Redemption The Third Era – Art Design and Development

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The style of the art

Setting has always been one of the strengths of our project. We wanted its richness and its many different facets to emerge from each card, not only through the character, but also for the world around it. To do this, we opted for a choice that would facilitate the work of those who collaborate with us without forcing them to ‘study’ the world of Redemption – The Third Era and to do that we have made several backdrops depicting various glimpses of the cities and territories in which the different ethnic groups usually move.

In order to realize the cards’ Characters, which we lovingly call ‘PC’ (PC = Player Character  is a ‘friendly’ way to shorten the word ‘Character’ coming from the several D&D played games), we looked for help of digital graphic designers and colorists that were able to use a painting technique that resulted aesthetically more related to reality.

The graphic designer is provided by a Format giving him instructions about posture, clothing, equipment and racial features the PC has to shown, accompanied by a cut from the bottom backdrop on which the character has to be inserted and adjusted (for example, if on the backdrop there is a staircase and the Character is walking on it, his posture has to be integrated with the scenario in which it will be set).

Once the graphic designer terminate PC creation, it is permanently placed on its backdrop, then it is changed and reprocessed in order to make it better blended with both the surrounding setting and what will be the actual frame of the playing card.

This, if in one part requires a long process for backdrops preparation, on the other allows us both to give the player a bit of the world in each card and to let him learn more about the whole setting. In other similar games, a character of a card rarely has an explanatory backdrop and it becomes the only protagonist. On the contrary we wanted every card having two main protagonists: the character with his skills and one of thousands glimpses of the world he lives in.

We deal with several races, each with its own physical characteristics, so we realized a graphic compendium to guide designers and colorists better in the production, in addition to provide them with a detailed description of the specific racial traits.

For all that is specific to the various races, we will examine in depth the topic later.

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Redemption The Third Era: Client Design

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In this post we will talk about the choices we are making to realize the game Client and about some consequences deriving from them.

Creating a game Client is something really complicated. Especially if you plan to have important basic features, such as:

  • The chance to having a multiplatform application without writing new code for each platform where you intend to publish the game;
  • Final product high maintainability that permit to easily resolve bugs and to manage additional game functionalities development;
  • A little budget for tools and authoring suites.

Haxe, by now together with the inseparable OpenFL is definetly the answer to the previous questions. Haxe is an extremely versatile programming language that allow deployment to different platforms.

Haxe has a syntax very similar to Action Script language. Its strengths are:

  • Supportto the formalism needed to produce code being easily modified during time;
  • Support to the implementation of advanced scripts that, if properly nested in the code, can shorten the production time;
  • The ability to have different targets during deployment and so the availability of sharing code to create different applications that can be executed in different environments: Flash, Java, C++, C#, …
  • The availability, thanks to the use of OpenFL library, to have as target the main mobile platforms, such as Android, Apple and Microsoft.

Furthermore, both Haxe and OpenFL can count on communities of users and developers, allowing continuous improvement of the versions that are released. Just think that Haxe, born in 2005, is today at 3.1.3 version, while OpenFL, born about two years ago by NME, is today to 3.0.3 version.

So we have choose this language because it largely reflected our needs, but also because we considered creation from scratch of an engine capable to manage a game client out of our capability. For this reason we started to look around in order to see what the world of the tools can offer. At this point we identified Stencyl.

Stencyl is an authoring tool that allows games creation without too much worrying about the source code, indeed it lies beneath and it takes over all that is needed for the most common actions that are present in the games. At the same time, however, it allows to go deep into the code and it provides a constantly evolving Haxe/OpenFL engine. For all these reasons it proved to be the most appropriate choice under different points of view. Now we are studying how to adapt it to our needs, mainly in the following directions:

  • Ease code writing: Stencyl over time has become a very interesting and useful product but it hasn’t the ambition to replace an IDE in its main features, such as code autocomplete and other similar features;
  • Create a system to planning and executing default tasks, needed to create animations following our style;
  • Look for a way to make Stencyl fully usable through revision control tools.

Stencyl also has another great factor to count on: it allows a totally free access to all its features and it let you publish the SWF file. At the same time, with a small annual fee, you can publish all your hard work on many different platforms including Android, Apple and Microsoft (both in the mobile and not mobile version), Linux.

Passing to the client GUI, today we are designing a system that can be well integrated with the post-atomic setting which is the cornerstone of Redemption – The Third Era. Our design system is defined by functions: depending on the functionalities we need to give the user, we design and create various graphics with a unique and suitable background. At the same time we try to apply the User Centered Design methodology, always remembering that what we produce is to be enjoyed by people, in the easiest way.

Among the different environments we are designing, there is the one providing for the opportunity to sell the own cards in the market. In order to doing this, there is the need to select the card, to insert its price and give the go ahead to the sale. Below you can find an example of how we are developing this requirement by creating the need, through the drafting of a sketch and then creating the necessary part for the graphical interface in order to cover the requirements.

