Anathema News

Hello all,

We're back with another monthly update! Today I'd like to bring you some interesting new developments in the asset creation department.

As some of you know, we've used Daz Studio since the project's inception, as none of us were really artists at heart. Daz provided the best solution for graphics that weren't downright atrocious. We initially wanted to present the game with pixel art, but quality artists were well beyond the scope of our budget. Unfortunately, for the amount of animation we wanted, pixel art would be been incredibly expensive and we simply couldn't afford that out of our own wallets. As a result, the pre-rendered art style was essentially born out of necessity. In the end, we think this is a nice contrast to the current happenings in the indie market as it helps Anathema stand out visually against other titles. Some might say pre-rendered graphics should have died with the 90's, but there are others that look back fondly to games that used this type of art style.

One of the issues with this approach is it relies on a lot of readily made assets that can either be used straight-away, or further customized in various ways such as geometry morphs and new textures. Part of the reason we revamped the entire game in 2015 is because of the implementation of the NVIDIA Iray render engine in Daz that allows for physical based rendering and overall improved quality images.

I've had several ideas in mind that have not been able to be realized because some of the assets necessary simply do not exist for Daz, until now.

Throughout the course of development of Anathema, we have worked here and there with Craig Daversa of Pyroklastic Games for a couple art commissions. It wasn't that long ago that Craig showed me some of his ZBrush sculpts and I immediately had that lightbulb appear above my head. Suddenly, new doorways had been opened to finally realize some of the ideas that were previously impossible. Not only could we finally incorporate completely original assets into Anathema, but work with someone we've had a long-standing relationship with that even created a pixel art Aurora sprite when we were tinkering with that art style years ago. Coincedentally, this could not have come at a better time, as I have been working with Substance Painter to create new textures to help make some of the Daz assets at least a little more original.

What you are about to see is a work in progress as we are currently rigging and applying weight maps to the mesh, so it is in a standard t-pose and isn't exactly all decked out yet.


Those that know me personally know that I am fascinated by the wendigo creature. Originally from Algonquian folklore, the wendigo may appear as a monster with some human features and are typically associated with cannibalism. These creatures have been presented in numerous shapes throughout history, but typically have some common characteristics such as antlers and an emaciated physique.

I recently gathered some reference images and showed them to Craig and asked if he would be willing to create the mesh. The results blew me away and I'm happy to share this work in progress. Here we see the wendigo as it will be in Anathema, which has more of a deer-like head and lower body, with some gnarly extended arms and giant hands.

In Anathema, a particular level will take place in a snowy summit (first shown in the March 2018 update) and the wendigo will be found here during the boss sequence. I will say, the wendigo creature is not the boss itself, but rather, a leadup to the boss of this level. I'm excited to finally see this creature that I've had such a long-standing infatuation with come to life. I can't wait to see players react to this thing running at them.

Below are a couple of gifs inside of Daz using an HDRI map for lighting and PBR textures to showcase this work in progress.



Here are a couple stills for better quality also.



Thank you all for reading. I hope you enjoyed this look behind the scenes at a new enemy and how this will allow for a more fully realized vision of the game working with Craig. Please stop by and check out his game, Survival: The Living Dead Redux. It is quite an addictive game and helped forge our working relationship together. I even did some music for his game.

You can find it here: STLD Redux: Episode 2

See you in May!

-Matt

Hello all,

I apologize for the delayed update. I had hoped that there would be more info to share after a slight delay but unfortunately that is not the case - so I will be sharing a lot more concept art and behind the scenes images. We have a developer's meeting this weekend so there should be more juicy tidbits in the next update. In the meantime, here we go!


This level is an important moment in the story of Anathema and is a real turning point in the narrative. This is an early concept art and doesn't reflect all of the ideas we now have for this level. The plans for this level are to implement a heavily vertical element - think the Waterfalls stage in Contra, but with horizontal elements also. As you progress through the level you will encounter windmills that introduce some new elements to the platforming. The player will be faced against strong gusts of wind that shift directions, either helping the player move faster and jump farther, or slowing their speed and shortening their jumps. Elevators will also be a major player in this level. We're really excited about the climax of this level as it will tremendously shake things up and introduce a really cool mechanic to the boss fight - we hope you will think the same thing when you play it.






