Hooray~ The Soul Saga music video is done!  After a week of prototyping and experimenting based on lots of feedback, I’m very happy with how it turned out!  Especially considering it’s the first video I’ve ever made.  This music video will be the opening half of the Kickstarter video.

I’m told by the voice actor director that he thinks we’ll finally be able to decide on a voice for Mithos by this weekend.  In the meantime I am going to start prototyping the second half of the video which will have Elise and Mithos introducing the game to you guys.  I’m also going to be polishing up the Kickstarter page layout and content.  Stuff is going very well lately, so a Kickstarter in about 2 weeks should be very possible!

The past two weeks I’ve been mostly writing story, working on dialogue scripts, and getting stuff together for the Soul Saga Kickstarter.  I have had to cut the project off with the Video Producer I was working with since I couldn’t see his section of the video getting done in a time frame I needed to launch the Kickstarter.  I wanted to launch the last week of April and, well, it’s now the first week of May and this Kickstarter won’t be launched for at least another 3 weeks.

Theme Song~

The theme song is done!  Well, almost.  Right now it has a vocaloid (like Miku) singing, so the composer will be getting a vocalist to do the real vocals now.  Hopefully that is officially finished next week.  It was fun going through all the composers who applied.  There is a whole lot of talent out there.  In the end I went with a Japanese composer who best fit the Anime style I am looking to go for with Soul Saga’s theme song.  I will most likely look back on the submissions I got to find a different composer for the rest of the soundtrack, though.  Like an anime, I had the theme song specifically tailored to a style different than the actual content’s scoring will be like.

Music Video~

Since the theme song is basically done, I’ve also picked up After Effects and started to throw together a music video of concept images and gameplay footage.  I have never used After Effects or made a video before, but after a day of studying it I almost have the music video done!  It’s pretty cool to see all the work I’ve had for years start to take motion and come to life in the form of a polished presentation.

Voice Acting~

In a previous Developer Diary I had mentioned that voice acting might be a possibility for Soul Saga.  I’m still looking for the right voice for the main male character, Mithos, but I’m pretty sure voice acting will be making a debut in the Kickstarter.  After getting a price quote, I determined that getting voice acting for Soul Saga will have to be a stretch goal.  I think I’ll make it the first stretch goal, because I think it’d be pretty sweet to have a lot of voiced dialogue in Soul Saga.

Talk To Me!

I’d really like to know how you feel about voice overs and if you think they can help you enjoy the game more.  Please leave me a message on the Facebook, Google+, Twitter, or Indie DB pages so I can hear your thoughts!

I’m going to continue working on the music video for a few more days.  By the time I’m done with it I’m hoping I will have been able to lock down a voice actor for Mithos.  I’ll then start working on the second part of the Kickstarter video.  Hopefully the next Dev Blog will be good news about the Kickstarter launching!

This past week I worked a little bit on polishing up some video footage, and then sent it off to the video producer.  I spent the rest of the time writing Soul Saga related story and dialogue.

I was recently motivated by the successful Kickstarter of another action themed anime game, Cryamore.  One thing that really struck me as surprising was the impressive voice talent they have.  I’m now in contact with some voice actors to see if I can get voice overs for Soul Saga’s characters!  If this works out I think it would add a whole new level of production quality to Soul Saga that I never imagined.

As most people can probably tell though, I’m picky.  This will be especially true with voice overs, since the wrong style can completely ruin a good story.  But the right voice actors can make an interesting story even better!  If I think I have found the right people to get the Soul Saga story across then you’ll be seeing examples in the Kickstarter. =D

Soul Saga’s code is at a safe place to leave it for now, so I’m going to continue working on the story and dialogue this week.  It’s important I have the final drafts the dialogue and story before I continue doing much more.

Day 77 – 83

( 2013/04/15 – 2013/04/21 Mo – Su )

40 hrs. This Week ( 716 Total)

Game Design

• Worked on story.

• Worked on Dialogue.

• Worked on redesigning some gameplay.

• Researched other games and animes.

Project Management

• Researched pricing for Kickstarter rewards.

• Continued writing Kickstarter material.

• Communicated with a video producer regarding one half of the Kickstarter video.

• Communicated with another video producer regarding another half of the Kickstarter video.

• Took video footage for Kickstarter video.

• Contacted voice actors.

• Wrote demo script for voice actors.

They’re here…. the animations are finally here!  And they’re only 2 weeks late!  Oh wait, that’s not such a good thing.

I can not tell you how badly I want… no, NEED to work with an artist or 2 full time.  I am praying that the Kickstarter can do well enough to support that.  Contractors tend to take on more than one job at a time, or have a full time job and do the contracts on the side.  This causes any outsourced tasks to take 2-5 times longer than normal.  This is not including the time to find people or the time spent exchanging emails to agree on pricing and get people caught up with the project.

No matter what happens I plan to push Soul Saga to completion.  It feels good to be back working on the code again!

I will implement in the casting animations next.  If I have time I will start to add the particle effects to spell casting as well.

