The enigmatic journey of Sky, an explorative artificial intelligent made by Professor Toro Hudo who lives in Goa, the world below. Sky was created to help Professor Toro Hudo in constructing kinetic system for his foster daughter, Ocean Hudo, a forsaken limbless child who fell from the clouds when she was an infant. Observe the mystical Goa, experience its astonishing adventure with formidable jigsaw, swiveling plot, and bizarre habitat.
Wow, we still cant believe we started our Greenlight Campaign. We are both excited and nervous monitoring the progress of our greenlight. We chose January 16th, 2016 as the first day of our campaign. Not only a beautiful number that become the reason we pick number, we also have create our own calculation and research.
We went through our first day with weird feeling. Happy, worries, surprises and many feeling occurred when we saw the number for both YES and NO vote are increasing. We are also so nervous waiting for the comment that will be written by Steam player.
Positive comment filled with praise, happy expression and support after reviewing our page or even playing our games create a joyful emotion in our heart. Every trouble and sacrifice we made while developing Ascender since May 2015 has been paid.
While constructive input or even mockery is also become our fuel to improve Ascender. We highly appreciate the sincerity and honesty of Steam’s player with spontaneous and very attentive reaction to Ascender.
The comments do not only come from Steam Greenlight page, a few player come and visit our facebook page and web. Our friends are also both willingly and excitingly send us email containing suggestions and input. Some of them are also game designer, sound designer and game experts.
The words “Thank You” can not describe how appreciative we are to Ascenderians who play the game, voted and comment at the Stream Greenlight Page. We are continuing our journey with sky, giving the best for Ascenderians for the release version later. Keep praying and supporting us through the end of this epic journey.
It’s my first time writing this devlog. I’m Alexandrite, one of the artist, who is still coping with Alan Rickman’s death. Well, I don’t really know how to write but I’ll talk about characters in the world of Ascender.
Designing character is quite tricky, as character is the one who the player use throughout the game, so you have to make the character as lovable as possible, in many ways. Amber, our Art Director, provides me with the early sketches of the main character and then trust with the final design.
Sketches of Sky
The creation of Sky, our little robot, is the easiest since it has been decided earlier that Sky is the “little, dog-like companion”.
Sky Final DesignSketch of Ocean
Ocean’s concept is the typical “Golden hair, Ocean blue eyes” of classic beauty. It’s harder to catch her image since she’s just a little girl. I have to make her as innocent as possible while maintaining her beauty, which is not my forte. So in the end, we give her a weird hairdo with three braids. Her image keep changing, until in-game-sprites where her hair is longer, messier with platinum-blonde color instead of golden blonde, and the rings on her front braids is getting bigger
The final design and in-game sprite.
And beside the main characters, there’s also NPCs, creatures and the random villagers. It’s a new experience to design the GOA Civilization, along with it’s cultures, clothes, physical traits.
Meowl & Gnallo
The creatures, as Garnet has posted, are the fusions of animals. A weird mix, but they are quite cute, aren’t they? Meet Meowl and Gnallo! The fusion of Cat-Owl and Gnawer-Armadillo. There will be quests about them, so, prepare to cath’em all!
NPC: Villagers
About the Villagers, Honestly, i was having a hard time designing GOA Cultures. And then i was inspired by Borneo Tattoo as the main feature of their culture.
Tattoo of Goa
So, what do you think about our Characters? Or maybe you want the high-resolution tattoo design to tattoo your body…. i’ll be delighted since i can’t get myself tattoed.
Before I go, don’t forget to vote for us on Steam Greenlight
Today is a big day for GameChanger team, we have just publish our STEAM Greenlight page. We have been developing Ascender for 7 months, excluding our research and analysis phase. You have been a great audience for us and have helped us giving valuable input.
By opening ourselves in STEAM Greenlight page, we are ready to accept more input from the biggest community of PC Game player in the world. Our greenlight page can be visited at http://bit.ly/ascgreenlight or http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=578620154
Next month, we are going to launch the beta version of ascender as the final version that can be enjoyed by public before we are releasing the game for sale.