This enemy will be found in the earlier part of the game and is actually a concept art that I revised this week from an earlier version. The Pyromancer is planned to be an intermediate enemy that gives the player a run for their money with a variety of attacks and is just a handful of AI-IQ away from a miniboss. She may not be a miniboss, but players should still feel the burn. Heh. Bad pun? ...okay





Something that I thought some of you may find interesting is the part where a level is actually designed, or "blocked out" as we refer to it internally. Here is a preliminary sketch that "blocks out" the progression of Stage 2 - "The Forest". Since this is mostly for the people interested in the level design part, this is all made in Clip Studio Paint EX, formerly known as Manga Studio by Smith Micro Software. (I really love the workflow with my Surface Pro.)

If you've played the demo, you will see there are some slight differences between the concept and the demo version. The first noticeable difference is there are no spikes in the first couple of pits, as we decided we wanted this to be more of how the player learns the patterns of the Dryads since they can be really difficult in the treetops, and the second pit is for a hidden subweapon.

The rest is mostly the same, except there is no longer a bridge after the second elevator, which is now replaced with the ruins area that also marks the checkpoint in the demo. The bridge was just simply too flat and wasn't interesting at all. The third and fourth elevators were removed entirely and replaced with more treetop jumping. This area is a loving little nod to Eruga's Forest in the NES version of Rygar. (Amazing game btw, one of my personal favorites by Tecmo.)

Lastly, the final piece of the layout was changed a bit and it leads to the boss of this area. All in all, the blueprint was followed pretty closely, but as you actually implement the concept to gameplay, some things just feel like they need a change.





As some of you know, this project has went through a ton of changes since its original conception in October 2014. We've learned a lot of new tricks along the way and keep finding ways to improve as we go along - which is great, but unfortunately, it slows down the development process. Luckily we're not on a strict deadline so we can make this game the best we possibly can with the resources available to us.

This image is what basically started it all. We had a few character concept arts, a few ideas and a general vision for the narrative. Some of the best games out there tend to start in a Graveyard (Ghosts 'n Goblins anyone?) so that was the initial vision here. Here is the initial concept from the first version of Anathema all the way to what it is today.












As you can see, this has came a very long way over the course of development. We feel that as time goes on, we do make the most of the time we're dedicating to development and improving as much as we can along the way. Being just a three-man team (currently, hoping for more soon) it makes things challenging to achieve our exact vision so we have to find ways to get it as close as possible within our available resources.


As mentioned above we have a developer's meeting this weekend. We will be discussing much in the way of the story, cutscenes and anything else we haven't previously finalized. Concept arts are getting closer and closer to finished and the script is getting close to its finishing point also. At which point we can gather everything and put the final touches on them and have the script editing taken care of so we can get with our cast to knock that out. Having everything planned out like this is going to make the development of the rest of the game much faster. In hindsight, I really wish we had taken this time to plan at first instead of along the way but we were eager to get things going and wanted to dive right in. Lesson learned. They say the main three rules of real-estate is "location, location, location". Well, the three rules of game development are actually "plan, plan, plan".

Thank you all for reading and following. If you would like to help contribute to the project, please share with your friends and help spread the word! We really appreciate you all and hope you stick with us for the rest of the ride!

See you in April!

-Matt

Hello all,

I apologize for the delayed update. I had hoped that there would be more info to share after a slight delay but unfortunately that is not the case - so I will be sharing a lot more concept art and behind the scenes images. We have a developer's meeting this weekend so there should be more juicy tidbits in the next update. In the meantime, here we go!


This level is an important moment in the story of Anathema and is a real turning point in the narrative. This is an early concept art and doesn't reflect all of the ideas we now have for this level. The plans for this level are to implement a heavily vertical element - think the Waterfalls stage in Contra, but with horizontal elements also. As you progress through the level you will encounter windmills that introduce some new elements to the platforming. The player will be faced against strong gusts of wind that shift directions, either helping the player move faster and jump farther, or slowing their speed and shortening their jumps. Elevators will also be a major player in this level. We're really excited about the climax of this level as it will tremendously shake things up and introduce a really cool mechanic to the boss fight - we hope you will think the same thing when you play it.






This enemy will be found in the earlier part of the game and is actually a concept art that I revised this week from an earlier version. The Pyromancer is planned to be an intermediate enemy that gives the player a run for their money with a variety of attacks and is just a handful of AI-IQ away from a miniboss. She may not be a miniboss, but players should still feel the burn. Heh. Bad pun? ...okay





Something that I thought some of you may find interesting is the part where a level is actually designed, or "blocked out" as we refer to it internally. Here is a preliminary sketch that "blocks out" the progression of Stage 2 - "The Forest". Since this is mostly for the people interested in the level design part, this is all made in Clip Studio Paint EX, formerly known as Manga Studio by Smith Micro Software. (I really love the workflow with my Surface Pro.)

