“Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament” is Available Now!

“Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament” is officially available now on Steam (and soon other stores)! Hooray!

Buy it here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/388680/

Plus, if you are still unsure, please try the free demo of the game here: http://unfinished.fromdustscratch.com/#system

Plus, see this little launch trailer!

The game is also trying to be on IndieGameStore, MacGameStore and WinGameStore. I should have remembered they need a few weeks to prepare a store page for it, I only submitted the game last week. Hopefully anyone who doesn’t want to use Steam can use other outlets by the end of the month.

I always feel insecure when releasing a new game, or even revealing it for the first time, knowing that this is what it is, and not everyone will like it. A few close friends tried the game for the first time this week, and while they certainly weren’t the intended audience, their appalled reaction when I said I planned to sell it was discouraging. I was tempted to not release the game at all.

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“Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament” unfinished sketches from other artists

In June, I introduced a promotional contest of sorts for artist’s to contribute to my new indie game “Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament.” I wanted unfinished works of art by as many artists as I could find to enhance one of the levels. 25 artists (most of which made new work live in front of me at Toronto’s “Stage Select Gaming Expo”) contributed work, which you can see in Level 4 along with my own collection of sketches, making for over 50 scattered drawings across the place. You can also see the contributed art works individually in a gallery in the Options menu. I place them here as an archive for you to see.

Remember that these were “unfinished” artworks. Some of them are fantastic, others less so, many of these people admitted they are not very good artists. All the same, I would frame them all on my wall if I had the space. If you were one of these artists and do not agree with how you are given credit or would like your work removed from the game, please contact me at ahlynka@fromdustscratch.com and I will sort it out. I had contacted all the artists weeks ago, but some have still not gotten back to me.

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Announcing My New Project: Unfinished

Sometime in January, I made a post that said…

 “I will have gameplay finished by April 2015, or so help me God I will shut down this site and my gamedev career forever!”

Well, April is almost over, and I’m announcing my next game project just in time. It feels appropriate that it happens to be “Unfinished.”

“Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament” is a hand-sketched 3D adventure game for Windows, Mac and Linux.  Control Sketch, an unfinished sketch wishing to know who it was supposed to be. The only clue is to follow a pencil that continues to draw in the distance, followed by an artist’s voice as he struggles to complete his work. To reach new areas, Sketch will find left-over drawings to use for new abilities throughout the journey. Featuring traditional animation in a 3D environment, a personal story, and an environment filled with scattered concept art by the developers from various projects. More information on http://unfinished.fromdustscratch.com .

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New 2D Faces on 3D Characters – 2D Live Euclid

CES 2015 happened last week. Beautiful tvs, new laptops and tablets, a lot of car-tech… but I’m going to talk about an innovation from about a month ago that’s more up my alley.

Most of the posts on this blog makes it clear that I like 2D animation. My first game (which got Greenlit on Steam recently, I’ll talk about that more in a few weeks) is one of the first truly 3D games that has a hand-drawn character. I did this because I am annoyed that no one has really done that before. However, “Live2D” is a company that has been trying hard to make it easier for developers to do that, and so their latest effort, “Live2D Euclid,” comes closer than ever. Their website is available here: http://www.live2d.com/en/ , and a video of their latest technology can be seen here:

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Microsoft Surface Pro 3: A Artist’s / Game Developer’s Review

Warning: I am a indie game developer and an artist by hobby only. Therefore, your requirements may differ depending on usage.

No doubt you’ve seen many reviews and previews of the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet, which Microsoft claims to be the “true” laptop killer (which they’ve said for versions 2 and 1 as well). I’ve been tempted to buy one… who wouldn’t be interested in a tablet that can do everything your computer can? I remember making fun of the original iPad as a oversized-iPhone, only to realize that the larger touchscreen was the perfect device for note-taking and digital sketching. As an artist-wannabe, that meant something. But the only issues with the iPad were that it didn’t have USB connections, and that the OS itself was different (therefore, not compatible with any software I need to use). In fact, given the iPad’s relatively affordable price, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple ditches the iMac one day for a “professional” iPad to appeal to more consumers.

So the Surface Pro seemed like a great thing. It was a professional tablet with full Windows OS, and unlike most other tablet-PC’s, it came with a pen stylus and a decent processor and other specs, making it a true replacement hardware-wise for your PC. I was torn between the Surface Pro 1 (nice price), Surface Pro 2 (Wacom-pen with latest improvements to tablet), or the new Surface Pro 3 (even more new improvements). I eventually took advantage of Microsoft’s student offer and got a i3-Surface Pro 3 for about $700 (plus tax). Here are my thoughts after a few weeks.

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