That is all from me, a short news with the biggest information from us.
Hi, guys! Happy new year to our beloved Ascenderians!!
Garnet’s here and I want to tell you a tale behind some animals in Ascender. So, it all begins when Amber, the conceptor of Goa’s civilization had a long discussion about what kind of animal should live in Goa. In the talk, I gave my idea that it should be combination with 2 or more animals and Amber added some suggestion to consider about food chain and underground adaptation of those animals.
Where’s the idea come from? Actually, it just flashed in my mind when I remembered about trending post in 9GAG about pokemon! As one of the pokemon gamer, I really love when some people makes fan arts about them. For you guys, who doesn’t know yet about Pokemon (I doubt it, cause at least we heard of it, right?!?) you can check their official web in here. But, here it comes the fantastic fan arts on 9GAG!!
A 9GAG Post about Pokemon Fusion
It is amazingly cool, isn’t it? So, I try to figure it out, when my idea and Amber’s concerns meet. I created the lowest level of the food chain first: The TONABA! This is the fusion of Plankton and Amoeba (primarily the ability to divide itself) that can live either in water or land. Actually, it won’t be visually seen in the game but I placed some images so you guys can imagine what it will looks like.
The Plankton + Amoeba ability to divide itself
The second layer of the animal food chain are a bug and a water creature. Okay, this time the inspiration wasn’t really came from me, the bug part came from Chalcedony in the time that he showed me this picture.
The Anchopper Illustration
So, what is this bug actually??? This is a kind of bug that can live amphibious, which is the combination between an anchovy and a grasshopper: The ANCHOPPER! They love to eat many tonabas one by one till they full , they also can eat leaves. Anchoppers can be found in many places inside Goa and yeah, they are really buggy (annoying) but birds and small animals love to eat them!
The Cattlefish Illustration
Next one comes from my authentic imagination. It’s a mix between a cattle and a cuttlefish : The CATTLEFISH! I know you must be wondering what it will looks like, it’s quite simple anyway: the shape are exactly the same like cuttlefish but they have a pattern on their skin like a cow. Guess what, there is a lot of inks inside cuttlefish (if you grab and squeeze a cuttlefish the ink will pop out, right), but how about cattlefish? They contain milk inside their body! So, this animal not only in the second level of food chain but it also provides the dairy need for GOA’s people! They eat tonabas all at once, anchoppers are also included.
Okay before I get too excited to write all the things in my post, I should give an end here because next our character artist, Morganite, will write about characters and animals that she already sketched and colored from my fusion idea description. Here is the clue about two animal names that Morganite already accomplished : MEOWL and GNALLO. Can you guess what’s the fusion recipe?
I’m Garnet, signing out from GameChanger’s vacation! 🙂
How time flies and suddenly it’s almost a year in developing our epic best game yet: Ascender! We have spent much of our time, thought, and treasure, for this sole reason: to finish this long-awaited game! Oh, the lost of opportunity to go for an outing, watch movies, and even to date …!
As for the time being, we have reached the alpha version milestone, packed with awesome stuffs which we ourselves find it difficult to believe. All of Game Changer crew is actively and wholly involved in assembling the pieces of Ascender.
Story team (Garnet and me) strove in inventing scenario and dialogues not only to match the grand storyline, but to actually become the heart of the entire game. Game design and programming team (Amethyst and Chalcedony) hurdled across challenges to make a fun and intuitive gameplay. Visual art team (Amber, Jade, Alexandrite, Moldavite, and Peridot) scrambled through innumerably difficult sketches and drawings. Audio team (Zircon and Citrine) never had the chance to unequip their headsets in order to produce superior tunes that blend well with the game. Garnet, Amethyst, and me also had to wrestle to make the best decision for the marketing strategy of Ascender.
