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The art for the new area is all in place, and the puzzles/interface is now being sorted.

As much as I would love to show you all a preview for the newest area, I would much rather not spoil the effort of building it for the players. So, instead, I have come up with an alternative solution.

Quite a ways back now, before the NPC portraits came up, I was first asked to contribute a background to cap off the incomplete Snow Plains. I whipped through what I now consider a draft, and it went up. The bar for art quality was set low, and I had misgivings about going "overboard" in detail, so what was done was done. You can see that result here:
http://revolver.arcticpalace.org/vgf_rp ... ate800.png

Here, to whet your appetites for new content, is a finished version of that art - with fresh detail and quality near the level I have intended to provide with the new area, perhaps it surpassing it, but I hope the end result is comparable:



Click here for my Deviant Art page

The background is already up, in the RPG. You'll notice, if you visit, that Crav and I have chosen to include a side-border to stop the image from repeating, it extends to just over 2000 pixels wide.

If you prefer to frame the game's background well in your browser while you are playing, most mainstream browsers support a Zoom function accessible by pressing CTRL and + or - ...You can also press CTRL and 0 (zero) for the default Zoom setting.

I'm planning on sweeping down from Snowgate toward the Great Forest and eventually Tireal, time providing. If you guys have any requests or suggestions, funny ideas or whatever, let me know. This stuff is for our mutual entertainment.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the new art and how you think it compares to the original draft, as well, thanks.

Looks awesome, AI!

Thanks a bunch, Ziggy!

Just wanted to mention, my sympathies to those of you currently locked in the firm grip of ice ghouls. I am sympathetic to your frozen plight, and in no way have I meant to slight you or any brothers and sisters lost to exposure with this wintry display. The tongue of the coldlord lashes you so, and we of the fiery south forget all too easily how heavy its smothering fists bear down upon you.

Damnit AI it looks great, almost makes me want to take on another pair of long johns!

Pretty.

I might actually start playing the RPG again.

Can I join in on the fun?
Not to steal AI's thunder (as if that were even possible), but a lot of the sprites, icons, and backgrounds have been collected, edited, and/or drawn by me in the newer areas up to this point. (before AI became involved.)

I'm no where near as talented, but once in a while I like to put my meager abilities to the test.

I'm fairly proud of this piece. You'll never see it in the actual game because AI has since done a much better version. I found this background on a random site during one of my resource hunts, and really liked it because it was perfect for something I was planning.
The only problem was that it was completely the wrong dimentions. In a sudden fit of
productivity, I decided to add to the exisiting picture with my own art until it was usable.

Roughly 50% of this picture was drawn by me. I did my best to match the existing style.
Can you guess which parts I added?

Nope not at all!

^^ My version of that one's my second favorite of the images so far, and it certainly wouldn't have been as effective if I didn't have something to inspire me to use such a complicated lighting scheme. I'd love to show you all, but you'll have to get there yourselves. In the meantime, I'll be making the game up to that point more attractive, as well as unified.

Crav did a great job of toning the image up without too many tips from me, and he probably could've done all of that without any of my input to speedup the process.

Parts of my version may have come out somewhat less organic than that source, in some ways, but the detail is all much higher level and the lighting and scale is handled a bit more realistically, I think. I probably need to try to avoid making things too "picturesque" at times, but that's all my design knowledge telling me to put everything in its ideal place, etc.

Oh, I don't know... I think that overly "picturesque" images can have that sort of "videogamey" campy charm that I'm actually a fan of.

Yeah, games are usually overwrought with precise design decisions that are totally unrealistic. Really, what's it matter if your engine is cool or whatever, when the imagery is a messy jumble?

Okay, Crav has nearly finished all of the text and area uploads as well as the enemy programming. We're just now shifting into the editing stages.

Oh, and I've written a little chiptune-style song for you all to enjoy...

Well, with as busy as I've been elsewhere I nearly forgot to update with a new background that is now up to replace an existing one. Moving down from Snowgate towards Terial, this one belongs in the Western Snow Plains:



Click here to view the image in my Deviant Art gallery

I was going for a glacial blue tone, but I wanted the snow to look vaguely like there might have been travel done here by animals before the snow fell (and for it to look like there might be grass beneath the snow, as this isn't a complete tundra, just an enchanted/wintry plateau of sorts)

Penny for your thoughts, suggestions for how I should tackle the rim and basin of the frozen crater would be welcome.

AI, that picture is extremely cool. It looks like it was computer generated, even. Very sweet.

Thanks, man!

It seems that some post disapeared for me a couple of days ago (i blame bad connection due to Blizzard).

As i tried to state before, make that 3 long johns!

AI finished a new background for the the first town in the game, Terial.

Go check it out!

Thanks for the bump, bud. As always, I'm interested in feedback, or just a suggestion or two for other areas. :)

Heynow, a new background has just gone up, it's out in the Snow Plains again! This time I've replaced that blown-up purple storm clouds jpeg that used to reside in the Central Plains. Angry purple sky, we will miss you. (click the tree for the secret easter egg purple sky edition of the new pic***)

You can check it out in the game, or at my deviant art page:

Into the Crater by ~Psytronic on deviantART

Thanks for playing, watching, etc. Comments are appreciated!














[size=0]***may not actually exist[/size]

That looks nice, but I'm unsure of the perspective down the bottom. There's too little detail to get a real sense that that snowy cliff is occluding the pit when looking at the pit.

It looks like the earth is smiling at me. :3