Week 007

Week #007: How Fortuitous...
This week we're going to take a look at the process involved in the creation of the game's first boss area. This was one of the first of the game's assets I tackled, second only to my initial work on the game's player characters. Despite this, we haven't shown much of it off yet. It took roughly a week and a half for me to finish this with my limited environment experience, which is sure to grow and quicken as work on HTD moves on. Please keep in mind that these images, as always, represent a game currently in development.

Early on, I really didn't have an idea of just what Sam and Dan had in mind yet. Taking what brief ideas they had given me I started to put ideas down on paper (so to speak), which we then refined gradually (as you can see above) as the stage began to take shape. Once we were happy with the layout of the stage, I started to polish it all up. This part of the process easily took longer than the early design phases for obvious reasons. Part of it was talking Clyde into sleeping on the couch while we refurbished. I don't know what his deal was, I mean the Fortuitous Cave doesn't even get cable. At this point, I started messing around with environmental effects, to enhance the mood of the place. This didn't go over too well... Many of them looked tacky, and ultimately we didn't have the time to spare, as the new tenants were ready to move in. But hey, those lava pools will save bundles on the heating bill this winter. After we cut our losses, I finished up the necessities (still no cable, Sam can be such a scrooge).