If we are to reflect on this lengthy and challenging journey we traveled so far, it is suffice to say: Thanks God! The future, signified by this incoming new year, is full of shiny radiant stars of hope, floating in the sky of hope. We have high confidence and expectation to reach them, fulfilling our dreams. We will keep walking, side by side, hand in hand, our beloved brothers and sisters. Together we will keep ascending to realize the testament of Mar (late wife of Prof. Toro Hudo), that is, to give arms and legs for Ocean, their treasured daughter.
We meet again 🙂 I am Amethyst the game designer of Ascender. As you might experience from our alpha, there are various type of puzzle or obstacle that is both compulsory or not in order to finish the alpha. It is indicated at the end of the alpha where you are given the information of how many task you finished or item you have.
Our friend can not collect all the item while testing
So, we had design some level with different type of puzzles using box, lever and light rope on Dolopo. We even have developed some level design for districts in Helion. We basically try to create a huge world consist of puzzle laying around the city to explore. But upon discussing with amber, chalcedony and garnet, we need to create a better way to expand the world (so you won’t easily bored) and create a more variative type of puzzle (not just FedEx Puzzle).
Puzzle Design
So, I go back to my game design guidelines and trying to implement more design on various problem rather than just put puzzle on the Alpha. We added the basic running task (The next level will include a surprise where the environment will change while you are competing with Nippytron), pattern puzzle which is figuring out when is Meowl will land, a simple fedex puzzle that has a night and day attribute, and also we implement jigsaw power up problem where you need to change up the rune in order to grab some item.
Meowl
Nippytron
Gnallo
Jiogsaw Rune
Some puzzle that are implemented in alpha
As I mentioned before, in the surface everything looks easy. There are complication when we change what we want to Implement. Dialogue changes, art improvement and I even need to change the level design several time.
That is all from me at the end of this year, I can’t believe that we are already passing the Alpha milestone. We are currently preparing ourselves for Greenlight Campaign. Wish us luck 🙂
Me and all my friend in the studio would wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !!!
It has been sooo many features added to our beloved game, like the Rune, skills, character, cutscene, background paralax, and also the NPC. This time i will talking about Character & NPC Sound Effect.
First of all, did you know the difference between Character & NPC?
We know that Character is someone / something that we controlled in a game. NPC is different with Character. NPC (Non-Player Character) sometimes known as a non-playable character is any character that is not controlled by a player, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence.
In Ascender the game, we control Sky as a character. Sky is a robot, so when I want to make sound effects for Sky, I had to make the sound as similar as possible to the sound of the robot movement.
Usually I create the sound effect from Fruity Loops Studio software & edit that sound in Audacity. Fruity loops has many great music & sound. So, I took one tune from FL and bring it to Audacity to get a great sound.
When I need a sound but not available in FL Studio, i usually record my own sound effect with simple equpment or I’ll go to the website that provides many sound effect for free license. Emmm, but to be honest I don’t like the way to find free sound from the website. So, even though I usually look for free sounds, I still combine that free sound with other sounds, so I produce a new sound. In other words, I can produce a new sound from 3 pieces free sound. Sometimes I also combine a free sound with the sound of my own record.
I will give you an example of sound effects that I use for some NPCs in Ascender The Game.
Meowl is a combine of Cat and Owl. So, i combine the sound of cat & owl here, but the sound of an owl is dominate here, because the main shape of Meowl’s body is a bird.
And Gnallo , is a combine of Gnawer and Armadillo. They are a rodent animal, so i imagine that they have many teeth, so it sounded like it lol. I don’t know what to say..lol
Hmm, just happy playing and enjoy the sound. Cheers 🙂
Welcome to this entry of the devlog. I am Chalcedony, a programmer of Ascender and also an apprentice in devlogging. Today I shall be your host in journeying through the backstage of Ascender, giving glimpses of what happened off-stage.