If you've played the demo, you will see there are some slight differences between the concept and the demo version. The first noticeable difference is there are no spikes in the first couple of pits, as we decided we wanted this to be more of how the player learns the patterns of the Dryads since they can be really difficult in the treetops, and the second pit is for a hidden subweapon.

The rest is mostly the same, except there is no longer a bridge after the second elevator, which is now replaced with the ruins area that also marks the checkpoint in the demo. The bridge was just simply too flat and wasn't interesting at all. The third and fourth elevators were removed entirely and replaced with more treetop jumping. This area is a loving little nod to Eruga's Forest in the NES version of Rygar. (Amazing game btw, one of my personal favorites by Tecmo.)

Lastly, the final piece of the layout was changed a bit and it leads to the boss of this area. All in all, the blueprint was followed pretty closely, but as you actually implement the concept to gameplay, some things just feel like they need a change.





As some of you know, this project has went through a ton of changes since its original conception in October 2014. We've learned a lot of new tricks along the way and keep finding ways to improve as we go along - which is great, but unfortunately, it slows down the development process. Luckily we're not on a strict deadline so we can make this game the best we possibly can with the resources available to us.

This image is what basically started it all. We had a few character concept arts, a few ideas and a general vision for the narrative. Some of the best games out there tend to start in a Graveyard (Ghosts 'n Goblins anyone?) so that was the initial vision here. Here is the initial concept from the first version of Anathema all the way to what it is today.












As you can see, this has came a very long way over the course of development. We feel that as time goes on, we do make the most of the time we're dedicating to development and improving as much as we can along the way. Being just a three-man team (currently, hoping for more soon) it makes things challenging to achieve our exact vision so we have to find ways to get it as close as possible within our available resources.


As mentioned above we have a developer's meeting this weekend. We will be discussing much in the way of the story, cutscenes and anything else we haven't previously finalized. Concept arts are getting closer and closer to finished and the script is getting close to its finishing point also. At which point we can gather everything and put the final touches on them and have the script editing taken care of so we can get with our cast to knock that out. Having everything planned out like this is going to make the development of the rest of the game much faster. In hindsight, I really wish we had taken this time to plan at first instead of along the way but we were eager to get things going and wanted to dive right in. Lesson learned. They say the main three rules of real-estate is "location, location, location". Well, the three rules of game development are actually "plan, plan, plan".

Thank you all for reading and following. If you would like to help contribute to the project, please share with your friends and help spread the word! We really appreciate you all and hope you stick with us for the rest of the ride!

See you in April!

-Matt

Hello all,

As mentioned in the December post, our goal is to bring you regular updates throughout the course of development. Our first update is some general information regarding concept art and a new tool in development for Anathema.



If you're like me, you've played the demo and you're familiar with the first few areas of the game. It's incredibly refreshing to be able to create new areas and concept art. I'm bored of looking at the areas in the demo and am so happy to sink my creative teeth into new areas.

The first new area concept art that I would like to unveil is The Ossuary. This is planned to be the stage immediately following the swamp area and will probably have the most gothic aesthetic in the game. The image speaks for itself, but among the litters of bones will be numerous traps and hazards waiting for the player. While we have made a conscious effort to make Anathema more original and lesser of a Castlevania clone, I can't help but feel the original inspiration will shine through here.




The first new enemy that I will share isn't anything that far out of left field (I have to save some of the juicy bits for along the way) but gives further insight into The Ossuary.

This Revenant Knight will be a basic enemy of the level, however I have a few ideas for its attack patterns. While a lesser enemy, it will also have a bit more variety and unpredictability to its aggression.




During our last team meeting in January, I proposed that we take a little time so that I can create a level editor for Anathema. As some of you know, Anathema is developed in Clickteam Fusion 2.5. The level editor (aka Frame Editor) in the engine can be cumbersome when building a game such as this. CTF is built with rapid prototyping in mind, and the Frame Editor is what I have always used in the past but it leaves me longing for more intuitive controls to rapidly test level design ideas.

Over the last few weeks I've been designing and programming this level editor with the rapid approach in mind. The image you see is far from finished, but already is incredibly powerful. I have drawn a lot of inspiration from Super Mario Maker and its design approaches. The level editor will be entirely mouse-driven so that I can create levels from my Surface Pro 3 using just the pen. I found the aspect of "drawing/painting" a level in Super Mario Maker to be very satisfying.