Day 71-75

( 2013/04/09 – 2013/04/013 Tu – Sa )

40 hrs. This Week ( 668 Total)

Game Design

• Worked on story.

• Worked on redesigning some gameplay.

• Researched other games and animes.

Project Management

• Communicated with various composers.

• Worked along side animator to finish animations.

• Tested animations.

• Paid animator for work.

• Researched pricing for Kickstarter rewards.

• Continued writing Kickstarter material.

• Communicated with video producer regarding one half of the Kickstarter video.

• Communicated with video producer regarding another half of the Kickstarter video.

Day 76

( 2013/04/14 Su )

8 hrs. Today ( 676 Total)

Actors

• Implemented the new animations.

• Fixed issues with determining the correct idle when an actor is instantiated.

Backend

• Added more robust error handling in the animation manager code.

Game Design

• Worked on story.

Project Management

• Worked along side animator to finish animations.

Hey you!  How longs it been now… 4 days?  I missed you, buddy!

This is the first time I took a few days off from posting in over a month.  I didn’t want to, but the news was so scarce it was getting a little silly.  The last few posts were basically “I’m waiting to hear back from the rigger… still waiting…. yup, still waiting… where the heck is he?!”  Well, he finally finished the facial rig!

Now that the basic rig is done, the animations can continue!

I’ve spent a lot of my “downtime” researching different programming techniques and Unity’s new animation system, Mecanim.

I also did some focus groups on Soul Saga to pick their brains about it and other games in a similar genre to understand what they liked and didn’t like about the games.  I also took this time to play… I mean study some similar and successful games to look closely at how they deal with certain aspects.

This “downtime” has given me some distance from Soul Saga to help look at it with a more critical eye.  I have composed a long list of gameplay elements to start adjusting as soon as the animations are done.

I will probably avoid posting daily this week since I will really not be doing too much in terms of development.  Once the animations are done I will be back in full swing!  I’m hoping that will be by Monday.  In the meantime I plan to continue researching and planning.

Day 62

( 2013/03/31 Su )

3 hrs. Today ( 591 Total)

• Game Design

  • Wrote some story elements.

• Project Management

  • Worked with artist (Ryuu) regarding graphic design for Kickstarter.

  • Contacted rigger (Guillermo) regarding facial rig.

  • Communicated with possible composers.

  • Reviewed theme song drafts.

Day 63

( 2013/04/01 Mo )

3 hrs. Today ( 594 Total)

• Game Design

  • Wrote some story elements.

• Project Management

  • Worked with artist (Ryuu) regarding graphic design for Kickstarter.

  • Worked with rigger (Guillermo) regarding facial rig.

  • Communicated with possible composers.

  • Reviewed theme song drafts.

Day 64

( 2013/04/02 Tu )

3 hrs. Today ( 597 Total)

• Game Design

  • Wrote some story elements.

• Project Management

  • Worked with artist (Huan) regarding monster concept art.

  • Contacted rigger (Guillermo) regarding facial rig.

  • Communicated with possible composers.

  • Reviewed theme song drafts.

Day 65

( 2013/04/03 We )

3 hrs. Today ( 600 Total)

• Game Design

  • Wrote some story elements.

• Project Management

  • Worked with artist (Huan) regarding monster concept art.

  • Paid artist (Huan) for completed monster concept art.

  • Worked with rigger (Guillermo) regarding facial rig.

  • Communicated with possible composers.

  • Reviewed theme song drafts.

  • Reviewed animation drafts from animator (Tom) and gave feedback.

I took most of the day off, but spent some time with the contractors working on various art in Soul Saga.   I’m trying to avoid adding new content until I have the finished animations in hand.   The way I try to deal with Soul Saga is take it in modular chunks, and polish those chunks as I go along, rather than just laying down the base for a gigantic game.  I think this makes being a lone developer much more manageable, and it will allow you to have a better experience when you get your hands on the beta!

I will be taking a pretty hands off approach for the next 2 or 3 days.  Hopefully by this time the rigger and animator will be finished with their tasks so I can continue polishing up the existing content before moving on to the next area of development.

Day 61

( 2013/03/30 Th )

5 hrs. Today ( 588 Total)

• Game Design

  • Worked on some story elements.

• Project Management

  • Worked alongside rigger (Guillermo).

  • Worked with artist (Huan) regarding monster concept art.

  • Received and paid artist (Huan) for completed concept art.

  • Reviewed several drafts by composers.

• Public Relations
  • Replied to posts on Facebook.
  • Received feedback from close friends regarding unreleased Soul Saga artwork.

Today I spent a lot of time writing about the world of Soul Saga, it’s characters, and the beasts that inhabit it.  I received some more concept art regarding a particular beast who plays a major part of the story.  I also was able to get the rigger started today to do facial rigging.  This will allow for things like facial expressions, talking, etc.

I’m going to continue to work on writing for the next several days in preparation of the Lore Book section of the website that will give background information on the world of Soul Saga.

