Dungeon development diary entries 3-4

Hello everybody!

No screenshots today, but after this I present one almost everytime with an development diary entry!


3. 14th August 2007

I made a variation of one of the July brick blocks. I didn't manage to fade the dominating brick away, but instead I got a feeling, that this whole project could start rolling from this point. I still have to change my working style a bit, and then I'll have the perfect basic blocks at my disposal.

I may make a 2*2 sized block of different kinds of bricks, which together are an entity, but they could be used separately. Out of these bricks will come also cracked versions and ones with vegetation on them. It is important to finish the basic tiles, they have so visible task in this tileset. I must make them darker somehow, because the tileset is supposed to be a dark one.


4. 15th August 2007

I made four new brick-candidates in about one hour. Unfortunately, they were not that good and the previous candidates remained better. These new ones tile better, though, but I can not make use of them in my tileset.

Frustrated, I looked in to my concept drawings made in spring 2007, and noticed, that even the first bricks were designed in the wrong direction. So there is a possibility I have to start designing the bricks completely from scratch. As always, I should have started with the walking platform tiles. At the same time, maybe, I could dictate to myself how the bricks should look like. I think it is better for everyone I noticed this little problem in time, because this could have led me to a painful dead end. I am thinking that now I really could get a hold on the wonderfulness of creating new :)


26th November note: A small piece of information to this point. I often listen to music while I make tilesets. I can always name some favourite tracks of certain periods of time, like when I was drawing Twilight Park, I listened a lot of Kingston Wall. Dungeon's top1 inspirational piece of music is from Armin van Buuren's A State of Trance Year Mix 2006. It's of course Mike Foyle with an exceptionally good dance track Shipwrecked (John O'Callaghan vs. Mike Foyle Club Mix). If you are even one bit interested in electronic music, check it out at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSx55MR8QuY

Dungeon development diary 1-2

Hello posse!

Here begins the real development diary I have been promising. I will refer to Castle of Cadavers as "Dungeon" from now on, because there is no chance that the tileset would be named Castle of Cadavers. That name has never satisfied me. So, it is codename Dungeon from now on :) After the simple name period (e.g. Desert, Glacier) I have liked to name the tilesets more specifically, but leave one word to shorten it to (e.g. Islands). This will be the case also this time. Expect some really witty name for the tileset! :P

Now to the diary. To date there are 23 diary entries. These 23 entries accompany 19 pictures or screenshots from the development process, so you will have lots to see. Today I translate you entries 1 to 2, and some days after 3 and 4. The fifth entry comes with the first Dungeon gameplay screenshot there is. From that point all of the entries will be added to this blog separately. Some of the entries are not very long.

I consider that the Dungeon development process started in August, but there are some things I did before that. For example, I have had an empty Dungeon.pcx in my computer for at least few years. I don't really remember when I created it or how it would have looked. More recently, in the spring, I created the first brick tiles, which, I think, can be seen in the picture below. The Dungeon development diary starts from July 2007.

1. 4th July 2007

Third attempt made to make the basic brick tiles work. These new ones look pretty good to me. They could end up in the final tileset release.

2. 14th August 2007

To add more variation, I made more of the same style bricks like I did in July. Unfortunately these don't look as good as the originals. There is one particular stone that dominates the big picture too much. I probably have to redraw both of the brick tiles, and remove the domination problem that way. I have the models to base the new ones, that should prove it pretty easy task to do.

17th November note: What's in the picture: in the lines 1-3 are the first generation bricks made probably in the early summer 2007. They didn't look good and that reduced the will to make more proposals. Line 4: the second generation showed the way to the third that looked the best of these brick tiles. Line 6-7: These are the tiles I speak in these two diary entries. Tile 4*6 is the one that has the domination problem. In the right there are three steps visible how the brick tiles were made. In the two bottom lines are the ground tiles that preceded the ones that are used in the current version of Dungeon. They look very much like those in Twilight Park :)

A quick update

Hello Jazzers!

My Castle of Cadavers tileset has progressed very much during the last month. The screenshot you see below in the previous entry is, I am proud to announce, very obsolete! I will actually soon start having space problems, since about 600 tiles out of 1010 maximum are already used. The dungeon part that the screenshot shows is already very enjoyable and playable, but lacks the primary eye-candy. Many of the essential tiles are done however.

When I started this blog, I said I would be writing to this blog in real-time, meaning that if I made something to the progressing tileset, I'd say it here. This has not come to reality unfortunately. However, I have made diary entries to a text file, that's here on my computer ^^. In addition to these texts I have captured screenshots from according development phases. They are fun to examine!

From the back row: "To the point already, Blade!" Yes, very well :) Soon I will be start adding these diary entries to this blog, and you will be having the excitement of reading what has been really happening in the tileset creation during this summer and the fall. There are two primary reasons why I didn't do this real-time. 1. I was lazy. 2. Most importantly, I was not so excited about releasing very unfinished screenshots of the tilesets. They could have parts that do not make it to the final release and would make people angry or some other unwanted mood. This would also interfere to my vision of the upcoming tileset since people would like to give their opinions on the tileset. This is not always bad thing, you guys have given me a lot of advice during these years in the great JJ2 community. The base of the tileset is a hallowed thing that I need to do by myself :) Now that the tileset is well on the way, and know that this is going to be released, I can show the screenshots and my thoughts more openly.

Yes, that's all folks for this time.

P.S.: Mike, I am waiting for another entry in your blog! ;)