Wayward Art Dump (Image Heavy!)
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For the last year and change I've had the great pleasure of working at a studio in Seattle called AtomJack. My coworkers and I (12 of us, altogether) were working on the first game for the studio, known simply as project "Wayward" (we were still in the process of coming up with an official name). Wayward was the story of a girl who crash lands on an alien planet, her journey to get back home, and the friendship she forms with a giant robot along the way. A couple months ago our publisher pulled out and we lost our funding, so unfortunately the game will never be finished.
The one upside of all this is that I can now show what we'd been working on. I really felt like we had something fun and special, and it's a shame to see it come to an end. I enjoyed every bit of working on the game, though, and hopefully you guys will get a kick out of checking out this stuff.
So, without further ado...
Here's a montage of some of the gameplay, just to give you some context:
[ame]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxd873li8LI[/ame]
I was the character artist on the team, and here are some of the models I had worked on...
The main character, "Kira":
Her robot friend:
A shoulder-mounted blaster for the robot:
Some non-aggressive crystal creatures, found in the mines:
The enemy boss of the mines area:
And some various other enemy henchmen:
Along with the models, I was also starting to explore the visual style of the UI:
....Aaaaaand more content still to post!
The one upside of all this is that I can now show what we'd been working on. I really felt like we had something fun and special, and it's a shame to see it come to an end. I enjoyed every bit of working on the game, though, and hopefully you guys will get a kick out of checking out this stuff.
So, without further ado...
Here's a montage of some of the gameplay, just to give you some context:
[ame]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxd873li8LI[/ame]I was the character artist on the team, and here are some of the models I had worked on...
The main character, "Kira":
Her robot friend:
A shoulder-mounted blaster for the robot:
Some non-aggressive crystal creatures, found in the mines:
The enemy boss of the mines area:
And some various other enemy henchmen:
Along with the models, I was also starting to explore the visual style of the UI:
....Aaaaaand more content still to post!
Replies
For those that didn't want to click on the youtube link, here are some screenshots of that build (of the more polished areas):
I've also put the Robot model on sketchfab, for anyone who wants to look at it in a bit more depth:
[sketchfab]c3511b7e3af24da99bd35b42460fa1d0[/sketchfab]
And finally (for now, at least), here's a playlist from our animator of some of the animations he was working on for the characters and enemies. A big challenge he had in particular was communicating a growing relationship between the girl and the robot without the use of dialog:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKaf55y1Kzehowhclfx5cDRc3RzlugdW-
I might post some of the concept work as well, but I would need the permission of our art director to do so. Either way, hope you all like what I've posted thus far.
Originally I had just made it part of the texture, but our animator requested that it was separate geometry so he could have more control over different parts of the robot - for overlapping action, for jostling bits of the robot on impacts, and in case we wanted to show damage states where parts of the robot were hanging loose or falling off. He's already pretty reasonable in regards to polycount, so we could spare the extra polys to make those parts separate.
Also, the panels on top of the shoulders were intended to be compartments that held things. For example, we had planned that shoulder blaster to unfold from that compartment when activated. So, naturally, they needed to be separate meshes that could open and close.
Thanks!! I'm really glad you like it. Unfortunately, since the game was cancelled, you won't be able to play it since we don't have the funding to finish it. The studio shut down last week
Sorry to here about the studio shutting down, but the work is awesome, I hope you all land on your feet nice and fast
What?! Everything you show us is absolutely amazing, art and gameplay looks very nice! Is there any chance you can get this fundet by, let´s say kickstarter or something?
Anyway, good luck : /
I'm local to Seattle working at King/Z2 (recently acquired)......check out our site for any openings. PM me and I'll make sure your stuff goes to the right people.
Regarding Kickstarter, it's definitely something we considered. The truth is there seems to be one of two ways to succeed in a Kickstarter campaign:
Our project was definitely not close to finishing. The systems were mostly there, but there were still plenty of things that needed to be tested and proven, and a lot of content that had yet to be made. In order to reasonably fund the project, our budget would have been too high for a Kickstarter campaign. And while I love my team members, and they're all rockstars in my eyes, they're definitely not as well known as any of the vets I listed above, and it would've been harder to meet the higher asking price without that kind of level of celebrity.
Again, thanks though. Knowing there was even anyone out there who'd be willing to donate their money for our vision is awesome as it is.
Thanks!! I'll ask our animator if he has more videos of animation cycles. Was there something specific you wanted to see? And did you check out the playlist I posted? There's a bunch of animations in there, too.
Some early exploration in art style and Kira's design...
..Before landing on the final concept:
And a similar development of the robot:
...And the final concept:
Coming up next, enemies!
I've got a YouTube playlist set up with some of the animation from the game, with a full play through and some prototyping animations as well if anyone is interested.
Some suuuper early exploration:
Refining a bit more and exploring style:
This was the first color treatment the enemy robots received:
...but it was later decided that they should have a more neutral, sterile feel. Also, the more colorful palette blended in with the background environment art too well, which made the enemies harder to see on screen.
And here was the concept for the drill boss:
More stuff to be posted soon!
I'm super bummed the publisher backed out before it could see completion :[
(btw, your glorious youtube videos can be embedded if you use the old-style youtube link like "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=******"
UGH! THANK YOU SO MUCH. I KNEW there had to be some way to do it. Fixed the first post so the video is embedded now!