RaftCraft

So on top of the work we have been doing thus far, I have been considering a major overhaul to the realism and functionality of the art in general, but specifically with the customizable characters (including the player). In an effort to nail this down, I have built a contraption out of garden-accoutrements in order to capture what life is like from 5 feet overhead.

I am hoping that after a few more tweaks, and probably a complete re-fabrication I will have something really useful for accumulating animation references for top-down perspective, which is really difficult to find on the internet. I have gathered some walk/run/jump/sneak/combat cycles, but I want to post something more representative of where we are in the development of the-game-formerly-known-as-adrift (symbol pending), so here is me mock-rowing like a moron around my backyard while my dog disapproves.

Imagine what this looked like to my neighbors over the fence.

I also recently found this amazing tutorial for modifying Photoshop to work really well for pixel art, and I feel like I must share this, because holy hell, Dan Fessler is a great guy for writing this up. To anyone who thinks "Yeah, well, that's not REAL pixel-pushing" I say: "You, sir (even if you're a woman), are a Philistine."

Dan Fessler - HD Index Painting in Photoshop

Dan is currently working on a game called Chasm by Discord Games, and I played the demo a while back. It looks amazing. Check it.

EDIT:

Okay so I took a moment to see what this might look like, and I think this is going to help out a lot. Look how much more natural this pose is than the classic "I AM FACING FORWARD DAMMIT!" stance in most top-downs.

P.S. Salmon pants are now IN for this game.