Hello everyone,
Once again, thank you for all the feedback.
@C Belmont - The intention is to actually hire a highly capable 3d artist who will be able to model some original content for the game on an advanced level. Some things I have actually textured myself, but I would like to do more in personalizing. I'm no expert at Maya, so Daz was a very helpful tool in creating a lot of assets.
@Jorge D. Fuentes - Thanks for the compliment! I love me some Killer Instinct, and I have a special place in my heart for pre-rendered graphics. Though I wanted to originally use pixel art, I just can't cut it.
@Dracula9 - Ha! The last thing I need is for Microsoft to come at me for any Fulgorish similarities, but it's fun to think about. What engine(s) have you been working with? I've said it in another thread, but I agree on some of the stiff animations. Some animations were using motion capture, some were hand animated. Animations will be more fluid in the future. I had to put everything together to make the 2015 GDC. While the CG look is outdated, I think it has its own charm too. I agree, if 8 bit games are still around, why not pre-rendered? But I get that 8 bit is a larger nostalgia boner for most folks. But the 90s had some awesome pre-rendered games. The music is actually being scored by a close friend of mine and is all original. I think that it captures a small bit of the CV vibe, but is different enough. The chainmail is kind of a work in progress at the moment. To be honest, I'm not even fully sold on her overall design.
@Kingshango - Are you thinking like the Sega CD Dracula? I think the graphics and animations are all WIP's. The main focus has been the engine, gameplay and fun factor. I spend a lot of time working on level design, enemies and their abilities, player abilities and finetuning all kinds of things. When I made Bloodletting, I used a pre-made platformer function in MMF2 and it was a mistake, I should have used a custom platformer engine like I am now that I have built. The premade platformer engine led to all kinds of bugs that when working on fixing, I lost my source files (before the days of cloud services being popular), and being unemployed at the time I couldn't afford an external HD. Konami issued a cease and desist at the end of 2009 anyway. A big gripe (understandably) was also the backflip in Bloodletting. So I took what I heard from folks and have been really focusing on a solid, reliable engine that is fun and feels good to control.
If you are in the San Francisco area attending the 2015 Game Developers Conference, Anathema will be fully playable at booth #736. I won't be there myself, as much as I wanted to be, but if you're in the area, check it out!
Thanks for all the feedback everyone!
Here is a higher res look at the model used for the in-game sprites of Aurora. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I'm not fully sold on her design and it is subject to change.