First steps of Fleet Calamity

This blog is documenting my progress as I make my first game. I have a bunch of help from friends and family and I'll list them as this blog goes on so you know what they contribute and how we go about things.

First off, what is this game?

Well its a computer game where Battleship meets Magic the Gathering.

Sound cool? Well I hope so, cuz I certainly think so.

A quick overview of game play:

Each player starts with four Flotilla; Two battleships, one civilian ship and one resource ship. These ships hold your vessels, which are basically creature cards from Magic.

Your goal is to destroy the opponents Flotilla using your vessels, traps and upgrades. But first you must seek out your opponent by moving about the hex grid.

As it stands a turn looks like this:

1. Draw cards or warp. Warping allows the player to move to any point on the map, not just an adjacent hex.

2. Draw until you have 7 cards in your hand.

3. Discard to gain resources.

4. Play vessels, upgrades and/or traps.

5. Move. This move can only be to an adjacent hex, no further.

There are no resource cards. Instead, to gain resources you must discard. Discarding one card gains you one resource. Two cards gain you two resources and so on and so forth.

So what do we have done?

Well the basic game play is fairly solid. We have created a tangible prototype with temporary cards made of card stock and a play area made of  unused pizza boxes.

We have a bunch of cards for Humans and Machines set up too. We are focusing on these two factions and making sure the game works properly before expanding out to the other aliens. We are starting to play test with people not associated with the game and soon, once we feel we have a pretty solid game on our hands, I’ll be searching for investors to help fund our need for programmers.

My friend Matt Oberdalhoff has been helping me develop this game and really tweaking the finer points to make sure its easy to understand, fun to play and quick to get into. He’s helped a ton on keeping me on track and making sure I don’t add too much fat, especially in this early stage.

I myself am Matthew Hagen. I started developing this game about a year ago while in school. I picked away at it as I learned the ropes of game design while working at a game studio locally. I really am excited to present this game to you all and I hope you are all happy to keep checking in as I update this blog.

As I progress I’ll keep this blog updated. It may be slow in the beginning as more non visual stuff is being developed, but it will pick up more as art is produced, and programming magic is cast!

Take care!

P.s.

Blogger didn't like me adding pictures to this post, so next post will be featuring that.

Art of Fleet Calamity

 Well that was a brief overview of the game. Lets get to some art!

Above is a Manipulator. These aliens are the oldest of all the four races. Manipulators are special in that they don’t rely so much on vessels to fight the war, but instead use upgrades and traps more than anything.

 Here we have the other alien race, the Outsiders. These creatures are brutal, taking over the bodies of their prey and using them against their own people. The image shows one Outsider taking over a human body.

Lastly, for the 2d art, we have a human. The humans are unique in that they can rank up. When ranked they may grow stronger and gain new abilities.

All the art above was created by the talented Alonzo Canto. You can see more of his awesome art at http://alonzocanto.blogspot.com/

Go check him out. You will be happy you did!

Lets move onto Flotilla

Above is a work in progress of the human flotilla. These models will be used to represent your flotilla as you move about the battle field.

Next we have the Machines battleship flotilla. The Machines are the last of the four fleets battling for survival. Machines scavenge parts of their fallen to rebuild and improve those still in the fray.

Finally we have the Machines resource ship.

All the models are still being worked on so what you are seeing are all work in progresses. The Machine battleship is the furthest along, at least for now. We may decided to go a different direction with it, or add more stuff, but right now we are thinking of just giving it a texture and calling it good. There is plenty of other work to be done instead of lingering on this one piece.

Toon Head update

 

 I added some 'umph' to the hair to make the silhouette pop more. I also started the body, but I'll show that progression later. I just wanted to show the improvement on the hair from last time. I also altered the neck a bit to make it thinner. I think I'll keep pushing in the neck to make him more of a pencil neck.

Toon head

This week I wanted to do something a little different for me. I normally try to more realistic models and sculpts so to break the mold and challenge myself a bit  I spent a few hours on a new model.

Here we have my first toon character. I only did the head right now because I just wanted the practice and experience. However, I really enjoyed this project so I think I will keep going and give him a body and then texture him.

At the top I did a quick drawing inspired by a 2D artist I follow on Deviant art. I  then took those drawings and imported them into blender to begin modeling. I spent a total of 4 hours on this character from concept to where it is now.

The head, hair and eyes are all different meshes.

I would like to go back and accentuate the hair more and make it more bubbly and really push the exaggeration on it.

More Alonzo

Here are two screen captures of Alonzos face that I modeled in Blender then sculpted in Mudbox. The top image is just the sculpt with no painting. The bottom is my first attempt at coloring him. I still have yet to actually give him hair (on the top of his head). I'll be taking another stab at texturing him at a later time.

The following is a bit of my process on what I have thus far.

 

Above shows my shaping the model to the contours of Alonzos face. I'm simply trying to make the topology flow properly. I had no intention of animating this, but I wanted to allow for the possibility. So I payed special attention on the edge flow around the cheeks and mouth as well as the eyes.  It was important to me to really capture his natural creases.

 

Above is showing how I'm comparing the two faces. I got the general topology down, so now I'm making sure to actually capture his likeness. Here I'm paying closer attention to his jaw line, the various creases in his face and the depth of facial land marks.

 

Above is just a smoother version to see if the model will retain the desired look when smoothed out. I find that smoothing can really throw off some things, so I like to double check constantly.

 

Above shows my beginning process of sculpting Alonzo's face. I'm giving more attention to those deep creases sprouting from his nose and eye. I also added bags under his eyes. I haven't started any minor details like pours, imperfections, pimples, moles, hair anything of the sort. Right now I'm just getting the big details and working down to the finer things.

 

Finally I have added his hair, a pimple he had and I gave his skin more imperfection with the imprint tool. This is most evident on his nose as I tried to imitate pours. I also added veins on his fore head and the creases there too. 

Finally, here are the images I was using for the model and sculpt.

The Amazing Alonzo

     Here is a model I am currently working on to help improve my character model skills. Right now I'm really trying to focus on topology and making sure that if I were to rig this face it would deform just like the real thing. I don't think it looks too much like my friend yet, but I at least got the base mesh down. Now its just a matter of tweaking to make it look more like him.
     Once I'm done with this base model I would like to bring it in to mudbox and really dig in to the details.

     Any suggestions on how I could make this look more like my friend? Or maybe suggestions on topology?

FYI, this took 4 hours and its only my third face.

More Helcha Animations

Here are two more animations for the character Helcha, which I modeled, textured and animated for a game I'm working on with my friend Merphy Syphokom. Here we have Helcha landing so he can come to a stop after moving. I also have an animation of him eating something. Next step is implementing them in to the actual game so he can move around and enjoy foods.