Feb 15 2014

Setting Phasers for ‘Stun’

In the past, we’ve shown you bits and pieces from almost every area in Riven. We kicked things off with an early version of Temple Island. We spent two years demoing Prison Island, and last year we showed you an area from Survey Island as well as a rough layout of Boiler Island. Our tactic thus far has been to work mainly on small areas of the game, breaking Riven into bite-size chunks that we could easily achieve.

Still, there are a couple of major areas of the game that we’ve avoided in the past, and one sticks out like a sore thumb.

Notice anything missing?

Notice anything missing?

Well, for Mysterium this year, we decided to throw our old strategy of playing things safe to the wind, and set about creating Jungle Island. And really, what better way to put our new engine through its paces than by throwing the single most complicated area of the entire game at it?

Our efforts are being concentrated primarily in the village basin, where there are a few different areas being worked on at once. We’re going to keep you guys up to date as things progress, but we thought we’d start the show & tell off with one of the most iconic objects from Riven, the village hut.

knock, knock

knock, knock, knock

It’s worth mentioning that these are screenshots from within UDK. We’re kind of in love with the way UDK handles light and shadows, and we’re pretty sure you will be, too.

(this one is in Maya, not UDK, but it's still really cool)

We have all 38 huts modeled and in place, and now that the materials for the first hut are complete, it will be a simple feat to put the finishing touches on the others.

We intend to continue with small updates like these throughout the development of the village basin area, so stay tuned!

 


Oct 14 2013

Wallpapers

We’ve been pretty silent since Mysterium, and while we have our reasons (big things in the works!), we realize that it’s not cool to leave you guys hanging like this. So as a kind of apology for staying silent for so long, we put together a couple of wallpapers for you guys. We’re providing them at 1920×1080, they should scale down nicely to other sizes.

Paper 1

Paper 2

Paper 3

 

Enjoy! We’ll have more updates…eventually! We are still working hard, we promise.

(And we know that the D’ni on the elevator is still wrong. We’ve been so preoccupied with other things, correcting the text slipped our mind)


Sep 24 2011

Journal Prototype II

We just passed the 95% mark on our journey to the first funding goal, $2000. That means we now have over $1900 raised! To celebrate, here’s another sneak peek at the journal system, this time with Catherine’s journal. Remember that these are not necessarily final graphics or animations. It’s not in-game footage, just a prototype.

Update: Here’s the Prison Book, as well:


Sep 17 2011

Journal Prototype

Here’s another not-in-game prototype of an element from Riven. This time, it’s Atrus’s journal. Enjoy!

In other news, we just passed the 90% mark on our journey towards our first funding goal. We’re almost there, guys!
Note that we’ll of course continue accepting donations after the first goal is reached, and the more donations we get, the faster we can work. Just some food for thought!


Aug 21 2011

In-Game Prison Island

Ok, ok, ok. You asked for it, we promised it, here it finally is. In-game footage from Prison Island, circa Mysterium 2011. This is a good example of what the game looks like at the moment, though not at all a good example of the final level of quality we’re aiming for.

Unfortunately, due to a quirk in our video-capture solution, the recording came out a little jerky. This is especially noticeable in the cursor. We’ll try to fix this in future videos, but for now, just remember that the actual game plays nice and smoothly.

Be sure to see the video in HD!

More to come soon!

Edit: We appreciate the comments and critiques, everybody, but please keep in mind that this is a work in progress. We’re constantly working on making the game look even better than it does here, in fact it’s mainly what we’re focused on right now. We’re taking your comments into consideration, along with our own plans for improvement.

Edit 2: We’ve re-rendered this video so it’s smoother, and it includes sound and more! Check it out!


Aug 12 2011

Prison Island Prototype

Here’s a treat, while we get the high-quality presentation video edited up – a pre-rendered lighting test for Prison Island. These are the same assets you saw in the Mysterium presentation, but in a pre-rendered environment. This video is NOT gameplay footage. It was rendered in Blender, in order to demonstrate how the environment should look at sunset. Enjoy!


May 30 2011

Wallpaper

We got a request for some Starry Expanse wallpapers last week, and decided that it would be a nice way to celebrate passing the $1000 (now $1200) mark on our journey towards fully-funded-ness. Here are a few, more to follow:


May 8 2011

Prison Island Top-Down

We wanted to post this (or something along the same lines) with the last update, in exchange for you guys donating enough to push us past the halfway point in our funding, but the artist insisted it look better before we put it up. He holds us to a very high standard of quality, which we suppose is a good thing 😀

Anyways, enjoy:


Jan 28 2011

Ytram

Ytram


Dec 11 2010

Render XXXI