While most of the team is working on a super-sekrit client project (or several actually) one lone warrior is on his quest to wabafy the Oliver&Spike Multiverse. That’s right! One of our most beloved NPC races is getting an overhaul and is currently being 3D-ed: The Wabas of Firma in all sizes and colors. You’ll be able to interact with those adorable little critters and will have to try to gain their trust (which is not really a trivial task ).

For those interested: All the modelling is done in 3D Studio Max and Henning has to be careful about the actual polygon count. It’s a challenge to find a good middle-way, since we do have close-ups of the models in our cut-scenes while during the actual gameplay the characters and NPCs are seen from further away. That means we have to optimize them as good as possible for both incidents: They have to be polished enough to look good in a close-up but also not too high in count to not overstrain the engine or the hardware. Priorities, priorities..

Hopefully we can use the same models for both the cut-scenes and gameplay aspects, but we have to see if we will have to create proper high-resolution models for certain characters.

For now, we’ll leave you with a short impression of yesterday’s lunch time fun. Mind you, it’s a not-so-exciting wobbly handheld iPhone video. Watch at your own risk .

Since we are buried in additional work with client projects we have been a bit on the lowdown with news but Henning is reworking both the Professor‘s and Clara‘s 3D Model and they are turning out sweet indeed
We are also very excited about the feature both on indiegames.com and indiegamemag.com. Thanks so much to both Sarah and John. We also got quite a few emails from you guys, so thanks for that too. However, don’t be shy and leave us a message on the blog! We promise we won’t bite.

For example, do you have any ideas for a cool Dimension? Something no one EVER thought about before? Think Jell-o Dimension or a Chocolate Dimension? What would be their special physical laws? What kind of inhabitants do you think would live there? Share your thoughts here!

On to something completely different: We are noticing a lot of references to Quantum Conundrum on comments on features about Oliver&Spike. While we are really flattered that some of you would compare us to a game from Square Enix, it is also very important to us to point something out: The first time we pitched the original design, game mechanic, story idea, characters and concept idea was in early 2010 to the Norwegian Film Institute. That was way before Quantum Conundrum was even announced. There are also quite a few differences between the two:

Oliver&Spike is a mix between a platform/puzzle and an adventure game and features both game mechanics very prominently. You are playing a character in 3rd person view and will interact with other npcs, including cut scenes and story arcs, main quests and side quests you can complete at your own convenience. All the Dimensions you switch to are fully exploreable on their own with their own adventure part and storylines. Just something we wanted to get off our chest and clarify.

But for the record, we are very much looking forward to Quantum Conundrum and we are definitely going to buy it. It looks like a seriously amazing game.

Last but not least, we added another comic panel. Check out how Oliver ended up at the Professor’s house in the first place.

This doesn’t only include having their own inhabitants both friendly and aggressive, but also their own fauna and flora and most importantly different unique physical laws. These differences can range from helpful to hinderance but if used correctly something that seems like a disadvantage can be turned into an advantage.

Here are three screenshots of Auria, the first world you are going to encounter.
Auria is made up of three different dimensions: Terra – Firma – Aqual (as seen in that order on the screenshots beneath).

Notice how the pathway and important terrain setup such as trees or rocks are pretty much identical yet they are unique and easily distinguishable? Landmarks and paths will help with orienting yourself on where you are on the actual world.

Remember that the Dimensions exist in the exact same space on the actual world. Meaning, if you stand on a path on Terra, you will appear on the exact same stop on Firma if you dimension jump. Now, in the case of Firma, the Dimension might look slightly different due to happenings in the actual story which influenced the layout of the world. This adds an additional layer of complexity but will also be explained story-wise to make sure it’s clear that it’s not random.

In order to make it more obvious here is a rendered transition between the different screenshots. The “existing in the same space”-feature is of course deliberate and fundamentally crucial to get through the puzzles and storyline arc in Oliver&Spike.

A lot of people took the time to either sit down with us at Game Connection or stopped by and checked out the Demo at GDC. All in all it was a very exciting time for all the Rock Pocketeers who made it over to Uncle Sam’s side.

Now we are still busy re-connecting and getting information out to everyone who requested them. Of course it doesn’t stop here: New videos have to be made to make sure the trailer does the current game justice both look and gameplay wise. Firma, the Waba‘s homeland, is getting more Waba like unique props and the water is getting ramped up to meet the art style and quality of the rest of the game. In order to have an easier time with all the quest objectives and triggers we are also working on a more visualized overview of the quest and gameflow. Last but certainly not least we are brushing up and finetuning the cutscenes of the first few minutes of gameplay and work on a about a hundred other things linked to the game.

If you check out the updated comic section featuring the second panel for your viewing pleasure, don’t forget to check the screenshot section: We added a few brand-new in game screenshots. As always, let us know what you think, we don’t bite

Henning and Ivan discussing some animation related issues.

Trond and Ivan brain syncing (or so it seems..)

Hand painted textures in the works! (Ivan is still contemplating..)

Our latest addition to the Rock Pocketeer Team: Programmer Egil Bradley (note his space invaders t-shirt, already blending in perfectly!)

Testing, testing and more testing

Voice-overs are also being added to the game and cut-scenes animated and finalized.
Since we do have voiceovers and quite a few cut-scenes in Oliver&Spike we developed a system to deal more efficiently with voiceover files in a unity project. Our way if implementing different ground textures and blending them is also very unique. We will be adding specific and more technical posts about how we achieve this at a later point in time.

If you happen to be in San Francisco for GDC and Game Connection, make sure to let us know! We don’t bite

Let’s take our Oliver and see how he matured during the process:

The first step, obviously, is to come up with a good background story and a good general description of the character for the concept artists to have an idea where to start. That’s the base a concept artist has to work with. Here is the very first concept we had for Oliver:

He didn’t feel right at this point, so Davide created more suggestions to choose from:

A more intellectual Harry Potter Look:

We sent the first version to the hair dresser and ended up with a slightly more mischievous Oliver with cute Beanie (just missing a snowboard, isn’t he? ) A bit too rebel maybe?

Here is a slightly more inventor-y type of kid (after all, being raised by the McSplices should leave some lasting impact, no?). We really liked the longer hair but those heavy eyebrows had to go. Reminded us a bit of Syndrome!

We finally settled for this combination: He’s got a longer body, longer hair, lighter eyebrows and a sweet, loveable feel about him.

In order to be able to start modeling, a so-called character sheet of the actual concept has to be drawn, showing the character from different angles. This makes it much easier for the 3D artists to create a model which is based on to the actual concept:

It is, however, often necessary to tweak and adjust the actual 3D Model as well. As you can see the first 3D model has some differences from the 2D Concept:

Last but not least the current version of Oliver. What do you think?