Let’s get acquainted first with what’s going on in the screen. As you should have known from this post, we have the so-called parallax background (and foreground)…
parallax in action
The day night cycle system…
day and night cycle
And the quest system…
quest system instance
Do you ever wonder what’s really happening outside the camera’s bounds? Well, it’s pretty ugly, I tell you, but here goes anyway…
look at what happens offscreen!
This log wouldn’t be complete without explaining what’s going on! Let’s investigate them one by one, starting with the parallax thingy.
On a 3D world, these are a no-brainer, you just move the camera and parallax effect will naturally happen. On a 2D world, these are conceptually simple, too. You just need to move the background slower, and the foreground faster. Basically, things closer to the camera move faster. It can become a hassle to setup though. For an instance, this messy setup below shows just perfect on the camera.
what a messy structure!
And then we have the day night cycle. Again, in a 3d world, sunlight can be simulated rather easily using Unity. Too bad they don’t provide 2D light! To make darker scene for night time, I just tint things at different rates. Light from lampposts are faked by shooting spotlights into the scene.
spotlight shot from the camera
Quests are supposed to be interesting. I thought of making generic quest template, but then it will only be capable of serving generic tasks (delivering things, getting x items, etc.). It would be dull and boring, right? Hence, I have to make a different script for every quest available in the game. Don’t forget to check the information provided in the pause menu when doing quests later!
map, showing quest hot spotsquest description
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the tour. But your quest isn’t over! Why don’t you stick yourself in the action? Grab a copy of the alpha version now, and let us know what you think!
It’s me again, Jade, the lead artist from GameChanger Team. I’m so happy to see you reading our blog until now, mwah!
So far, Ascender the Game has expanded from prototype version, to Pre Alpha Version. It has been sooo many features added to our beloved game, like the Rune, skills, character, NPCs, animation, and the most important thing is: Outdoor Background ;D
We all know that in side scrolling game, the most important thing besides the character it self is the background. Without a proper & well suited background, players won’t get the feel when playing, so we put most of our effort to create a beautifully hand drawn background.
At first, we just put our background here and there, then just edit the color a little bit and done. But, then we felt that it dosen’t feel “big” enough to represent our wonderful Goa civilization, so Amber, me, and the other artist decided to make the background with Parallax Scrolling technique
So what is parallax scrolling? here’s the sample image for parallax scrolling from wikipedia
A side view of the layers used for parallax scrolling in The Whispered World
A side view of the layers used for parallax scrolling in The Whispered World
It’s a technique in computer graphics where the background images moved by the camera slower than the foreground images, so it creates an illusion of depth in a 2D universe and enhance the immersion for the player. We use this technique to express the beautiful civilization of Goa, under the surface of the world of Ascender. Now I’ll tell you how we make it.
The first step is, we make the focus ground. Amber took charge for all the sketch after disscussing some matters with Amethyst and Calchedony. Then when the sketch done, Peridot divided the layer based from what the buildings and materials.
Raw version
grayscale version
Second, me and Moldavite start to colorize the file from Peridot, one by one, step by step until all done in perfection. We calculate the materials and texture carefully fofr the sake of semi-realism feel.
Finished Focusground. I’m satisfied with the crystal’s color ❤ Moldavite did a very good job!
Third, we polished the color, mood, etc with Amber, then Amber make another sketch for the first, second and third layer of the parallax scrolling. We made the picture while thinking about the concept art of Dolopo, it look fascinating because of the detail of the residence so Amber decided to draw the residence silhouette, colored with brownish orange watercolor for the 3rd layer, reddish orange and brownish yellow for the second and first layer. By the waayyy we colorize this parallax background layer with water color! woooooott
when I look at the water colored background for the first time, i thought it won’t work well with the focus ground. The technique is far different digital and manual, so obvious, right?) the contrast is too off, the texture and feel is different, and so on. But then Fire edit the images with all his might, night and day, and the result were suuper gorgeous when combined with the focus ground.
Implementation of the watercolored parallax background, beautiful isn’t it?
