Blog

You are here: Home » Developement » Dev diary number twenty : Brix & Storyboards


Dev diary number twenty : Brix & Storyboards

Posted by Germain on 01 Jul 2012 / 82 Comments



Jul
1
2012
 82
Hi there!

This week has been very intense. All of our legal papers are now sent. All that is left for us to do is wait for AmazonPayments to confirm that everything is in order. Hopefully… hopefully monday. Then, we’ll be in Kickstarter’s hands.

Yeah, I hate bureaucracy. The most recent horror story: We needed a bank statement to complete the registration of our AmazonPayments account. It’s some sort of document that the bank sends you that says your bank account actually exists. The bank sent it to us by mail. 5 business days later, we get the document. Everything is good except that the account number that Amazon needs is NOT ON THE DOCUMENT! We call the bank, they say they don’t usually put that number in the bank statement. We call Amazon, they say they need a scan of a physical piece of paper with the number on it. We call the bank again telling them we need the number, they say that they’ll scan a document for us and send it by email. We wait 2 days for this to happen. When we get the email, the scan has a big vertical line where the scan failed, and the number we need is smack in the middle of that line. We call the bank – at this point both people on the phone understand that this is getting ridiculous – they agree to scan the document again immediately. We got it now. End of story.

So yeah, it’s sent. It’s out of our control now. All we can do until then is work on the game. Speaking of which, here’s what we did this week (and last week too):

  • Started implementing a slice/X-ray vision system to be able to look inside structures or even down mineshafts. This System is a major gameplay element that we have been struggling with for months now. But we finally got time to sit down and figure out an efficient way of making it, and we’re surprised to see that it already works really well! Our main concern at the moment is to remove the ability to see what the ground is made of to avoid making the task of finding precious resources too easy.
  • Added a few nice tools to our cinematic scripting engine such as ease-in and ease-out curve functions. Until recently, we only had access to linear movement options, but now we spent an afternoon refining our code, and the result is pretty neat. We also added the ability to tweak the time scale during a cinematic. This means bullet-time effects and pause will be possible in the near future. Combined with an ease-in-out curves and the possibilities are endless. :D
  • Finally found the source of our massive memory leaks. Turns out the current version of Unity has problems Garbage Collecting large arrays. Garbage Collection is a system that is called periodically by the engine that analyses the content of the game and finds the unused resources. Variables that are no longer accessible by anything, arrays that are not useful anymore and procedural mesh objects that are no longer used are all things that the Garbage Collector should find and eliminate, freeing memory in the process. Unfortunately, the Unity Garbage Collector fails when scanning large arrays, and does not scan assets (which our procedural mesh is part of). These two elements make up 80% of Castle Story’s memory footprint, so solving this problem is absolutely critical to be able to release a playable game. Fortunately, we have found a few functions in the .Net framework that allows manual memory management.
  • Added a bit of randomness to the archers’ arrows. Until now, the archers would have uncanny abilities and would shoot bad guys from kilometers away. Now the effect is subtle, but the arrows will have a cone of accuracy so that faraway targets are harder to hit.
  • Found and fixed a few bugs, some of which are pretty funny. The ragdoll was acting weird so we looked into it and found out objects within the hierachy would be duplicated without their meshes. So a dead Bricktron might drop his sword, but he would also drop a duplicate invisible sword. The ragdolls would then fall on those invisible objets and it would look weird. We also found out that some character animations would not play if the camera wasn’t looking at it. Generally this is good for CPU performance, but some of our code depended on the animation being played. This resulted in characters not picking up objects unless we looked at them, and all sorts of equally annoying nonsense.
  • In the process of wrapping up the trailer, here’s what we have to say about it:



The Trailer

The trailer is almost done. The most complex scenes are finished, the main timeline is pretty much set in stone. The only remaining scenes are gameplay scenes, and these are the most simple ones to make. Here’s a screenshot of what the trailer looks like (as seen from our point of view):

Something tells me there will be at least one explosion in this video.


