.
- Fixes an incorrect logo being displayed on the Wishlist screen.
- Fixes the credits not adjusting properly to UI Scaling.
- Fixes a bug where cinematic bars are being displayed faster depending on the system performance.
- Fixes the VSync option being incorrectly displayed to the user in the settings screen.
- Fixes character preview windows looking blurry when displayed.
- Among other additional BugFixes, Art Improvements and Minor Changes.

We appreciate all the feedback and thank you so much for your support!!

Enjoy the demo! ːsteamhappyː

Hello everyone!

Welcome to our Dev Log #2! This month, we will talk a little bit about the Lyriee Rivers and show you how our team developed the water mechanics in the game.

In the lands of Azur, some of the largest trees and longest rivers are located in the Lyriee forest. This is a very special place for the Courines since it is full of natural resources. Therefore, Lyriee is considered Azur’s main source of life.



Throughout the game we want for characters to feel very agile and versatile while playing around with the different elements of the world. Therefore, we wanted to apply this same principle when it comes to interacting with water areas.

The most complicated part of this type of interaction is making the transition from regular movement to swimming in the water feel very natural since the player controls change quite a bit.
Our solution to this situation was to add two different states to the characters: Surface Swimming and Underwater Swimming.

Surface swimming: When you first dive into the water, the character will snap to the surface (unless you are falling too fast). While in this state, you will be able to move left and right and replenish your oxygen levels.



Underwater Swimming: While on the surface, if you hold your movement stick downwards, the character will dive into the water and switch to underwater movement.
While in this state, you will be able to move around in every direction, but if you run out of oxygen you will start taking damage.
You can go back to surface swimming whenever you approach the top border again.



When moving underwater, the orientation of the character will sometimes end up upside-down. This could become a problem while playing since it would be hard to determine which way the character should keep moving. In order to prevent this situation, we made a transition which will always make characters stay upright while inside the water.



In order to make the water areas fit the game Art-Style, we used a few different components:

1- A looping hand drawn animation of the water surface.
This detail is extremely important and very subtle since it will make the water area blend with the rest of the world. It is important that the left and right borders connect between each other in every frame so it can be used along all the water surface.



2- A dynamic mesh that reacts with physics.
When diving into water it is expected to be deformed somehow since it's a liquid surface. Our solution was to use a subdivided mesh that will have a spring-like effect through all of its top vertex.
The force of the impact depends on the mass and velocity of the object.



3- A distortion effect for objects inside the water.
Another subtle detail that always helps the water areas feel extremely natural it's a adding some sort of distortion effect for objects that are inside.
In our case, we used a post-process refraction shader to add a bit of realism without going too overboard.



4- Character swimming animations.
And lastly, of course, is creating all the character animations that fit this new behaviors.
We made around 30 frames total for every character to cover all the different movements and positions.
As an example, here is an early preview of the two idle animations when Adara and Greak are over the water surface before we clean up their hand-drawn lines.





We had a lot of fun experimenting with ideas on how water can be used in different ways within the game and we have a few surprises to show you in the future, so stay tuned!

Thanks for following us through the development and see you next month! : )

Hello all!

Welcome to the first edition of our monthly Dev Log! We are super happy to have another way of sharing our progress with you. We are always happy to read your feedback and comments as we continue developing Greak: Memories of Azur!

With Team 17’s help, we will now be able to be more involved with the community and create a game that excels artistically. We will also do our very best to answer your questions as quickly as we can!

To get started, this month we'd love to share our team’s process for creating the animations for the in-game Cinematic Clips. Our talented art team uses a traditional technique which involves hand-drawn characters. We hope you like it!


Step 1
We start the process with a draft or concept of the character. For new characters, the Director of Art and Animation creates a model sheet which is then shared with the Animators. During this stage, the proposed background or scene is drafted to provide more context for the animations of the characters!




Step 2
Next, the key frames are drawn. The key frames help provide the idea for the action of the character based on the dialogues and the scene. This step helps present the full scene and make any appropriate changes!




Step 3
Next, the animators add the details to each frame to make the transition between the movement feel smooth. Some animations can have over 40 frames each to provide the acting that is needed. Our animators take many factors into consideration such as wind, lighting, movement of the clothes, facial expressions, etc. The shadow is also added in each frame!




Step 4
Next it's time for a clean up and color! Once the animation is finished, the line style is defined, the color is applied as well as the shadow.




Step 5
When the animation is finished, the team integrates the animations into the game! Sometimes it is necessary to make an additional color correction using special filters or add additional editing effects to achieve the desired result!




We hope you liked it! Thank you all for your support and for following us through our process!

At Navegante, we are very passionate and we look forward to bringing you Greak: Memories of Azur and share our experience as we continue through the development. We also hope we can inspire more people to create games!

See you next month for Dev Log #2!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1311070/Greak_Memories_of_Azur/