James is joining us as a writer to allow me to spend more time on the terrain and world map, while he works on NPC’s and some story arcs that can lead to better dialogue. Welcome James! Glad to have you with us and hope you do not mind the wild ride of game development. You can see more info about our team in the About Us section.
Finally, I will be talking about our game, Ashbourne’s Legacy
I had planned to wait until we had more, but…I made the mistake of hiring a writer to help with some things and he disappeared with my game idea. So instead of sobbing my eyes out, I am going to keep on going. Putting information out here to make sure our copyright is valid. Guy told us he was 15, worked for a company that does TTRPG scenarios. So if you see our game on any of your table top books, do not use it. Because we will shut it down. Sorry, but everything needs to find their story.
We are creating a small MMO, and we are making our own template, tossing away the WoW games and all the others. The game takes place in the future, after the world has been through climate change, wars, etc. Past 200 years, the people have found safety in far away places.
Dr. Ashbourne was a geneticist many years ago who discovered a gene that had someone appeared in many children and adults. A tragedy caused him to retreat, his books, and papers, and everything else was put away. He hid them, keeping the people in the future from using his research.
In about section, you can see our team and read a bit about us. We are a small studio company. Our work includes making armor/clothing for commissions as well as illustrations, logos, etc. We have two games in production and more on the list. It has a difficult year for all of us. However, we are starting to pick up. Soon we will start submitting assets to the Unity asset store. It has been a long time since we started using Unity, so it will be nice to see it happen.
We are working hard at completing several asset packs, one for apocolyptic, another for fantasy and one body/face decor package. Stay tuned for more pictures and inforation.
Escape the System, designed by Aynsley Trevillyan and Ryan Trevillyan will be presented for play testing at the Metaopia convention in Morrisstown, NJ. We are very excited about letting others see and play the alpha version of the game. So far, feedback from Unity developers and gamers have been great! The game is full of Aynsley’s beautiful art and shows off Ryan’s programming skills.
Congrats to both of you! The team have all helped this to happen. Thanks Kerensa Trevillyan for her cut scene art and her splash art.
Now that we are settled into our new (temporary) home, we are putting our development into hyper-speed. We have lots of projects in the works as well as working with clients to deliver products.
Unity is adding exciting new features to the engine, including high quality rendering pipelines which will improve performance and increase the quality of the graphics. They are upgrading the terrain, finally, and adding streaming for open worlds. Also, other technical changes will allow developers to use many objects in their game without huge overhead.
All this is exciting news for us and for Legends of Aryiure.
So while we wait for all that cool stuff from Unity, our team is busy with other projects.
Our focus at the moment is a psychological thriller in space which will be made for the Oculus Rift VR system as well as a PC version in first person. Our previous contract work was in AR and so this switch to VR for this game has been relatively painless. Currently working on level design and art, plus some a cool grip system created by our programmer, Dennis.
One of our artists, Aynsley, has been contracted by a small studio to do UI and logo artwork. We are watching their game and hope it does well. This artist is also working on her own platform game, coding and art, which is impressive. The game is in the Metroidvania style and looks awesome.
Our other artist, Kerensa, has plans for some character models she wants to sell on the asset store. Also, we hope to get some already created assets on the store in the near future.
I will be setting up sections on the website for all the games we are creating as well as asset store products. Feels good to be fully back to work.
On a personal note, we are enjoying the winter here in NJ, my first for a very long time and the first winter my kids have experienced. I do sometimes long for the lovely winter days of Florida, but I am sure this coming summer I will be happy to be here.
Thanks for checking in and will try to post more often.
Watregames Team
Our team made a major move last month, from sunny Florida to beautiful New Jersey! For the past 4 months, our lives have been consumed with boxes, packing tape, and moving pods. We are finally settling in but still much to do. My desk is still wrapped in the moving blankets.
Good news is that we are back to work on our projects. The priority right now for several of us is an AR contract that requires programming and artwork. It is lots of fun and we are all learning so much.
Ryan and I are back to working on the MMO and things are moving along finally.
Glad to be back and talking to my Unity friends, posting on the forums again, and checking out the asset store!
As a co-organizer for our local Unity User Group, one of my tasks is to find interesting subjects for our Monday Workshops each month. Sometimes, we meet someone who would love to speak. Other times, we need to make our own content for the meeting.
This coming Monday we have decided to do a hands-on workshop, especially for those who are new to Unity. So together with on of our programmers, we put together a science fiction scene, an alien planet.
We will use Unity Personal, which is a feature complete engine, unlike the old Unity Free. The only thing missing from Unity Personal are some add on services, most of which can be purchased a la carte. Of course, if one makes over $100k on their Unity related commercial products, then they will need to upgrade to a paid level. But until then, Unity Personal is great for learning and developing your first game.
Every asset in our alien world is free on the Unity asset store. While money will buy you more elaborate models, with the right lighting one can do amazing things even with free stuff. Asset store products make great models and tools for prototyping your world or in some cases, they can even make an entire game.
I will begin the presentation by showing the attendees how to build a terrain using real world data and showing them how I used a free tool to texture the terrain and use Unity’s terrain brush system to add rocks to the landscape. We will then place models on the world, and discuss the importance of matching your art. We will create lighting, including reflections in the scene and add a dramatic skybox. Audio sources will be added to create atmosphere.
Ryan will then walk through adding a first person character to the scene. A weapon will be added and the attendees will learn how to add bullets/lights that fire at the enemies. They will also set up a UI for the health bar.
Next, he will show how to add a Navmesh Agent and Mob Controller. Once this is done, an Animator Controller can be added to the alien monsters. A Navmesh will be added so the aliens can wander once they are spawned. The attendees will learn how to set up the Spawner.
Finally, I will show everyone what a few inexpensive paid assets can add to the scene such as blowing sand and a few other extras.
We are hoping our participants will take these projects home and tweak them, adding their own flavor to the scene. I cannot wait to see what they create!
Hopefully, we can present this to a group of homeschooler teens/preteens in the future as well. Games are fun, but learning to make your own games can teach you so much, not only about coding but about design and art.
I will post back about the experience and maybe with a link to a video in the next post.
Laura