In a previous blog, I discussed my thought process of level design. We thought it would be fun to take an in-depth look at what goes into building a scene. This past week I have been documenting the process of creating a scene. After viewing the 3d environment art our team had created, I was very excited to start working on the scene The Desert of Marzule. I loved the aesthetics and knew this would be a fun scene to put together. Each scene is broken up into several parts that we call sections. By splitting the scene into sections, this allows us a lot more customization for each section, as we tend to focus on one small portion of the scene at a time. Also, from a performance standpoint

The Green Vale is a beautiful forest filled with magical beasts. Early in development I envisioned this area to be the kingdom of Pyromancy, complete with a large castle and villages. As the story evolved, the forest did too. I started to populate it with standard creatures such as bears and wolves, and eventually introduced a stronger fantasy element by adding creatures such as Griffins, Druids, and Dark Elfs. The Dark Elf race made an important footprint in the scene and magic has become a very important part of the environment. The Forbidden Arts is not your typical action platformer in that there is a strong focus on story and character development. With a good story comes quests,

In game design, you might start with one idea and then have that idea evolve into something entirely different by the time the game is done. I think it’s definitely ok to stray away from the path you originally started working on, so long as the end product is better or you’re happier with it. It’s now been 2 years since I began working on the Forbidden Arts, and things are still evolving/changing. One key part of the game in which this is true is the story. As the story continues to evolve, settings and environments continue to change. The original opening scene of the game was supposed to be set in a fantasy house. Originally the main character was going to be a thief and the house se

This week’s blog is a continuation of last week, which gives a bit of background information on each of the magical factions that exist in the game. This week I'll be discussing the following 4 factions: Aeromancy, Enchantment, Chiromancy, and Necromancy. Aeromancy is the divination of air, and the Aeromancer is none other than a master of flight himself, the great Ice Dragon. He maintains a fortress on top of the highest peak in the Mountains of Orin, a frozen wasteland, home to many creatures including goblins, golems and dragons. The goblins and golems are simply pawns to the great Dragon. The goblins are dumb creatures who worship anything that showers them in riches, and the Aeroman

The Forbidden Arts is known as the following types of magic: Pyromancy, Hydromancy, Geomancy, Aeromancy, Enchantment, Chiromancy, and Necromancy. Each form of magic has a leader of great power and many followers that form factions. Magic is looked at like religion, and each faction swears by their form of magic. There are few beings capable of wielding the powers of The Forbidden Arts. Most followers of these faction are without powers. They simply follow their chosen leader as leaders are viewed like gods. Pyromancy is the divination of fire and at the point in time where the game starts there is currently no leader of this faction. The Elder Pyromancer died in recent years and no Pyr