3/1/2013

The progress of our game is, for the most part, far ahead of schedule as we finished almost everything on the release plan. The last couple of weeks the artists on our team have completed the large list of art assets for Pendulum Ascension, known as story 93. The narrative team finished every task we planned for them, and we are finding it difficult to find new jobs for them. The programmers themselves are the only group that has anything left on the release plan, due in part that they required the rest to finish their tasks.

As I stated earlier, the artist completed a huge milestone with the completion of story 93, a majority of it consisting of assets for the second floor of the mansion where most of the game play takes place. While story 93 contain the most prominent assets required we still have a plethora of assets in which we can add to the aesthetics of the game. I initiated a new list of additional assets and, with the help of other team members, began looking at what else we could create for the game. The new list consists mostly of decorative items (carpets, plants, etc.), variations of current objects (front and side views as well as color), or fixes to certain assets.

As for me personally, I finished the bedroom assets I mention in the previous blog, before creating various assets from the new list. Unlike story 93, the new list, as of right now, does not have as easily defined categories to assign deadlines to. Due to the lack of well-defined categories, I chose to work on assets that required refining or variations, while the other artists worked on the others. This route appears suitable as despite the new list being just as long as story 93, we completed over half the items already.

As of the last two work blocks, I stopped working on the art assets and instead began refining the level layout as I've notice a number of issues that need fixing. The core issue stems from the flattened main layer with many of the assets merged into and thus making it difficult to edit a fix mistakes. I am attempting to recreate it into separate layers and to line up the pieces more accurately with the grid.

On a final note, as development is ahead of schedule, we are considering adding a second murder to the game.

Here's a look at all the new assets I have made