Because our needs to have a multi-platform system, what we are trying to do in the GUI production scope, is to create components that are suitable for both Flash/Desktop and mobile sector, or at least we try to make them easily adaptable. Here is shown a particularly explanatory component, as it will be usable both via keyboard or mouse for the Flash/Desktop sector and through the tapping of any mobile device.

Needs Identification

Needs Identification

Concept Art

Concept Art

Final Result

Final Result

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Redemption The Third Era: Setting

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Since the Catastrophe, day and night on Earth no longer exist, now there are perpetual light and dark. Since very long time the seasons are forgotten, and what really is important is the survival.

Everything concerning this reborn world is generally called ‘Third Era’ by the populations who inhabit it and all that is passed is dead and buried. The Catastrophe that nobody remembers, but everyone knows, has irreparably changed the Earth’s trim saturating it of radiations. The few human survivors are no longer the unique world masters. Other races, originate from radioactive contamination caused by the Catastrophe, had evolved and live together on the rests of a planet in agony.

The Earth seems to be static. The northern hemisphere, constantly exposed to the sun, it’s hot and deserted while the south hemisphere is wrapped by darkness and ices. The inhabitants of this ominous world are located in temperate lands that are placed along the middle belt of the planet.

Nothing’s the same as before. The new races, Catastrophe’s daughters, have the ability to exploit and to dominate the radiations existing on the Earth, while a new humans’ generation, stronger and more resistant than they have ever been, has adapted to the Third Era, with primordial tenacity and obstinacy, strengthening and evolving itself.

What remains of the Old Era, with its destroyed cities and disappeared continents, blends into the present where new cities reborn and remaining poor technology is venerated and sought by someone and it is rejected by others, and where new religions and cults overlap to try to not commit the mistakes that led the planet to the devastation.

All new terrestrial beings live and move in a post-atomic world dominated by chaos to which everyone is trying to survive, in order to redeem themselves from the sins of their ancestors.

With the centuries’ passing each race found an area to be occupied: the small settlements became villages, cities and finally states. The research of economic and technological development brought populations, with their extravagances and differences, to interact together creating relations that sometimes gave rise to contrasts and conflicts. Columns of convoys and the old railways fill the huge distances that separate populated regions. Barter is one of the bases of commerce and crown caps of old bottles are used as cash   (o hard cash). A gasoline tank has a huge value and someone could also kill for a small tank of pure water.

In this post-apocalyptic world of destruction and rebirth, a few heroes rise above the crowd in order to guide their followers toward the way of survival and preservation, trying to achieve Redemption from sins committed by the Old World citizens by destroying the Eden they lived in.

Setting background progression

Setting background progression

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Redemption The Third Era: Developing a New Game

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LogoMattoniNeri.1000

First of all we are players. Since we were children we were attracted by the many galaxies of the games world is made of. We saw trading cards becoming games, D&D evolve from its Advanced version toward completely new and modern other versions (but non ever these were better than previous), we were amazed when a bullet kill us while we were playing Cyberpunk. We did take part in many digital adventures moving from Amn to Sigil, travelling onboard in the UNN Rickenbacker or in a car in the radioactive desert. Exactly from here, memories of the movies when we were kids and the world was afraid of atomic wars – before the end of Cold War – became again vivid.

As enthusiast we started to cross the thin border between players and rules makers. We had fun to give life to , tales and adventures to allow anyone else to play. So, we started to involve all our knowledge collected by taking part creation of virtual game environments, in our academic paths and we followed our passions to acquire a profession.

The team from which the idea was born is composed of people who have shared this path. Everything comes by chatter made among friends who had the desire to turn their hobby into a profession. “Let’s make an our trading cards game!”, we told ourselves. First of all we decided to make it virtual, because expenses and needs to proceed in alternative way would be prohibitive, at least in that time.

Considering our available resources we realized to have an original setting on which we could focus our game, a setting that fits perfectly because it is set in a far post-atomic future. We already had the appropriate knowledge to create rules and to implement them in software inside the team, so we looked for people who had experience in drawing and in creation of playing cards adding a new and valid member inside the project founders’ team. Now we feel like craftsmen at work working on their creations with the heart, head and hand.

What we want to do is create a trading card game where the card is always in the spotlight, and not merely a gimmick to sell something. We want our game to reach, potentially, all those who wish to play. We also wish to give to players all the means that are available in card games: a place to manage their collection, one in which they can trade your cards, one in which they can create and test your decks, several ranks, and official tournaments to compete against other people in both competitive and mode.

Every Friday, staring today, we will propose you a post in this blog to explain how we are facing various problems and what are the advancements we are making ready for game production. In hopes of sharing with you our enthusiasm, we invite you to constantly follow us and to interact if and when you consider it appropriate.

We decided to try it with spirit of who, despite difficulties, want to “remain in flight”. If anyone will say us “That is not much”, we will answer as a one of our favourite Captains: “It’s enough”.

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