Greetings everyone, my name is Carlos, and I am the CEO at Blini Games! As some of you may already know, a few weeks ago we announced a sequel to Lovecraft's Untold Stories - an action RPG game with rogue-like elements based on the HP Lovecraft Mythos.
Today we begin a series of developer diary episodes through which we will try to share a bit of in depth information that will describe and explain the reasons that led us to create Lovecraft's Untold Stories 2, such as the technical and visual changes with respect to the first part, the improvements and new things that we are going to include, and more curious details that we believe may be of interest to you all.
In our first episode, we want to address a topic that has generated discussion since the day we officially announced the launch of the second part, and that is the reason for the change in the visual style, from pixel-art to what we have come to call the “Dark comic” style.
When we started to think about the development of Lovecraft’s Untold Stories 2, one of the most controversial aspects for us was precisely the graphic aspect. Despite the good reception that the visuals of the first part had, during its development we encountered many limitations along the way, which made it impossible to achieve certain goals, due to lack of financial means and/or planning.
Visual representation of the items:Every Lovecraft’s Untold Stories character was drawn in sprites, each one independent of the other, and later animated, creating more sprites with small variations in the position of the characters. Each one of the main characters consists of a total of between 150 and 200 sprites, all of them drawn by hand.
When the idea of displaying weapons and equipment came up, we realized that this would exponentially multiply the number of sprites to 200 for each item in the game, which led us to discard the idea.
Limitation on the number and variety of enemies:For the same technical reason, each new enemy, no matter how similar it was to another already created, meant drawing it from scratch, or in the best of cases, having to change the colors of each sprite, like with the cultists, for example, but their animations would be identical in any case.
In Lovecraft’s Untold Stories 2 we have opted for a system based on bones and skins. What does this allow us?
First, a greater amount of detail in each and every one of the characters: All the characters are again drawn by hand, but by not being reduced to pixels, we can include much more details that pixelart makes impossible.
Second, a greater variety of NPCs: Each character is based on a skeleton on which we put the “skin” that our artists have created. If we respect the dimensions of the basic NPC, we can create many similar characters that will adapt like a glove to the initial skeleton. The animators then add small variations to the basic animations, and we have a brand new NPC in no time.
Third, the possibility of visually representing the equipment that the character is wearing: Our animators receive the basic characters from our artists and divide them into as many parts as there are bones in the skeleton of that given character. This way, we can draw only the parts we need to represent: the weapon, clothing, or any item we want, instead of the entire character every time.
Fourth, much more fluid animations: The bone system allows us to quickly modify the position of each bone independently, as if it were a wooden doll. The animators generate a Start position, and an End position, and the program generates all the intermediate positions. Then it is only necessary to review and correct the possible failures that the computer has produced.
We are very satisfied with the current results, and we really hope that you all will share our enthusiasm when you enjoy the game in its final quality on your computers.
That's all for today. If there is anything about the development of Lovecraft’s Untold Stories 2 that you want us to discuss or share, we invite you to put it in the comments. And lastly, if you find our game interesting, don’t forget to add it to your Steam Wishlist!
See you soon, C.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1401400/Lovecrafts_Untold_Stories_2/
