Search Unity

  1. Megacity Metro Demo now available. Download now.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Unity support for visionOS is now available. Learn more in our blog post.
    Dismiss Notice

Oliver&Spike: Dimension Jumpers

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by Kyena, Feb 1, 2012.

  1. marcos

    marcos

    Joined:
    Oct 18, 2009
    Posts:
    592
    Underwater looks great now! How many artists do you have working on this?
     
  2. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Hey guys! So sorry for not getting back to you earlier but we are still wrapping up all the impressions from GDC and Game Connection.
    We had so much fun and it was a blast to meet the Unity crew - great guys and girls all around :)

    Steffan, afaik QC also uses Crystals to power the actual Dimensions? Not 100% sure though. The reason we do use Crystals for the actual jumps is mostly puzzle related. They serve both as hints and limitations. I will definitely mention it to the rest of the team though since I do agree. We already plan on having full exploration areas, where it's all about finding hidden things and get to hard to reach places which enables you to jump at your hearts content. I pushed for this myself since I am also really enjoying the exploration value of the dimension switching :)

    Thanks marcos :)
    For the Prototype, which we bascially put together from scratch in 6 weeks, we had one animator (which did all the cut-scenes and most of the animations), one concept artist (who did pretty much all of the 2D designs) and one 3D aritist who did all the in game models, environments, plants, characters, models, textures etc. (he is an animal though ;))

    For those who haven't seen it. While we were so super lucky to be showcasing the prototype at GDC at the actual Unity booth Gamespot did a quick feature video:



    And here a few more screenshots of the prototype version:




    As I said countless times at GDC: It's really amazing what you can do with Unity :) While we do quite a bit of custom scripting it's still all Unity power.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2012
  3. NomadKing

    NomadKing

    Joined:
    Feb 11, 2010
    Posts:
    1,461
    The GDC footage and new screenshots look amazing - I can't wait to play it! :)
     
  4. nipoco

    nipoco

    Joined:
    Sep 1, 2011
    Posts:
    2,008
    Looks really fantastic. I would say one of the best looking Unity games so far. Really vivid and fresh art style.

    I have two technical questions if you don't mind.
    How did you the realtime AO? Is this the standard Unity AO effect? You can see the effect clearly if you look at the Gamespot video around 4:00 where the little guy is close to the rounded white stones. Or is this just the shadow? It looks damn delicious.

    And how did you guys made the underwater caustics?
     
  5. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Sorry for answering so late (been suffering from the flue -.-)
    Good catch, both shadows and AO are fully dynamic. The AO is the native Unity one but we had to sliiiiightly modify it to make it work with our fog :) The caustics is just clever use of existing Unity features (animated cookies).
    And thanks a lot for the HUGE compliment. I am not sure we deserve that credit since there are quite a few amazing looking games out there from what I've seen at the Unity booth at GDC.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2012
  6. nipoco

    nipoco

    Joined:
    Sep 1, 2011
    Posts:
    2,008
    Big thanks for the answers. I really appreciate it.

    And this game clearly deserve that credit. It is not merely the technical aspect of the graphics. It is also the art direction. You have something really hot in the making here

    And get well soon!
     
  7. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Most welcome :)
    And your "get well soon" comment goes rather well with your signature ;)
     
  8. thellama

    thellama

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2010
    Posts:
    360
    This looks very impressive. Kudos to everyone who put work into this. As a person named Oliver I approve this game and it's characters ;)
     
  9. ROCFriesePoort

    ROCFriesePoort

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2009
    Posts:
    107
    Wat kind of control scheme is the game using? And does the player control the camera?

    Regards
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2012
  10. Kaze_Senshi

    Kaze_Senshi

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2012
    Posts:
    243
    I loved the waterfall screen.
     
  11. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    If you mean gameplay wise then it's your normal console controls and yes, you control the camera with the right stick (rotate around the character, move up and down etc).

    If you mean technically: We do use the Character Controler in Unity but custom coded a lot on top and the camera controller is completely done from our side.
     
  12. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Even though the cutscenes are not up to the quality we are happy with due to the deadline we set ourselves for GDC (close-up high res textures are missing and lighing and shaders are off), we posted a few screenshots on our development blog:






    and a few more extra gameplay screenshots:

     
  13. MellowNinja

    MellowNinja

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2012
    Posts:
    344
    Looking Great ! The game looks amazing :)
     
  14. ROCFriesePoort

    ROCFriesePoort

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2009
    Posts:
    107
    Can you shed some light on how you going to distribute the PC version of the game? Is it through steam?

    Regards
     
  15. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Frido hi :)

    Ideally Steam, yes. However, we are not far enough in development to be able to approach steam about inclusion yet.
     
  16. danvan123

    danvan123

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2011
    Posts:
    26
    This game looks absolutely amazing! Ill be the first one to buy it!
    Well done and good luck :)
     
  17. ClarkCLK

    ClarkCLK

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2011
    Posts:
    31
    This game looks amazing!

    I'll buy it if it is avaible for PC/Mac version, if it is for PS3 and isnt too expensive, I'll buy it too :D

    Wong Wong!!
     
  18. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Thanks guys - as always it's really exciting to get such great feedback :)
    We got some new concept art depicting the main villain nox:

     
  19. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    A quick blog entry about the worldbuilding in Oliver&Spike and how the Dimensions per World are sharing the same layout.

     
  20. Train

    Train

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2008
    Posts:
    344
    The graphics in the game are very good. Big talents are in your team, thats for sure. Good work!
     
  21. Roidz99

    Roidz99

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2010
    Posts:
    198
    i smell a potential hit, if marketed right !

    only one word comes into my mind ... AWESOME !
     
