Zan the Bonebreaker

Necromancer Spritesheet

This took waaay more effort than I had anticipated, but it turned out pretty well :^)

The Necromancer!

A new enemy for the Hedon Prequel is in the works! I figured that if Hedon is missing anything, it's someone who can raise the dead :^)

Cute Chicks

The ultimate critter.

Tileset Diorama

Since I'm working together with Vostyok on the Hedon expansion, I figured I'd get back to making these quick small diorama like areas to test new texture tilesets and showcase what modular textures can do in various combinations. 

I know a bunch of you are enthusiastic to see Overworld human settlements, so here's a sort of sneak peak into that  :^)

Map04(?) Sketch

Aaand we have a second map that I got to a point where I'm pretty darned satisfied. Not sure if everything can be implemented, but you can see from the sketch alone that as far as level design goes, Haggard will have a lot more verticality and interconnectivity:^)

Blending Stealth & Imsim Design

This is a part of Map04(?), which will be one of the 'wilderness'-focused maps of Haggard.

I wanted to use this opportunity to think of how I could mix the immersive sim element into the gameplay without it being just a facade thing.

Here's a good example of what I mean:
on the lower left side, you can see a cave with two bears(?), one sleeping and one patrolling. The cave is very dark, save for just enough light at the entrance to allow the player to spot the patrolling bea...

Map02(?) Sketch+

After chewing on this for about a week, I'm pretty happy with the end result. So far I designed this map to be a fair mix of imsim and stealth, very open and with plenty of possibilities of completion.

The sketches on the right detail the other levels of the mansion at the north end of the map.

To Sketch a Game...

This week I have commenced what I consider to be the most important part of Haggard's development.
Unlike Hedon, for which I used to sketch a level and then go ahead and build it, for Haggard I plan to sketch the *entire* game first.
I cannot state how important sketching is - since I have a lot of ideas written down, I will have to shape and distribute them along the 11-12 levels I have planned in order to be brief and not lose myself along the way.
In this stage, I'll be building ...

Dwarven Food

I worked with the constraints of the setting to come up with this (eg. grazing is not possible in a cave environment so no cows aka bovas), and as expected from a sketch, it also gave me some new ideas and nuances to make the world feel more authentic and lived in.

One example could be the potential relationship between dwarves and goats - since the animals have "beards", dwarves could well have developed superstitions of their ancestors' spirits being trapped in goats, or something i...

Average Dwarf

Drafted the life of an average dwarf, along with a list of professions. Obviously, the list doesn't include every single profession, but it should be enough to fill in the blanks if needed (eg. a fletcher would fall under Carpenter Guild with the Crossbowyer).

Dwarven Politics Sketch

Although originally I wanted to treat the Dwarven nation as a typical monarchy, I decided that I could do better and be more original.
After giving it quite some thought, this is what I came up with. Not exactly monarchy, not exactly democracy, but something decentralized enough to be stable along the ages, while also fit for the culture of the Dwarves.

Also note that I decided upon the lifespan of a dwarf being able to range between 50 and few hundred years (max 300) depending on t...

Goblins Update!

As if it wasn't enough that I was super busy, this week has culminated with me getting a debilitating cold -.-
Anyway, on the flip side, Vostyok is working on MapX01, and we can finally start teasing you guys a bit :^)

Short Hiatus Notice

Hey guys, you might have noticed that my posting schedule has suffered last week. I had to take care of a pile of RL stuff that I didn't want to delay anymore, and I also need to take my laptop in service again to fix a faulty fan (better do it now than later).

I hope to resume work this week, I did prepare for a while to work on some pencil and paper concept stuff in the absence of my computer, so expect more of that.

Devlog 5

My throat suffered greatly in the making of this Devlog :^)

Lore Concept - The Wheel of Time

I'm kicking off the chunk of lore concept works with the cornerstone of dwarven civilization! The Wheel of Time!

For a while now, I've been thinking how an underground civilization would keep track of time in the absence of day and night... combine this with some pondering about the fundamental nature of dwarves and I got this neat circular calendar.

I invested quite some thought and depth into it, as the Wheel of Time is not just a calendar, but also an abstraction of dwarven ...

Durna 3D Outfits

I finished Durna's model, including dress, casual and stealth outfit variants! Let me know what you think about them :^)

I'm planning to take a break from modelling to switch to some good old pen and paper concept sketching next. I wanna start laying down the setting, especially the constraints and particular aspects of the dwarven society I wanna work with.