We also have a few screenshots from the trailer itself. Complete with the storyboard sketch that was made beforehand.










So anyway, soon, you’ll get to see the actual trailer. It’s going to be worth it. We showed the first draft to some friends of ours this week. My favorite comment was “I just shat brix!” Funny thing, Castle Story was originally named “Brix” when we started working on it 2 years ago, and we scrapped the name because it was too close to the aforementioned expression.



Soundtrack of the week

A real shiny treat this week. Trentemøller is just insane. Just please listen with the volume at max, your neighbors will thank you, no kidding.


Team Sauropod





82 Comments for Dev diary number twenty : Brix & Storyboards


Rick
11 months ago


The last screenshot just… just kiked shit out of me. That’s what I was hoping about: you really made HUGE progress without even talking about it in your recent devs. I really apologize for last week’s dev comments and stuff.
“Hopefully… hopefully monday. Then, we’ll be in Kickstarter’s hands.”
You, you, y, you mean 2 days to wait???

    Daniel (Flight)
    11 months ago


    I apologize for my rudeness on the last dev post, but I cant afford to be mad at anyone right now, THE KICKSTARTER IS GOING TO BE SO SOON!

    Menekis
    11 months ago


    there will be a countdown soon enough on our main page. there is a delay between the time we post our project and the time it is approved by kickstarter itself but yeah I’ve coded the countdown system this week ;)

      James
      11 months ago


      I like the sound of THAT! :P

Ben
11 months ago


Holy Cow! Maybe people will stop complaining about getting nothing done eh? You guys are doing great! I’m super excited for the video and it looks like there’s a (relatively small) chance of EXPLOSIONS being in it!
I can honestly say that I’m looking forward to this video even more than I looked forward to “Meet the Pyro”.
Good Luck Guys!
-Ben

    Daniel (Flight)
    11 months ago


    Nah, I looked forward to Meet the Pyro more. (Whevever Im not looking at this blog or youtube, im pretty much playing TF2.)

Space Narwhal
11 months ago


YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

AntonioAJC
11 months ago


Wow I really like your progress!
I just noticed that instead of torches the bricktons use crystals as a light source… Right?

Inigo
11 months ago


Wow. I cannot wait for this release. :) you guys are doing great work, and hopefully the paperwork is quick so that we can all get a chance to play it! :D the trailer looks amazing, and on another note I especially approve of fixing the memory leak.

Keep up the good work!

Jojay
11 months ago


Are you guys using source filmmaker? It looks like it!

    Morgan
    11 months ago


    Tis after effects (CS5?) :)

      Menekis
      11 months ago


      Adobe Premiere acually ;)

Gilbert
11 months ago


It looks wonderfull. Hoping for the Kickstarter now. I cant wait to show the video of to my friends.

Stace the Macemibob
11 months ago


yaYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYFARTYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYYAY
Sorry, overexcited.

    Germain
    11 months ago


    That “FART” just made me laugh out loud. That made my day.

    Daniel (Flight)
    11 months ago


    You made it possible to scroll to the right .-. *Fart*

PowerBlunt2069
11 months ago


The lighting effects and shading in the last screenshots were very arrousing.
I the hope the frame rate holds up on those high density explosions.
I am so excited and I can barely hold my hamster.

Time traveler
11 months ago


omgomgogmogmogmomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgmgogmogmgomgomgomgogmogm IIIIIIIIII NEEEEEEEEEEED to time travel ahead and watch this video!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOW…..like RIGHT NOW……K IM GOING……..3….2……1…..huh…nothing happend………o wait whats that….O..GOD..fuuuuuuuuuuAuFuDuJuLFGBfdljduyadlido’oljakfhbvgtye67388o9p9876t4wgh,hbkipo9387826yiuoipekjnrbfjaa…

    Ben
    11 months ago


    I think he saw a dinosaur

    Daniel (Flight)
    11 months ago


    Or maybe he just appeared in the middle of a Micheal Jackson Concert, and the fans tore him apart.