While creating this tool will slow development down on the front-end, it will greatly speed up the actual creation process in the future. So taking a month or two now to make it will actually save many more months of development time in the future.



I have several more enemy concepts completed but have several stage concepts left to create. The Level Editor has taken full priority right now over the concept phase, but I don't expect the level editor to take too much longer to finish.

While I work on the editor Josh and Nic are hammering away at the final script. We had long deliberations about what exactly we wanted to do with the story and characters. We want the story and characters to be memorable so we had to take extra care with much of the plot-points, character interactions and their story arcs.

After the editor is finished I will resume with concept art which will be remaining enemies, bosses, stages, level layouts and everything in between. The goal is to have a mostly 100% blueprint moving forward so that we can just start hammering everything out. We made the unfortunate mistake at the beginning and throughout development by just working as we go. It caused a lot of hiccups, delays and doubt. While we had an approximate idea of what we wanted, it wasn't thorough enough. The steps we're taking now will ensure that development progresses at speedy rate once we finish the current stages.

Thank you all for reading. I will be bringing these updates to you monthly now as I find this will strike the best balance of providing new information as we work on Anathema, while still allowing for time to develop the game. We still have our day jobs so we only get so many hours a day to work on the game but are glad we have the ability and opportunity.

See you in March!

-Matt

Hello all,

As mentioned in the December post, our goal is to bring you regular updates throughout the course of development. Our first update is some general information regarding concept art and a new tool in development for Anathema.



If you're like me, you've played the demo and you're familiar with the first few areas of the game. It's incredibly refreshing to be able to create new areas and concept art. I'm bored of looking at the areas in the demo and am so happy to sink my creative teeth into new areas.

The first new area concept art that I would like to unveil is The Ossuary. This is planned to be the stage immediately following the swamp area and will probably have the most gothic aesthetic in the game. The image speaks for itself, but among the litters of bones will be numerous traps and hazards waiting for the player. While we have made a conscious effort to make Anathema more original and lesser of a Castlevania clone, I can't help but feel the original inspiration will shine through here.




The first new enemy that I will share isn't anything that far out of left field (I have to save some of the juicy bits for along the way) but gives further insight into The Ossuary.

This Revenant Knight will be a basic enemy of the level, however I have a few ideas for its attack patterns. While a lesser enemy, it will also have a bit more variety and unpredictability to its aggression.




During our last team meeting in January, I proposed that we take a little time so that I can create a level editor for Anathema. As some of you know, Anathema is developed in Clickteam Fusion 2.5. The level editor (aka Frame Editor) in the engine can be cumbersome when building a game such as this. CTF is built with rapid prototyping in mind, and the Frame Editor is what I have always used in the past but it leaves me longing for more intuitive controls to rapidly test level design ideas.

Over the last few weeks I've been designing and programming this level editor with the rapid approach in mind. The image you see is far from finished, but already is incredibly powerful. I have drawn a lot of inspiration from Super Mario Maker and its design approaches. The level editor will be entirely mouse-driven so that I can create levels from my Surface Pro 3 using just the pen. I found the aspect of "drawing/painting" a level in Super Mario Maker to be very satisfying.

While creating this tool will slow development down on the front-end, it will greatly speed up the actual creation process in the future. So taking a month or two now to make it will actually save many more months of development time in the future.



I have several more enemy concepts completed but have several stage concepts left to create. The Level Editor has taken full priority right now over the concept phase, but I don't expect the level editor to take too much longer to finish.

While I work on the editor Josh and Nic are hammering away at the final script. We had long deliberations about what exactly we wanted to do with the story and characters. We want the story and characters to be memorable so we had to take extra care with much of the plot-points, character interactions and their story arcs.

After the editor is finished I will resume with concept art which will be remaining enemies, bosses, stages, level layouts and everything in between. The goal is to have a mostly 100% blueprint moving forward so that we can just start hammering everything out. We made the unfortunate mistake at the beginning and throughout development by just working as we go. It caused a lot of hiccups, delays and doubt. While we had an approximate idea of what we wanted, it wasn't thorough enough. The steps we're taking now will ensure that development progresses at speedy rate once we finish the current stages.

Thank you all for reading. I will be bringing these updates to you monthly now as I find this will strike the best balance of providing new information as we work on Anathema, while still allowing for time to develop the game. We still have our day jobs so we only get so many hours a day to work on the game but are glad we have the ability and opportunity.

See you in March!

-Matt