Elevator Speedrun
Feb 21, 2016
Hey everyone! Octavi here,
These past weeks I've been working on new rooms for the game, specifically those related to the Edmund Hotel. This imposing building was once a symbol of Thimbleweed Park's heyday, but like everything else in this town, it has fallen into a state of decay and disuse.
Here's a little timelapse video to show you the creation process of one of the backgrounds I've been working on for the hotel. The smallest one: the elevator.
This small device combines in a few square feet the freshness of Art Deco design, the cutting edge technology of the '80s and the stinking mold dripping from the walls. Or is it blood? ... or vomit? Anything is possible in Thimbleweed Park.
The preliminary sketch is the most important part of the whole process for me. I like to draw it as detailed as possible, so when I show it to the team they have a clear idea of how the final art will look like.
The next step is to create a simple grayscale pixel art version, or wireframe, which is ready to be provisionally imported into the game, while we keep working on the final color version. For this small room, the composition and perspective is not really problematic but it's important that the player can easily view and interact with all the key elements such as buttons and lights, as this will be without a doubt the deepest simulation of an elevator that we've ever experienced in a point and click adventure game.
Finally, the most delicate part for me: the final color version. Delicate because it's important that all the rooms I work on are as consistent as possible with Mark's style. That's why throughout the process of creating the hotel rooms, Mark has been helping me with ideas, advice and feedback to get my work closer to his. The truth is that working on this game is being an amazing learning process for me!
In fact, my first contact with pixel art was when I was a child and spent countless hours copying screenshots from videogame magazines in DPaint, pixel by pixel, from Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Loom ... So, I owe Gary, Mark, and all the other great artists working on those classic games most of my pixel art knowledge.
Back to the elevator: most of the rooms we make have different lighting conditions to make them feel more dynamic (usually flickering bulbs or lights that the player can activate and deactivate using switches). In the case of the elevator, as you can see in the picture, it only has one light source from the ceiling, so it was easy to create the darkest state, simply turning down the lightness slider in Photoshop and adding some cool tones. Maybe it won't be used in the final game, but it's important that the art is as flexible as possible so it doesn't interfere with the game design.
Once all the different elements are placed in their respective layers, comes the exciting moment of wiring the room into the game.
And that's it! I hope you all enjoyed this little peek into the creation process of Thimbleweed Park backgrounds!
This post was short but really interesting and gave me a lot of insight on how things are done.
Funny how you actually managed to post something like this before Mark actually did!
Last thing: will anybody's BEARD "casually" get stuck while the elevator goes up? :D That would be awesome!
Now I thin we all can agree that it's Davids turn to write a blog post about wiring up the elevator ;-)
Impressive and insightful!
What was the real elapsed time ?
What do you use as input device in Photoshop: a mouse or a pen?
:)
I wanted to keep the video under 2 minutes, so I cut some parts I found less interesting. In the final edit I used around 3-4 hours of footage and most of it is 64x faster with some parts at 256x.
And I use a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet with a pen.
Gary and Mark - in case you read this- what do you guys use as input devices?
At least one of you *should* be using a joystick to stay true to the 1987-spirit, right?
graphic novel and just really haven't taken the time to transition to a tablet... Maybe I should
pull one of my old joysticks out of mothballs...
I'm glad to read that: I have a copy of Photoshop which I never used so far, so I did not want to invest in a tablet/pen. So reading that also a mouse is an acceptable (I.e. Not totally driving you crazy) form of input is encouraging me to have some fun with it!
Regarding the old joystick, I realise now that they have these old Atari VCS like connectors. Ah well, it might fit an Apple's lightning or thunder or whatever they call it connector if you push *really* hard...
Maybe it's just a matter of habit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp8fYbrWLKg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38dbsmX1CI4
You write that the dark version won't necessarily be used in the final game. Anyway, I think it would be a nice feature to make the elevator seem to be untrustworthy, since there are lots of people out there who are actually afraid of getting stuck with an elevator. So, what about playing on the opportunity to make this nightmare virtually become true in the bedraggled Edmund Hotel? You enter the elevator, the flickering light is a portent and suddenly the light remains dark and the elevator gets stuck. Then you may have to hit the light panel in order to fix the loose contact, just as Han Solo did in his cockpit when the engine failed. Just a suggestion. It might be very conducive to the atmosphere in the hotel.
LOOK AT Sticker.
"Last inspection May 1984."
Hmm...I'm no expert on elevator safety code, but I would suspect an inspection is way past due.
Or.
LOOK AT Sticker.
"Last inspection January 1987."
That last digit looks like someone wrote over it with a marker. I wonder what digit it used to be... Maybe I should just take the stairs.
Maybe there isn't any because the speaker's broken.
Maybe the music cuts in and out or is distorted.
Maybe it's inappropriately creepy.
Maybe it sounds like some 8- bit chiptune, oddly enough.
Maybe it's by Razor & the Scummettes.
Congratulations :-)
With the translated non-English versions are you going to change the graphic text to their languages (eg the word "Floor" in the actual graphic). When I create my games for Big Fish Games they expected them to be localised too...
Great video Octavi, thank you!
Or is it more like the Sistine Chapel where Gary is the Michelangelo and Marc and Octavi try to imitate his style?
* - Always wanted to use that word ever since a few minutes ago, when I accidentally read it somewhere. Did I even spell it right?
Once again, I love this blog because it brings insight on how difficult it is to make a game like this.
Post Enjoyed.
Just a question that does not have anything to do with the wonderful job Octavi is doing.
What about the soundtrack?
I'm following this blog since some time by now and I do not recall any meaningfull post about it.
I just watched "Nebraska" movie, soundtrack by Mike Orton, it gave me chills, perfect for a graphic adventure in my opinion...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS9zCAKGxRU
I'm not saying develop team should contact Orton, well... I'm just saying :D
https://k30.kn3.net/taringa/4/F/0/F/6/8/Renemedina/228.jpg
(ERROR: triple-N podcast required)
...and thank you in advance! :)))