Day 60

( 2013/03/29 Fr )

8 hrs. Today ( 583 Total)

• Game Design

  • Worked on some story elements.

• Project Management

  • Worked alongside animator (Tom).

  • Worked alongside rigger (Guillermo).

  • Worked with artist (Huan) regarding monster concept art.

  • Reviewed many drafts by composers.

Last night I was able to get in a whopping 3 hours of sleep.  This is because during the time I would normally sleep, the animator and artists are awake and need my direction on how to proceed with things.  Such is the life of an indie developer with high expectations for his dream game.  Soul Saga is shaping up to be a darn pretty picture, though!

Inevitably there will be more project management hours and Kickstarter preparation for days to come.  I’m a bit sad I’ve been away from the code for this long, but if we all want to see Soul Saga at the best it can be then the Kickstarter has to go well!

Day 59

( 2013/03/28 Th )

15 hrs. Today ( 575 Total)

• Game Design

  • Worked over some game design concepts.

  • Worked on some story elements.

• Project Management

  • Worked with artist (Ryuu) regarding graphic design tasks for the Kickstarter.

  • Built a portfolio of pre existing Soul Saga art and Kickstarter art examples for artist (Ryuu).

  • Worked alongside animator (Tom).

  • Worked with artist (Huan) regarding monster concept art.

  • Received and paid for some monster concept art from artist (Huan).

  • Exchanged many emails with many composers regarding theme song.

  • Reviewed many good drafts by talented composers.

Today’s image has a bit less action, but it does show off a close up of the new Soul Saga cursor!  I’m really liking how it ended up.  I also learned the difference between hardware and software cursors today, and figured out how easy it was to implement hardware cursors into Unity.  Moving to a hardware cursor fixed the laggy cursor bugs I had been speaking about in a previous blog.

I received some finished illustrations that turned out absolutely beautiful.  It was hard to choose which one to use for my Desktop, but I came to a decision to use the one that depicts the world of Soul Saga.  I’m still hiding these beauties from you until the big Kickstarter launch, but I will definitely share them with anyone who backs the project!  They’ll also have a big use in the Kickstarter video.

As usual for the past few days, I’ve been getting flooded with emails from composers.  Most of my time is consumed with getting everyone up to speed on what I need, why I need it, and my theories behind what makes the example songs I give good.

Also, the new animator started today and will be doing a segment of Human animations.  Once they are done I can finally start showing pictures of the humans again!

Tomorrow will undoubtedly be a lot more project management related tasks as I work alongside the animator and communicate with the possible composers.  Because of the constant interruptions it’s hard to stay focused on programming, so I will most likely just be preparing artwork and writing story and lore related details.

Day 58

( 2013/03/27 We )

10 hrs. Today ( 560 Total)

• Backend

  • Cleaned up my messy desktop to see the beautiful new Soul Saga wallpapers!

    • Maybe I’ll share the wallpapers with backers on Kickstarter… hmm but I’m so selfish…

• Frontend

  • Tweaked some build settings to allow for a resizable game window and the game running in the background.

• Project Management

  • Exchanged emails with several composers regarding theme song.

  • Posted on different help wanted sites regarding a composer.

  • Exchanged emails with rigger.

  • Started work with new animator (Tom) and exchanged several emails before hand.

  • Built an animation example portfolio with videos and images.

  • Worked continuously with animator (Tom) to give feedback and add to the example portfolio.

  • Worked with artist (Ryuu) to get cursor image done and paid for.

  • Started to plan out the implementation of the questing system.

• Research

  • Researched how to get responsive mouse controls.  Found information on hardware cursors.

  • Researched how to take audio out of video to make animation example videos lightweight.

  • Researched how to stream video from website for use with animators.

  • Researched the build settings Unity offers.

• User Interface

  • Implemented finished cursor image as a hardware cursor.

  • Removed the old software cursor.

As planned, I continued to work with composers regarding Soul Saga’s theme song.  I also received some great illustrations for use in the Kickstarter campaign that help give a good overview of Soul Saga’s world.  I was also working with an artist to do some more monster concept art.

During my downtime between emails with artists I started to implement the town.   I migrated the prototype merchant into the town and it’s working out nicely.  I am getting pretty proud of myself for modulating Soul Saga’s code well enough to easily plug features in and out of different places.  This is the whole concept of how the game will work, so it’s good news that the code is proving easy to manage in a modular way.

More than likely I will continue to be swamped with project management work tomorrow.  I will start to implement a basic questing system during any downtime.

Day 57

( 2013/03/26 Tu )

9 hrs. Today( 550 Total)

• Game Design

  • Wrote segments related to the world of Soul Saga.

• Level Design

  • Started implementing a test town.

    • Adding merchant and exit point to premade town layout.

• Project Management

  • Received final version of illustrations from art studio and paid for them.

  • Exchanged emails with potential composers.

  • Exchanged emails with an artist regarding concept art.

  • Hunted for more possible composers.

  • Troubleshot an adware problem that was probably caused while hunting for composers.