A little bit of an art update to demonstrate the process from cool sketch to really ugly modified version of cool sketch to something more complete looking. I'll have a couple more steps to add in as I go along.
This is the Draft Horse. The thing to keep in mind is that the Knobbly Crook (and surrounding areas) was created by a giant explosion of animate magik, creating a chaotic wave of life that reconfigured (or brought to life) all the junk and wildlife in the area. This boat is technically alive, though it's not very "horse" any more. Once aboard, you can venture into the head of the thing, talk to the ladderman at the side, or head back into the Horse's Ass bar at the rear.The first series of puzzles revolve around getting this thing to stop and let you off.
The original concept for the Draft Horse came from Julien Fullum, who is helping me build up the world. It looked like:
I had some technical concerns with it. First, the zoom out was a little too far. I wanted to use this as a bit of an overhead "map" for this area, so I zoomed it in. I also started thinking about how to get you to understand where to go, so I dropped a couple of little blue men in there as placeholders. I definitely wanted one in the horse's eye and one to be a bit of a gatekeeper to get off the ship. The bar in the back - I planned an elaborate fan thing that would feel a bit like looking at the back end of a baboon. It's not there yet in this version:
Now it's starting to look more like the rest of the game so far. I tried to use the angle of Julien's horse head, but it kept looking more like a wolf to me and didn't have the creepy horse face I wanted, so I turned it. The perspective went down the toilet at that point, but that's OK. I've gone into this understanding that I'm not a trained artist and that my style relies on being weird and I think it benefits from being *wrong,* so you'll find my perspective is often mind-boggling and my light sources come from 2000 directions. You can see a bit of the baboon ass here, though it's still a placeholder sketch remnant. I modified the ladderman on the side (he'll be an animated character) to fit the theme of the Knobbly Crook - the Knobcrookians are all gobliny things mixed with junk objects. This guy is half ladder. Another major problem with realizing Julien's vision is that the sketch implies movement down the stream. I intend to keep that movement, but I think I'll have to greatly simplify what you can see to create the illusion. This isn't a cinematic ship on a set path, it's looping as long as the player stays there.
I've also been playing around with the team logo, which is based on the old song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." I mixed it with the old Gnarled Scar logo to see how well they mesh, but obviously I need to change the color schemes to match. I'm considering attaching the small logo to a blimp or something and having it sail by and I'll likely do some simple animations on the Devil part. I'm also working on an idea to make it more "logo-y" and less like a full screen painting that touches every edge
I try to keep the version of the game (.zip file) updated on the server, so if you ever want to check in on the progress, you're welcome to go grab it. The extremely WiP Draft Horse is in there now and functional, but I warn you - there's some *hideous* placeholder art if you venture into any rooms.
