Echoes Traveler Devlog #6 - Finally it looks like something!

Surprise! New name! I told you the previous one wasn't definitive.

This last two weeks, I've finally worked on the game's art. Now that it has a visual identity, it felt like the right time to update its name to something that represents its themes better. “Echoes Traveler” suggests exploration, hearing the world through distant sounds, and a mysterious quest… It has a nice vibe.

But you're here for visuals! After 5 month of development (if you're not counting last year), it feels great to finally have something to show. Let's dive in!

The blind ghost

I have to admit something: I initially didn't have much ideas for the player's sprite. Who are we playing? Are they human? Living? Truly I was more interested in the game concept, thus the character controlled by the player was mostly a formality. In my previous "system-focused" games, I got around this by using abstract shapes: circles, squares, circles again… Yes circle is a good shape for sprites. But I cant' use that trick here: I want the music to evoke landscape. So the art of the game must be (gasp) figurative!

So what I need is a bit of storytelling! Why is the player's character here? What is their quest? It has to be aligned with the game's mechanics: exploring the world, and finding hidden paths. There's also an additional constraint: the character shouldn't make any sound when moving. Because I want a strong focus on music, and hearing footsteps constantly would be too distracting, even annoying. So they're not walking. Sliding, maybe, or floating? Soon enough, I came up with a bit of abstract lore: the player is some kind of spirit which goal is to witness the world. Maybe on a personal quest, or maybe for a greatest purpose. But as a silent spirit, their duty is to explore the world, hear it, and remembering it. The paths that they cross might be cardinal points, or spiritual key locations, or whatever. I want to keep it as abstract as possible, it's not the details that are relevant, but the emotions that emerge from them. And once all these paths are completed, then, huh… You know what, let's keep that for later.

So we have a bit of identity for our character: they're a spirit, coming from another realm to visit this one, probably invisible to mortal eyes. They are a natural force though, something that existed since the dawn of time. Not an intruder, but a part of the universe. A deity of some kind. And since they use sound to navigate, I guess they have no eyes? Or maybe just empty orbit, it will make easier to draw their face.

From those ideas, I then looked toward Princess Mononoke's Kodamas for inspiration. They fit the description pretty well: mysterious forest spirits that are not malevolent, stay mostly passive, and are just a natural sign that the forest is healthy. Plus, they look cute!

So I needed something close to that. With an additional constraint: they should not walk. My first idea was to make the character a group of floating rocks. On the top would be the head, and their body would be smaller rocks. When they don't move, they just look like a pile. But in movement, they magically float with sparkles! I started working on that… And realized that it was way, way too complex for my poor drawing skills! Even in a minimalist pixel-art style, a rock needs shadows to give it volume. And drawing them is already difficult enough, but animating them? In 4 sides!? I drew one frame, and then scratched that idea.

After some thoughts and experiments, I decided to just go for a ghost. It floats, it's easy to draw, and even if it's less original, it's close to the idea that I has in mind. This was much more manageable. I eventually decided to draw them big eyes, as it suggest a bit that those vast orbits do not see anything, and it gives them a mix of friendly and creepy personality. Animating it was also easier. Well, yes, it's still ridiculously hard, but it has no shadow or weird 3D movement. I initially tried to make an idle animation, but in the end it became more fitting for a walking one. In the game, I complemented it with a tween on the Y position to make the sprite looks like it's floating.

By the way, as you have noticed, I chose pixel art. Why? Well, a bit for the reasons mentioned above: I'm a terrible drawer. Pixel-art is… a bit easier? As I learned in a previous game, less precision in details allow drawings to be a bit more suggestive. With a too high resolution, the flaws are much more visible. For the few art that the player will see in this game about sound, pixel art impressionism is the perfect one to let them fill the details with their imagination. Plus, Echoes Traveler kinda plays like a 2D Zelda, which feels appropriate in pixel-art. Fortunately I used a proper tool for pixel-art this time: Pixelorama. A great free tool, available for Windows, Mac and Linux (the last being a crucial criteria for me). It is certainly minimalist, but for a newbie like me, it provides all the necessary while being very intuitive! Anyway, believe it or not,  making this little ghost was actually the hardest part!