      Ben
      11 months ago


      impossibru

James
11 months ago


Just saw… Catapults and Lights! :)

MobbieAnimations
11 months ago


I see that we can fill stone into catapults, and some crystals act like torches at night.
This is an awesome game, cant wait for the trailer, but who can?

    James
    11 months ago


    I wonder, if tunnels can be built upwards… otherwise it might get kinda hard to dig a mine into a mountain… right?

      Joebass
      11 months ago


      yeah guys, be sure that we can dig upwards, with automatics stairs^^
      so you canmake some stairways in the ground, so you could go up on the mountain! yay!

      can’t wait to see the trailer. look nice!
      thanks guys for giving us a AMAZINGWONDERFULCANTWAITTOPLAYTHIS game.

DDR
11 months ago


Hey, that WAS pretty good music. Thanks. :)

Andrew
11 months ago


Whoa, looking great. That last picture with the guards looked so awesome. <3 Good luck with the game, I'm sure it'll go great. Also, any ideas on a kickstarter release date? People have asked many times now, but since you're saying how soon it will be I'm guessing you have more of a date in mind. :D

    Daniel (Flight)
    11 months ago


    Didnt you read the blog? They said ‘Hopefully… hopefully monday. Then, we’ll be in Kickstarter’s hands.” And if its not Monday, its sometime not dar from that! :D

      Mr.Awesome
      11 months ago


      next moday?

pippoppeo
11 months ago


I think there is a fail in the Trailer-Screenshot. The Bow is in the face of the cute, yellow guy. I wan see the Trailer!

    Daniel (Flight)
    11 months ago


    Thats not a fail, he sort of trying to guard himself, I guess. Bracing himself. :P

Mucro
11 months ago


Well, I have two questions:
1) Will there be [torches] and will they be able to “upgrade” into those [glow stone] thingies?
2) Will it be possible to create some sort of [elevator contraptions] to help with vertical mine-shafts?

Now all that’s left to be said is HOORAY!!! the trailer and kick-starter are steadily getting closer! :D

Palestine
11 months ago


On va pouvoir jouer pendant les vacance ?!
(Vacance scolaire,(jusqu’au 9Septembre) )

Gordonfleaman
11 months ago


oooh im liking this ALOT… I really am

Kayler
11 months ago


Have you guys tested to see how many bricktrons you can have on the screen at once?

DMII
11 months ago


Will there be some kind of hint at the surface to help you find valuable stuff underground?
Because just digging and hoping doesn’t look all too appealing :/

    James
    11 months ago


    Well… it works in minecraft, doesn´t it? ;)

Tastaturtaste
11 months ago


How long do you think the kickstarter has to run until we can get the game?

    GoingGay
    11 months ago


    17 years.

      Mr.Awesome
      11 months ago


      NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

mark
11 months ago


Nice update, still super excited to see the final video for kickstarter.
Cool screen caps also.

Threule
11 months ago


And why you dont create a code for what can and cant be seen via Xray?
Or another way is a code that only allows certain bricks to see thru them

James
11 months ago


Until now, I think we have always seen the same map in each and every video… I wonder, wether there might be randomly generated maps…?

    Someone.
    11 months ago


    My guess is that they’re gonna post the countdown to the kickstarter on the website THIS Friday, and we’ll just have to wait however long the countdown is :P

      SOMEONE.
      11 months ago


      Wait, I just meant to reply to the whole topic D:<

satamoto
11 months ago


Saurapod studio pls tell me do I have to be happy because next week is relised the video or the kick starter ?
Or I have to wait 2-3 weeks more?

NOTE: this is a serious question i’m not trying to irritate or annoy you in any king!

Graham
11 months ago


This looks great!

I have one comment/question. it looks like that although you had your archers looking down in the storyboard sketch, your screenshot has them looking up off into the distance. will you make it so that your archers animations (bow/head positions) will till with the angle of their shot, or even better, will look towards their target?

