Unto The End News

Here's a look at an attack animation of one of Unto's woad enemies. This particular woad is armed with a quarterstaff and in the time-lapse below we're animating a two-handed overhead attack for it:



Obviously the process has been massively speeded up, but in real-time what you see in that clip is about an hour of work.

Here's the final attack animation running at about 25% normal speed, just to better show the individual frames it's composed of:



And here it is running at normal speed i.e. how it appears in the game:



As an example of how woad attack animations look in action, here's a scenario from the game where the father finds himself going up against two of them.



You can see the quarterstaff woad isn't actually involved in this particular skirmish – we want enemies in Unto to feel unique/individual, even if they are the same type of creature. So different woad wear different garb or have different markings, and wield different weapons.

It means more work – the three different woad here all need animations that are unique to them, for example – but this 'handcrafted' approach is really fundamental to the final experience we want to create for players.

- Stephen and Sara

https://store.steampowered.com/app/600080

Player skill is something we want to put at the centre of Unto The End, and mastering the father's moveset will be key to overcoming and surviving the challenges he encounters on his journey.

In the scenario above, for example, the father finds himself flanked by two aggressive krilt. In an encounter such as this, you'll have to read the enemy moves and react accordingly to block incoming blows, attack when a suitable opening presents itself, and employ any tricks you can to manage the space and keep the foes at a safe distance.

In the situation shown below, the father finds himself in a different fight dynamic. A cave-dwelling woad has grabbed the father's sword and is using it against him. The advantage here is with the enemy, but a few agile dodges and one disarming shoulder barge later and the weapon is back with its rightful owner (who then wastes no time slaying his stunned opponent).



These are just two scenarios that demonstrate how players will have to change tact and adapt quickly to different situations, and how mastery of the father's moveset – the entirety of which is available from the get-go – will be critical to achieving that.

- Stephen and Sara

https://store.steampowered.com/app/600080/Unto_The_End/

Although regarded as 2D, the world of Unto The End is actually constructed in 3D – it's built from layers of 'flat' polygons and some sprites. For instance, in the scene below, the mountains and hills are flat polygons, while the home, father and grass are sprites.



We wrote scripts to perfectly represent what the player will see in-game as we position and edit things in Unity. This includes everything from scene framing to lighting and Vfx. We also built a custom in-scene editing tool which allows us to draw and edit our environment assets within Unity. Edits appear in realtime within both the scene and game views, as shown here:



If you have any questions about this or any other aspects of the development of Unto The End, please feel free to ask away. We'll be happy to answer if we can.

- Stephen and Sara

https://store.steampowered.com/app/600080/Unto_The_End/

Hi everyone. It's been a while since we posted on here, but we've been working hard on Unto The End and development is progressing well. You can see how things are coming together in this video of some work-in-progress gameplay footage:

https://youtu.be/vFUNQsoDzsU

An edited version of the footage appeared during E3 at the Xbox briefing – Unto The End is going to be available in Xbox Game Pass at launch – the video shows the full unabridged version we sent over to Xbox.

In addition to the gameplay video, we've also got a new selection of screenshots to share:


These caves are the first area you'll have to navigate. Dangling from a great height is just one of the dangers you'll face

The rudimentary pulley system provides a route through these vast caverns

You can collect and use spears thrown by enemies. Obviously you'll have to dodge them first...

Presenting a very different dynamic to one-on-one combat, you'll have to master the hero's full moveset to overcome multiple enemies

There are no 'easy' enemies in Unto The End – every successful dispatch of a foe should feel like a deserved, but hard-fought, victory

Hone your combat skills in this homestead training area

Although perilous and home to many dangerous creatures, the world can be a wondrous and majestic place

Hope you like what you see. We aim to have more frequent updates over the coming months, so should have more to share with you soon. In the meantime, you can add Unto The End to your Wishlist by clicking the widget below. Your support is a huge help and greatly appreciated.

- Stephen and Sara

https://store.steampowered.com/app/600080/Unto_The_End/

It’s update time!

For this post I want to introduce the woad – one of the races that inhabit the world of Unto The End. These native creatures will be regularly encountered during the game and, given their status as one of the main residents of Unto, Stephen and Sara at 2 Ton Studios put a lot of thought into their conception and design.

This is just a quick snapshot of that process and how the woad has evolved along the way.



The rugged brute you see above is the initial woad concept. Looks good, but wasn’t quite right and failed to meet one of 2 Ton’s tenets of creature design, namely that a creature should ‘be realised enough that an expansion could be built around them as the main character’. So, back to the drawing board/sketch book…



A few sketched alternatives later and a final design for the woad was found, although rather than being based solely on one dedicated form, a hybrid was chosen that blended elements of the warrior and simian styles seen above. The warrior was too human-like and the simian too animalistic, but together they combined to make the perfect woad!



And here he is, the final version of the woad. He’s the one on the left wearing the skirt/kilt. In creating the woad, Stephen and Sara wanted to come up with a creature that was agile and athletic, animalistic but intelligent, approachable yet fearsome, and this design really embodies those characteristics.



Having arrived at the final look of the woad, the next job was working to ensure its new, more athletic build was reflected in its movements. The woad’s agility is deftly demonstrated above as it flows from one motion to the next in a near effortless display of terrain mastery. Needless to say, for Unto’s human hero, attempting to run away from these guys won’t be the best strategy.

Hope you enjoyed this introduction to the woad. Comments and questions welcome!

Matt | Digital Uppercut