  22. zoxmax1

    zoxmax1

    Joined:
    Dec 18, 2010
    Posts:
    154
    very very nice, i hope that you will make great game all the best
     
  23. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Again, thanks everyone for the comments :)

    If you have additional questions or ideas of what you would like us to write about and share, don't hesitate to either post directly on the blog or ask here.
     
  24. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Something a bit different:
    Check out this tutorial on how our very own Davide creates his stunning 2D Concept Art for Oliver&Spike.
     
  25. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    We sent some exclusive Screenshots to Indigames.com and they wrote a small article about Oliver&Spike.
    Check out the three new screenshots here.

    And sorry about mostly writing in this thread. I wish I had more time to check out all the other projects :(
    But as always, if you wonder about some technical aspect on how we use Unity or what we do, please don't hesitate to ask away :)
     
  26. reissgrant

    reissgrant

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2009
    Posts:
    726
    Great work!! The art is really top notch!!
     
  27. rhasami

    rhasami

    Joined:
    Apr 30, 2012
    Posts:
    72
    wow, I like the artwork.
     
  28. ShadoX

    ShadoX

    Joined:
    Aug 25, 2010
    Posts:
    260
    Looks great and sorry if this was already asked, but what is stopping the player from just staying in the water dimension and swimming to the end of the level or the next goal? Is there a limit like how many times you can switch to it, or a time limit for how log you can use it?
     
  29. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Sorry for the late reply - tons of work :)

    Thanks all for the comments!
    ShadoX: If you check out the gamespot video linked, there is an actual oxygen bar. You can only stay under water for a limited amount of time (that will increase later on thanks to Gadgets Oliver gets from Professor McSplice). There is also a limit on how much you can switch: You collect crystals in order to jump.

    We are currently working on getting the Wabas up in 3D, my personal favorites :)

    There is a small blog post about it on our development blog including a silly video.
     
  30. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    3D Waba!
     
  31. Demigiant

    Demigiant

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2011
    Posts:
    3,239
    Tough... uh... guy? Love it, great work as usual :)
     
  32. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Not really tough but don't tell them ;)
     
  33. n0mad

    n0mad

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2009
    Posts:
    3,732
    And that's awesome art once again.
    I bet your studio will go much bigger once O&S: DJ will be released, your graphical talents are way too good not to become a big AAA studio ;)
    (or not being approached by a big AAA studio)
     
  34. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    One can dream n0mad but thanks for the heads-up ;) It would certainly be great to work full time on O&S. Right now it has been going a bit slow since we are working on client projects (to pay the bills!).

    Henning has had time to create some more Waba eye-candy and Conny has been working on brushing up the cut-scenes in the first 15 minutes of gameplay.




     
  35. virror

    virror

    Joined:
    Feb 3, 2012
    Posts:
    2,963
    Just wow!
     
  36. Alismuffin

    Alismuffin

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2011
    Posts:
    100
    This looks amazing! I'm impressed by the smooth transition between dimensions. And the art is incredible! I'd love to play this :D

    EDIT: Oh! And you should post this over at www.Polycount.com
    They will appreciate the art :)
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2012
  37. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Thanks Alismuffin, will do! :)
     
  38. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Something small :)

     
  39. virror

    virror

    Joined:
    Feb 3, 2012
    Posts:
    2,963
    Something extremely good looking!
     
  40. TheAll

    TheAll

    Joined:
    Dec 10, 2010
    Posts:
    27
    This is an awesome game! I'm definitely following this one.
     
  41. chippy-cheese

    chippy-cheese

    Joined:
    Feb 29, 2012
    Posts:
    124
    I can't find one thing i couldn't like about it. I love the look more then anything. The finish product will be amazing I'm sure.
     
  42. Khyrid

    Khyrid

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2010
    Posts:
    1,790
    The execution is professional and then some, great job. I assume you used Unity Pro for the lighting?
     
  43. Train

    Train

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2008
    Posts:
    344
    I love this game so mutch. My favorite, when it is done i must be the first. Please write me an e-mail or PM when it is done ok?
     
  44. n0mad

    n0mad

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2009
    Posts:
    3,732
    I just want to lie down in this foliage ... :)
     
  45. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Hi Khyrid, we are using Unity Pro yes, but we do a lot of custom scripting and developed an actual logic for the different scenes (for example the underwater dimension compared to the others).
     
  46. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Heh, I try to remember that ;) a good bet is to follow our facebook page or blog to not miss on either testing invitations or release news or any news for that matter :)
     
  47. kaaJ

    kaaJ

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2007
    Posts:
    150
    I know already a lot of people said this, but hey...
    It looks great, professional and adds a cool gameplay element on top of classic gameplay.
    Keep pushing that experimental stuff to the limit :)

    Well done! Good luck with it, I will follow the blog...

    .kaaJ
     
  48. SevenBits

    SevenBits

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2011
    Posts:
    1,953
    Just wanted to comment and say I love the underlying idea behind this game. It's so... intriguing.
     
  49. hellcaller

    hellcaller

    Joined:
    May 19, 2010
    Posts:
    381
    Just found this project, and i was like:
     
  50. Kyena

    Kyena

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    118
    Thanks so much you guys, sorry for the latish answer. We are still focusing on additional client projects but hope to be back full time on O&S by the end of this month. That doesn't mean we are not working and improving it already but not as fast as we could/would want to :)

    If any of you are at GDC Europe/Gamescom, make sure to come say hi. We will most probably have the latest Demo build with us and I'd be happy to show it to you in Cologne :D