A look at our processes and funny development fails
Hey all, developer Felix here. This month I thought its best to do another blog post rather than a YouTube video. May has been a busy month and there's some pretty exciting things to share. I also want to give you a behind-the-scenes look at some of our art processes!
May Progress Update
In May I added most of the remaining core features of Soulbreaker, specifically: Cutscenes, player expressions, death/respawn mechanics, text localization, controller support, and romance mechanics.
In addition, all act 1 enemies are now fully implemented, which is a super exciting milestone!
An even more exciting milestone is that almost all of act 1's dialog and cutscenes are done! That means multiple characters you can talk to, with all their expressions, cutscenes, and even a fully befriendable/romanceable bachelor! I wonder who....
The Making Of Character Art
We've figured out a pretty neat process for how we design our dialog sprites, and I'd love to show you how we did it. It's actually a lot more involved than it might seem at first.
Making Jack, the anxious mess
Jack was really fun to work on, and was actually our very first character! We spent a lot of time figuring out how to translate Dingo's style into a "sexy" version, what the colors should look like, shading, not to mention just how sexy vs funny we're gonna make things.
What's with the blank face?
All of the models are actually faceless by default, as we overlay one of the hundreds of expressions in-engine. Jack alone had over 40 just for the demo. This lets us convey way more emotion rather than the usual one-expression-fits-all approach you often see in visual novel games.
BUT this also comes with the fun caveat, that the face needs to be overlaid PERFECTLY, or you can end up with some pretty cursed results:
Sorry not sorry for showing you the cursed Sips/Jack hybrid...
Also! If you ever wanted to see how the layering works in-engine, here's a look at that too in 3D:
I decided to go the extra mile with this one, because ultimately we want the characters to be customizable not just in expression, but outfits too! Unfortunately, that does mean redrawing each outfit for each pose but worth it!
Background Art
For the interior shots of the game, we're using hand-drawn backgrounds as you saw in the demo if you played it. Avery makes sure to personalize the hell out of them to fit each character. Here's a fun behind-the-scenes look at how Gothi's stall was drawn!
May Q&A
I always really appreciate when you guys send in questions about Soulbreaker. If you want to ask a question as well, make sure you join the discord https://discord.gg/foolsgold
Karate_Girl2004: Do you guys plan to translate the game to different languages?
For example German, Italian and so on? Or is it going to be in English only?
Yes! We haven't confirmed the full list of languages yet, but definitely English and German. More languages will be added as things progress.
Myodra: What style of rogue lite will soul breaker be? Dungeon crawler? Dating?
"Yes." All of the above. Combine HADES, Cult of the Lamb, and Binding of Isaac, but add completely unique dating mechanics on top. You don't have to date or befriend any of the characters to fully enjoy the game, but it's a bunch of extra content for those who enjoy it.
EJ: Any timeframe on when the Kickstarter might arrive as well or is that to be determined?
There is no exact launch timeline yet besides "2024".
What's Next?
I'm primarily working towards getting the next demo ready, and there's lots to be done still:
- The UI needs an overhaul
- Finishing up all of the writing for Act 1
- Finalizing player progression
- Fine-tuning abilities & bug-fixing
Til next month y'all!
- Felix