Then we move to the foreground. We made this foreground to deepen the immersive feelings trough the gameplay, add dimensions and enhance the realistic feelings. All the foreground made carefully to not block the players eyes to seeing Sky walking around back and forth exploring the area.
After done with the foreground, then Calchedony set the camera movement for each layers, set the lighting, and so on.
And here’s the result!
Ascender the Game with parallax scrolling technique background
You’ll experience the beautifully done parallax technique for the rest of the game on Pre Alpha Version, so don’t forget to download the game, leave a comment and follow us here and on Facebook for more info about Ascender the Game! ;D
My code name is Fire, I am actually an intern in GameChanger team. I started working with them in september and within a few weeks my internship term will be finished. I wanted to share you my experience before and after joining the team as 2D Artist.
Experiencing the industry is probably one of the biggest thing that haunts me since high school. There are a lot of questions such as whether I will be a good contributor to the society, will my work is useful or meaningful for others? Can I working cooperatively with others? Will my work can support myself and support my family?
Let’s eat together ( I am the one with black and red boxed shirt)
I see that there are a lot of gold opportunity for me and strive to improve my skill and expand mu knowledge. And one of the biggest part of university life (especially at the final year) is internship, it is also a requirement from my university to have it.
At this point, I am not confident with my self since there are some subjects from the university that I am not good at. At first, I am also confused to pick my specialization whether it is 2D or 3D. I started to postpone my plan for internship in the beginning of the year and try to add more portfolio. Since then, I decided to focus on my 2D skill of digital painting and manual illustration. I see most of my friends have finished their final projects and internship while I am still confused to decide when to start internship.
Gambreng Games (Part of GameChanger Team) is recommended by my friend Willi who have work there previously. The studio is also focused with 2D art. Aside from Willi experience, I also know two of the founders Amethyst and Ruby who has inspired me to try developing game. Amethyst is also the founder of game development club in my campus. Gambreng Games has also have a good track record with winning or nominated in gmae awards for both national and international. I have a chance to attend Gambreng Games second birthday and pursue more information regarding internship opportunity. Unfortunately, Gambreng Games is not opening internship this year. My optimism has shatterred because I have to find other place for internship, even though from my interaction with them has greatly increased my interest working with Gambreng Games.
Sometimes I slept while working…
On August, my prayer has been answered. Amber the art director of Gambreng called me 10 in the morning but I don’t pick it up since I am still asleep. I try to contact him back, and he offer me to be part of GameChanger team. With no hesitation I accept the offer and on Saturday I go to the studio to meet Amethyst and Ruby for further interview.
When I first join, Ascender is on the process of polishing the prototype. Before I take part of it I was tasked to create the concept art of Rajumla city. It is the first challenge because the concept art of other city is highly complex with varied perspective. But I try to learn on how to draw it. Since the task is not quite successful, I was asked to develop the dynamic environment of prototype.
My Close Up while working with tiara on my head
Once again, I am hesitated because I haven’t doe it before but I keep experimenting with what I have made before. I made mistakes here and there and finally my work is implemented in the game. Slow but sure my confidence has grown, it completely risen when I was tasked to create a cut scene for Ascender opening. For me the task is even bigger than what I have done before. I rarely create a satisfying 2D animation, even thought I am not very confident with the result but everybody is satisfied with my work. It is one of my best achievement.
Preparation for The Booth (Again with the shirt)
While in Gambreng, I learn a lot of new and not usual daily stuff. I need to hone my skills and work tempo in finishing the task based on the timeline and need to broaden my imagination with my assets. I need to consult with my colleague to find the best fit assets for the game. I also be part some of the biggest gaming and ICT event in Indonesia such as INAICTA, COMPFEST and GDG Prime 2015. I promote the game to a lot of people and I am really happy that eople enjoy the game. In making games, of course there will be problem, tension and obstacle in it. I enjoy my adventure with GameChanger team, I learn a lot !!! A Good Luck for all of them…
