post apocalyptic folklore
w002 gathering research on traditional Indian folklore and regional animals
I found this gem in a bookstore and really recommend people look into Kay Nielsen’s work. I think it captures a very indigenous, yet unique outlook into the art style of Norse folk tales. I thought it would be cool to try something in that vein that is similar visually, yet still reminiscent of Indian folklore.
folklore | ˈfōkˌlôr |
noun the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth. • a body of popular myth and beliefs relating to a particular place, activity, or group of people: Bollywood folklore.
How has it been going so far?
It’s been a little slow and rocky, especially considering that a lot of the research I had set out to do didn’t go according to plan - and that’s okay. I’ve gathered enough supplementary material, books, music and indie film recommendations to pivot into a new direction.
The game will likely contain some sort of sugarcoated daytime horror based on Indian classic folklore. I’m still keen on centering it around a hunt, where you start as a prey I think making the game about nature, plants and habitats might be a little to dry without some element of mythology.
Am I still making a board game?
Maybe.. maybe not. It might just be more economical to work on the story aspects and gameplay mechanics and systems first and then figure the physical board game aspect out when I’m back in Japan.
Finding the right cultural context for a story
‘Songs for The Earth’ is about the journey from a land in the east to a land in the west, and is very much rooted in the natural habitats and mythologies of those regions. I think of the larger map of Hollow Knight and am inspired by then biomes and how unique they are in the large scale context of things.
I picked up Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Typhoon and Other Stories‘ and I like the usage of oceans in his writing. I think it's interesting seeing his approach to it as a sign of the times. I like seeing a storm at sea as a metaphor for many things and would like for that to be a part of the game.
2D vs. 3D
A friend recommended that it might be a better idea to project detailed 2D textures onto 3D geometry than to make a 2D game. I agree, because as an indie dev making their own assets I think I would have a hard time modeling and developing at the same time. The art direction is still a very important part of this so this way might be the path of least resistance.
Godot and other tools
Godot seems really fun and intuitive to use for specific kinds of games. I like that it’s node based, and the syntax seems fairly straightforward. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to complain about when I dig deeper, but I think it’s more than enough for simple games.
Optimization tooling, writing custom scripts, event busses, messaging, concurrency, net code for multiplayer might all be tremendous hurdles to overcome given the current state of the engine. But the important thing is that I believe in the community, want to contribute and would love to see it grow into something reasonably at par with Unity.
OpenUSD
I was conflicted about keeping it 2D and 3D but all that depends on Godot’s rendering capabilities… which at the moment seem a little limited. It might be best to keep the OpenUSD for animation heavy pipelines and keep the actual game in 2D. In that case the Solaris, KarmaXPU to Copernicus pipeline might be the best.
Pixel Art
Pixel art might be overused but there’s still something we can romanticize about the texture quality of 2D pixels in squares for a retro aesthetic. Just for fun I bought Aseprite. Pixel Pete has some good lessons on how to get started!
Adobe vs Open source
Last week I spoke about permacomputing and staying away from subscription based models like Adobe. A lot of designers and artists who have experience gravitate towards adobe and tools they are familiar with since they might have developed an entire style around it.
I’m keen to see how far I can take the Blender/Procreate/Houdini/Aseprite pipeline. Some artists have done really cool stuff with Houdini 20.5’s Copernicus tooling already.
Reading diet
Typhoon and Other Stories by Joseph Conrad
Ghosts, Monsters and Demons of India by J. Furcifer Bhairav and Rakesh Khanna
Dracula - Sudeep Deepjoy Mauricio
Tamil Pulp Fiction - Pritham K. Chakravarthy
The Debacle by Emile Zola
Learning diet
Still working on Godot and C++ tutorials. Need to catch up with my shader vocabulary too but one step at a time. Game development can be overwhelming (but that’s where the fun is too)!
Check out last week’s update for more!
Next steps
So that’s the end of the first sprint. Was it productive? Kind of but not really… slow start but that’s how it always goes.
The important thing was that I was able to update my daily devlog without fail and continue to find new inspiration for the game every day and meet people who were open to helping and giving me feedback on it.
Looking forward to sharing some early stage concept art next week along with a demo level to play!
Cheers and hope y’all have a great rest of the week 🐸