Today, “Drew and the Floating Labyrinth” has officially entered it’s Kickstarter campaign!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1618944138/drew-and-the-floating-labyrinth-a-hand-drawn-3d-in
This hand-drawn 3D puzzle platformer needs your help on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight! Help today!
So I’ve formally announced “Drew and the Floating Labyrinth” to the world, complete with logo and rough video. I’ve gotten some good feedback too, mainly from Youtube and Reddit. The game certainly isn’t catching like wildfire, but I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback, and am grateful for the responses.
But the fans must be asking… what happened to “James – Journey of Existence?”
… ok, no one’s asking. But I’ll talk about it anyway.
(written May 12, 2014)
I love animation.
I love traditional animation.
I love to draw.
Then why am I so exhausted only after a week?
So I tested my game out at a second public event, meant to promote my University and “Science” to local kids and families. Games are science, right? I did feel guilt about taking away a bit of attention from the other Computer Science volunteer who was showing legitimate educational tricks, but alas…
My experience with these events enhances my recommendation for all indie developers to find any opportunity to showcase their game, not for press but for general exposure and feedback. It doesn’t have to be at events strictly game-related either, and doesn’t have to have huge audiences. From roughly a hundred kids who came by and tried the game, I got enough feedback on the design of the game to feel more confident this time around.
So, I’ve been testing a new workflow for animation.
Previously, I was only using Photoshop. Frankly, it’s terrible for hand-drawn animation. But I recently rediscovered Pencil, a free pencil-test program, and am trying a new workflow: rough animations in Pencil, put frames in Photoshop, trace over frames making sure they look good frame by frame, and export the final for use in Unity3D. It’s extra work, but I think it’ll lead to better animation, and may be quicker too when not second-guessing myself in Photoshop. We’ll see.
In the meantime, here’s some test animations made in Pencil so far. In my opinion, it’s a huge improvement over “James,” so I’m hopeful that I am getting better.
Drew – Idle, Running, Jumping Animations combined