Even more better tiles

Speaking about Zelda, you know another game that I love? FEZ. This game also focus on exploration, in a rich world full of secrets and mysteries. One of the aspect that I find remarkable in this game is its unique alphabet and numeration system that you have to decipher yourself. It gives so much identity to the world! And it looks ultra neat.

So, instead to have tiles with dull numbers, I decided to make my own FEZ alphabet! Something I wished to do in a game for quite a long time actually. However, this one should be easy to understand at first glance. Thus, to make this numeration system intuitive, I opted for something similar to dices: a simple symbol, repeated to the wanted amount. One dot means one, two dots two, four dots four, etc. I just have to dispose them in harmonious ways. Which is much more my cup of tea! I'm terrible at drawing figurative stuff, but arranging abstract shapes is something I can enjoy! Actually, this time, pixel-art made the exercise a bit more difficult. I decided to use diamond as central shape. It was a bit easy to draw a large one, but smaller ones gave me some troubles, especially when I had to rotate them. Thankfully I was able to make something that looks quite nice!

By the way, since it's pixel-art, those pictures are naturally very tiny. They have to be scaled up in the game (consistently? Uh, almost). One thing I was worried about was the interpolation Phaser would apply to them. If not done properly, those sprites would render all blurry! Fortunately, there is an option that can be set directly on Phaser initialization, appropriately named pixelArt! A nice surprise. For once, this is a very good point for the framework.

I also improved the look of the tiles, giving them a better shape, some animations, lights, and colors. But you'll see them in the next section.

The long awaited background

I told you I wasn't very good at drawing, have I not? For the world assets though, I thought that I could handle it. The first screen is the only one where there would be a lot of art. For the rest of the game, well, let's say it'll be obfuscated. And the start of the game is just a part of a forest with no tree! I just have to draw grass and flower. Ea-sy.

Five minutes later I gave up and decided to use an assets library.

I mean pixel-art grass has already been drawn tons of time! Do I really need to express a strong identity with it? Do I think mine would be special? Let's not waste time and go with something made by an actual artist instead of a clumsy drawing. It's not like I'm looking for something specific here.

And indeed, I quickly found good nice assets, and one in particular struck my eyes. Maybe it's the presentation, the ruins, the colors, but it matches exactly the vibe I'm going for for the start of the game. So with not much hesitation, I decided to use it. Once again with a tool I discovered for the occasion: Tiled. A pretty solid tileset and tilemap editor, with rich features and export options. Has a steeper learning curve than Pixelorama though, but once you got the basic it is quite playful to use. I went a bit further that I planned and added some crossroads, to make the place more "mystical".

I also added a layer of shadow on top of the map. It reinforce the sensation of being inside a forest (and not a wide field), and suggest that there's a larger world outside of the screen, that the player can only picture from clues. The effect is… Well, not perfect. Proper shadows would have a distortion when something goes through them. And those tree leaves feels very static! But you know, it was exactly the same in A Link to the Past. So… Good enough!

Alright, let's rise the curtain and see how it looks!

I know it's very, very basic. But being able to show a decent screenshot after months of development feels like a huge step! I'm even more excited for you to play the full game now.

Which should come very soon actually! Maybe by the end of this month if everything goes right? For the next update, I plan to work on two things. First, the UI elements (yes, we're THAT close to a release). Secondly, the promotion of the game. Yeah, this project is ambitious enough that I actually want to reach a larger audience this time. I have decent visuals, a great pitch, and a lot of pretty cool music (imho)… I should be able to make a little something to interest people into playing this game. Preferably before the release (instead of my usual unique tweet just after publishing). October will be a crazy month!