Weekly Update #6 - Art & Sound
Welcome to the sixth and final pre-launch weekly AtG update! Every Sunday afternoon a new article has been posted, and each week has had its own theme. This past week our theme was the game's art and sound, and you can check out previous daily updates on Twitter and weekly updates on the AtG website.
As with last week this update will be a recap of the daily updates posted on Twitter so that I can focus on getting this bad boy out the door on Wednesday.
Update #1
We decided on a painted watercolor art style for At the Gates very early in the project, as it's an approach both suggestive of its historical subject matter and a bit unique compared with other strategy titles. When your game is 2D you really have to lean on style over fidelity.
Update #2
One of the first things I did after starting on At the Gates was bring the supremely-talented @geoffknorr on board to craft title theme song. I asked for something that felt a bit mournful and featured my favorite instrument, the cello. And he nailed it.
Oh, and pardon the old logo on the video. The project has come a long way, but the music sure didn't need to!
Update #3
One of the visual elements of At the Gates I'm actually most proud of is the beaches. Shorelines almost always look bad in strategy games, as neither the 'puzzle pieces fitting together' nor the 'spline-based generated 3D' approaches look great (without a ton of extra work).
In AtG we do have fixed pieces which we attach to one another, but we also have a large number of special multi-tile pieces designed to provide a more realistic look than you can get with repeating tiles. It took some work, but the results were up to my high expectations!
Update #4
At the Gates doesn't have looping background music, and this is by design. Instead, we play short pieces of music after important events to help highlight these moments. It's a more cinematic approach, and means you won't actually want to turn the music off in AtG!
Update #5
Another way At the Gates makes the seasons something you truly *feel* is through the background ambience. Because there's no looping music that frees up audio space for the sound of the environment to really immerse you in what's going on. When it's winter in AtG you'll know it.
And that does it. There's nothing specific planned in terms of updates from here on out, but I'm sure I'll be on Twitter sharing lots of fun stuff between now and Wednesday, so feel free to hang out with me there in the final countdown to release day. A 7-year journey is finally almost complete!
- Jon