Lorerunner Played Hedon

Taking a short break from Haggardposting - I'd like to thank Mr. Red/Necrolad for sponsoring this and getting Lorerunner to have a look at Hedon, he's made an interesting analysis of the game and I'd love to share it with you guys :^)

https://lorerunner.com/premieres-7#Hedon

Most of the stuff he mentions I have long been aware of, but there's a bunch of tidbits that I'll definitely keep in mind for the fut...

Stone Sister(s) 3D

Aand, the Stone Sisters are done! Quite close to the concept art, pretty darn happy with how they came out. 

The right one is the puncher/monk, left one is the priestess/caster variant. 

I'm planning to wrap up this series of 3D models soon and work on some other stuff, especially since my PC might need to stay a while in service. I might squeeze in Durna's stealth variant in the next few days, though.

Militia Heavy 3D Models

The "Heavy" variant of the Militia basically have a chain shirt and a fancier helmet to reflect their higher rank in the city watch, but otherwise wear the same uniform as the rest. 

I also plan to give them different weapons, most likely involving some crossbows too.

Bank Guard 3D WIP

I figured it would be interesting to share the 3D model sketching stage of the pipeline. I generally draw it over the model to pinpoint the features, then take the texture wrap in Photoshop and paint over it.

Militia 3D

POV: you broke the law

Durna 3D!

Whew, this took a while, but here's the final model of Durna's dress/civilian outfit. She's also officially the first 3D character model I have done (if you count out the Praak I shared a while ago).

After the model was ready, I sketched over it in Blender to get the guidelines for the texture which I then drew by hand in Photoshop. Afterwards, a ping-pong between Blender and Photoshop adjustments ensued and three days later, this is the result. All in all I'm pretty happy with it, but ...

Fem Dwarf/Durna 3D model WIP

This week I have been working on the character models! Started off with the female dwarf, I figured I'd try to keep both M and F on the same model rig to save time so I will be building the male version on top of the female one and rely on different thickness and scale to set them apart visually.

All in all I think I did a good job considering this is the first time I'm modeling a character. Thankfully Blender has a feature that automatically rigs them for animation purposes, but be...

Haggard Concept Art - Stone Sister

As I said last time, I'll be wrapping up this chunk of concept arts with some booba :^)

For a while now I have been thinking of how I want to approach the religious aspect of the dwarves. Since I'm going with the Hedon universe, I will be sticking to the fundamental Elemental Gods, especially Stone and Iron.

However, one thing I want to avoid is a conceptual parallel to Thief's Hammerites/Pagans. For this purpose, I decided to somewhat corroborate the idea/theme of th...

Haggard Concept Art - Bank/Noble Guard

More character concepts!

As I have mentioned in the initial design info dump, I plan Haggard to have a difficult combat that would reflect the protag's lack of fighting skill. While the standard Militia guys don't look too threatening with their clubs, these guys are a whole other deal.

Well armed and armored, the Bank Guards will pose a considerable threat in the open, especially due to the long reach of their sword which will be difficult to avoid.

Anyway, I'm g...

Haggard Concept Art - Militia

Let's move on to some of the actual dwarf guards/factions!

With the war against the minotaurs raging outside, the City Watch has given its strongest men to the battlefield, leaving only those who are unfit to serve to uphold the law in the city. The Militia is mostly comprised of old dwarves, women and near-adult dwarves who are assigned this duty as a sort of training or trial before being taken into the army.

Their green & orange uniforms stand out against the cold stone of ...

Bundle Wrap-up - Over100k Raised for Charity!

The Boomer Shooters bundle has ended yesterday and we managed to raise over 100k USD for charity which is freaking amazing! Thanks to everyone who pitched in, enjoy your boomer shooters :^)

Haggard Concept Art - The Bronze Golem

Following up with another construct! 

The Bronze Golem will be a neat piece of security, able to come alive and attack a target who steals something or trespasses into a particular area.

Much like the Mechanist bots in Thief 2, the Bronze Golem will have an exposed furnace in the back which can be extinguished. As you can see in the second pic, the point of the furnace is to deliver enough heat to the Golem's joints to melt them just enough to allow him to move, so...

Haggard Concept Art - Stone Elemental

Starting off the haggard enemy concept art series with one of the odd ones - the Stone Elemental! 

Stone Elementals are Haggard's equivalent of a mechanized sentry. They are incredibly tough, although the central crystal is a weak point that can be exploited to destroy them. Doing so, however, can only result in a lot of noise and ruckus being caused, which means that the player will have no means of silently putting them out of commission.

And here's the fun part - Stone El...

Haggard Concept Art - Durna's Outfits

Making significant progress with Durna's style design :^)