I know it’s not that important to gameplay, but it would make it look a bit more realistic i think.

Keep up the good work! I can’t wait to give you my money!

Graham

Tastaturtaste
11 months ago


I hope they are going to release the game before weekend.
After the weekend I won’t be home for two weeks and I really don’t want to miss something such important as the beginning of there kickstarter…

Mr.Awesome
11 months ago


You guys really know how to make people throw money at you. KICKSTARTER YAYAYAYAYA!

satamoto
11 months ago


{*_*}

like an ice
11 months ago


if tomorrow I DON’T see the trailer i am going to shot myself in face

    James
    11 months ago


    Can´t wait to see that… lol :D

    Space Narwhal
    11 months ago


    Don’t forget to film it, man.

Driad13
11 months ago


Looking very good guys, cant wait to see the trailer. And I am very curious about what the sound track in the game will sound like, if its anything like what you have been posting for this weeks soundtrack it is going to be really cool =P

And what is a ballpark figure of how much this game might cost, or is that something you have to figure out with Kickstarter? Anyways looks good, screen shots look good, and game looks great.
Keep up the good work!

Driad
11 months ago


This is my real account. Anyways I do have one more question, will there be different colors of lights? lol I know that seems like a silly question but I think it would be cool to kind of color coordinate your castle =P

satamoto
11 months ago


IF YOU DON’T SHOW THE TRAILER TOMORROW OR SATURDAY I’M GOING TO SHOOT MY SELF WITH A GUN AND TELL THE COPS THAT YOU KILLED ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(0.0) lol :D

Russian Hitman
11 months ago


…
Developers, Hello. I am, as you could imagine, extremely angry. I have captured someone near and dear to your hearts. Waldo. Yes, I found him. I have him captive, and If you don’t post the trailer tomorrow, he will die. You have until tomorrow at midnight.

Post it.

    satamoto
    11 months ago


    HAHA LOLOLOL :d:d:d:d:d:D

      Russian Hitman
      11 months ago


      I don’t see whats so funny. This is serious business.

Waldo
11 months ago


HELP ME SAUROPODSTUDIOS,help…help…..help…….help………help………..help……………help……………………..

    Police
    11 months ago


    Quickly, trace the IP!

      Russian Hitman's Hacker
      11 months ago


      Psh. Good luck. Ive got the highest security possible.

      Police
      11 months ago


      So, the Russian Hitman has been hacked?

      Thanks for the info, we’ll be sending a car to pick you up!

Space Narwhal
11 months ago


I cannot wait for what’s in store for us today.

    Me
    11 months ago


    Why? What’s supposed to happen today?

Jacob
11 months ago


Hope the trailer comes out today.

satamoto
11 months ago


TRAILER ,TRAILER ,TRAILER …..

tyler
11 months ago


TRAILER,TRAILER,TRAILER

    Tim
    11 months ago


    TRAILER,TRAILER,TRAILER

      Nayth
      11 months ago


      Well, it’s not trailing the game, so it should be an advert?

jemp
11 months ago


TRAILER TRAILER FREAKING TRAILER!

You
11 months ago


TRAILER,TRAILER,TRAILER

satamoto
11 months ago


TRAILER,TRAILER,TRAILER

Dude
11 months ago


TRAILER,TRAILER,TRAILER

waldo
11 months ago


TRAILER TRAILER TRAILER!

waldo II
11 months ago


TRAILER,TRAILER,TRAILER PLEASE POST IT!

waldo III
11 months ago


TRAILER,TRAILER,TRAILER

Space Narwhal
11 months ago


Be patient, people.

    waldo
    11 months ago


    TRAILER, TRAILER, TRAILER

      Space Narwhal
      11 months ago


      Probably coming out tomorrow.

      waldo
      11 months ago


      good enough for me =)

Andrew
10 months ago


The longer you need, the better the game has to be in order to meet expectations.