Progress Report #3: Conundrum

So I took a step back.

And really really looked at what I was accomplishing with this project, only to find that there wasn't anything of note. I was and am too in my head, refusing to progress if whatever I had in mind didn't live up to some arbitrary standard.

This realization was partly the product of one of my devs leaving the project. aaaaaa

So the ideas are still too nebulous, and I think that's what has been getting me every time with these projects. It's simply too much! Like a game takes a fuckton of energy and I can't output that as the sole music/sound/story guy. Every new idea or direction has to be supported with a new song, or a new background, etc. 

What is helpful, yet also restrictive, is that my other dev friend has positioned himself as "the coding guy". So I can basically describe to him a movement style, and he'd find a way to program it. The restrictive side is that he doesn't really care about how the story goes, nor does he really have much to say about the art style except "pixel art is the easiest way to make something look professional". OK, and with that I'll do everything else? I neeeever intended this to be an independent project, in fact quite the opposite! I wanted to experience a team working on a singular idea. yeaaaaaaaaanope

Which, from their point of view, they're not getting class credit or doing anything with this project so I don't blame them for not really giving it their all but it was wishful thinking on my part to think there'd be any other outcome 

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So where does that leave the project? 

I'm not sure. What did come out of all of this was that I wanted to focus on a particular aspect of this. I like the idea of 30 minutes before an apocalypse being tranquil, I haven't tossed everything. But I need to narrow things down, and the comment about pixel art being the easiest way to make something look professional really got under my skin, almost like a kind of revelation. Am I doing this pixel art to merely look good or am I doing it because I like the style myself? At the game's incipience it was definitely the former. Using a well-known style to look cool / retrooo whoaaaa

Funny thing is pixel art is, and I know it sounds redundant, an art. It is difficult, and takes a lot of patience. One pixel being off the mark destroys the entire work. It's not something I would want to just upchuck because "it looks professional / indie". I want to respect it and learn about it. So I think I'm going to sit with it, and not worry about these story ideas. I have the premise in mind still, but maybe it'll be more of an experience, with sounds / images as opposed to a fully fledged game. At any rate, the pixel art can be transferred to a game setting, so I'm going to leave it ambiguous for now.  

What I made above was a test in incorporating perspective through pixel art. However I worked at way too small of a scale in comparison to the pixels used for the dockside mockup.

See the difference in resolution? No canvas size was set, we just wanted the character to be able to move through the background. But now things are getting regulated, slowly.

I looked at a lot of pixel art and discovered this amazing artist by the name of Kirokaze. His work shows true mastery of the pixels, even going so far as to animate his scenes into little gifs.

His artwork:

(last one is VERY fitting in terms of themes)

The best part is, he posts timelapses of the pieces being made, so I can look way more into his process. Some immediate roadblocks are that he uses photoshop, but for the most part he starts with a sketch underneath (which is also very well done) and just..kind goes at it for hours -- he also posts the canvas size which is very helpful.

And as you can see his works are like little vignettes into different worlds. They're not game assets, they simply stand on their own and I really like that idea. Instead of having this whole thing be a project with an end goal, it's more of an exploration into the tools with which projects like indie games (which is ultimately the dream) are made. And best of all, by concentrating on a specific area, I learn way more about it. Again, it sounds like a no brainer but working on music and story and art simultaneously is like getting your feet wet in three different pools. I wanna take the plunge!

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THAT all being said, here's some musical ideas i'll probably elaborate on. i played these live I DO NOT PLAY KEYBOARD SO timing is blehghhg

 that's a great default image nice




 So yeah. guess that concludes the progress (or lack thereof) update
woooo