*Frame of Mind *

Greetings & Tidings! 

Happy New Year all!  I hope everyone closed the year with warmth and that warmth carried into the new year. I hope we have all settled into this new period, embracing yet another brief experience betwixt the unknown.  As for me, I’m filled with anticipation for what's to come -  while I’m usually the realist, oftentimes the nihilist, I'm challenging my beliefs this year with the elusive sentiments of radical positivity. Towards last year's end, two transformative experiences fell into my lap that I’d like to share with you.  Let’s recount these exciting times together!

Artism by RECOLL 

Much gratitude to Douglas of RECOLL for inviting me to participate in the virtual Artism exhibit! 

Having pitched phase 1 of RecRed a couple of weeks prior, I  was in development limbo as I began composing the architecture for the phase 2 release. Restructuring the main level stairwell model was a top priority, and when I was extended an invitation to showcase art from my game alongside other wickedly talented makers, I jumped on the opportunity to rebuild the level and present it in conjunction with a few other imaginations. In my demo video ( see “Phase 1: Looking Glass ) I mentioned that I wanted to remodel the staircase in Blender. Hubris came before the fall as always and with one week in between invitation and presentation, I capriciously jumped into Blender diddling and daddling for about 24 hours before I realized that it was going to take much longer than what I had in time,  to bring to fruition. I pivoted immediately after realizing this and wondered “What if I took this as an interesting challenge to see how far Unity’s Probuilder can take an idea before it needs to be exported to a modeling software?”. Probuilder is an approachable in-engine Unity tool for developers to prototype and execute models. Having built the first level in Probuilder and previous experiences prior led me to believe I could improve on the original level design much more than I had thought possible with the software.  It’s all about using the tools in your toolbox huh? Using the ideas of the original escharian stairwell design, I polished all the edges chipping away at all unneeded vertices, aiming for a “neverending floating weightless stairway to heaven” a la Zeppelin. The Figure 8 level plan was mirrored and smoothed appropriately, colliders were reconfigured and the player's entrance to the level was composited. After selecting the most favorable of the prefab variants I engineered, my eye turned toward details. My QA loved the mini staircases stuck inside of the previous level, so I reimagined those as well as added static expository “cloud consciousness’”  that snugly hugged the newly designed level model. Familiar structures like the columns were imported from external assets as well as the riddle solving mechanic being moved to the top of the stairwell. I really wanted rails for the staircase and created about 192 individual rails, nesting and organizing their prefab structures. These railings have caused my level prefab to shoot the batch calls to a blasphemous amount- though  I will follow up on the technicalities of the solution in a subsequent post. Once the main level reappeared unto my eyes like a vision, the super fun part of creating additional world-building stills came into play. My QA & I frolicked through the new design, capturing stills of what I aimed to embody the emphasis of Rec Red. Once all was done, exhibition night came, I hopped into Spatial.IO  and was filled with nervous excitement. Everyone in attendance was so incredibly kind, talented, and delightful to speak with. I behoove you to please check out the meeting post here to explore all of the thoughtfully curated exhibitors. As it’s not my place to post the entire exhibit walkthrough without permission, please do take the time to look at all the creators' works via the link mentioned. I am over the moon with excitement to attend the next Artism event and hope to see you in attendance as well, celebrating the illustrious artistic value of the videogame medium in an intimate and friendly environment!  Below you will find the video walkthrough of my portion of the exhibit as well as some up close stills of the work I premiered. Once again, I am deeply grateful to have gotten to know and pick the brains of the brilliant minds of all whom so graciously spoke with me. 

Day of The Dev 

December was a backseat month for development for me. I had a case of micro burnout from running around like a chicken the entire year. Alas however, Day of The Dev: The Game Awards Edition just so happened to be taking place near my stomping grounds that month. It was free to attend and open to all indie game enthusiasts- how could I not stop by? I was merely a bushy-tailed, bright-eyed fly on the wall, taking in all the sights sounds, and smells of my first developers showcase! I had never been to an in-person gaming event and had so much fun playing kickass original indie games! Please see this YouTube video showcasing all of the games available to play- I have quite a few on my wishlist! Witnessing devs interact with players with gusto motivated me to want to showcase a game at this event myself one day.  I went home that day gleaming, it finally started to sink in that I was really in this career… oh what a frightful feeling, a joyful feeling, the beginning can be. 

Over the next few months, I will be prepping RecRed for release anticipated around Spring here on Itch. Please check back every so often for development updates! Thank you so much to everyone who has shown interest in my creation - your support means more to me than you may know. 

See you soon!

May joy follow you, 

ChociMilki