Instead of doing a simple studio update for December, I decided lets merge it in with our highlights of 2017 and discuss some of our road map moving into 2018.
So moving on, as the new year is just dawning and we all scramble to get used to writing 2018 on everything, lets take a moment to remember what wonderful things happened in 2017 here at Broken Hammer.
2017 for us was like taking that first jump off a diving board at a pool. While our splash was not as elegant or eye catching, it provided us with a good taste of what was to come. As well as a hunger to move forward from there.
The biggest highlight of 2017 for us was our internal build reached an alpha 1.0 stage and we were able to incorporate that into our alpha demo. As project manager this was huge. Our long time team members remember our very early builds which were filled with temporary images.
At that stage all we had really in it that was anything like what it is now, was the script, and even that would come to be refined a few more times before today. Within six months we took something that looked very incomplete, and turned it into a functional VN.
Which is very much thanks to Georgy who logged countless hours concepting and creating final art assets. Getting all of it created and into game within a short time. All during the midst of enduring a grueling education schedule over in Russia.
Learning how to improve his own art and mastering new techniques while on the fly...really can't speak enough praise about him. This project and company wouldn't be the same without him.
The amount of work he put into the crowdfunding with me, even after we launched, was nothing short of amazing. While he has been a bit more indisposed over the holidays with some on the job application of his education, he's been one of the most dedicated team members on this project. We're looking forward to 2018 and where his art goes next.
Speaking of that...2018 were looking to follow our momentum and get the rest of the Neutral Arc finished. With the majority of the character models finished and only a few backgrounds still left to do, we're sitting in a very nice situation for making that happen. Even get this game into a Steam early access title.
Gimmen Gong, who has taken interest in our development and even allowed us to use some of his music for the alpha demo, is coming on board in a more official manner.
He's going to be working with Finbarr in fleshing out the music even more and bringing in many more tracks to our sound track.
Gimmen has done work in the gaming industry already. In fact he's one of the musicians who has done work for Muse on GOIO. We're really ecstatic to have him joining this project and look forward to seeing more of his music in Dust and Air.
Which is where we will be starting in January as people come back from holiday breaks.
Music is going to be at the forefront as we'll be doing some music team meetings this month. The first target will be addressing the issues found in the Alpha Demo. Then we'll be moving on to Day 2 and the rest of the Neutral Arc from there.
The art side will be looking to finish up the decals this month. We just sent off some initial prototype designs to Muse for approval and we'll be looking to refine them more after we get their input.
Work on the Neutral arc will continue and I'm happy to say that Gwynevere's arc and implementation into the game engine is moving along smoothly. We're actually finding a few things in the script to improve so it's gone somewhat slower than anticipated as we resolve and adjust those. Most of these were just remnants of the original script that had managed to survive till it's current form.
Gwynevere's story actually had to go through a partial rewrite due to some clarifications made to the GOIO lore. While I was able to rectify many of the inconsistencies, there were still some that were missed.
Which is just a product of unfortunately myself being the writer of the story. Often times the closer a writer is to a story, the less they see. Hence why I've tried to maintain a constant review process.
It's kind of like pottery. If you ever took a ceramics class, you'd know what I mean. You effectively take the larger less refined lump of clay and refine it down till you have the pot or vase, or whatever you are making.
This process will be updated for you as we move forward into 2018.
There is much to do on this project and much to do in 2018. We look forward to bringing you our updates as we go forward. We may be updating the Alpha Demo during this time. When we do, we will make an update post. Eventually it will become a full demo based on our final build.
Thank you for following us in 2017 and for staying with us on this journey into 2018. See you in the skies!