[AdvJam2019] [Simon - Yaz] Mon Village est Magique : The Whale of the Infinite Ocean

This is my project for Adventure Jam 2019.
AdvJam official page: http://jams.gamejolt.io/advjam2019
(Please check also the other Icehouse games: Juanjo/PythonBlue (game: Numen), Yves (game: Romanesco), ... )




The story takes place in the world of Mon Village est Magique.
http://www.monvillageestmagique.fr

Characters:
The main characters are Seb (8 years old kid) and his little brother Tommy (5 years old). We can also see Mumutton (the dust bunny), Mom and Dad (the parents of Seb and Tommy), and there will be other NPC (Not Playable Characters) to whom we can talk and interact with.

Places:
There are 2 distinct worlds in this game: the real world (the world where we live, and where Seb and Tommy live), and one of the many Magical Worlds.
The real world will be located in the village of Seb and Tommy in France, Bugundy. It will take place around their house, near the ruins of the castle as usual.
The Magical World will be a small kingdom inspired by fantasy, wizardry, etc.

Story:
Mumutton has disappeared! Seb and Tommy investigate to find him. The track takes them near the well of Magical Water at the pond of their village. Suddenly a breach opens between their world and another world. Mumutton suddenly gets out of the breach, with a very official invitation written by a king! Seb and Tommy are invited to a great spectacle to celebrate the meeting with these people. The kids are named ambassadors. In the new kingdom, the spectacle is amazing, with lots of colors and music, and a giant whale flies through the sky to end the show. The king is very proud. Everything is going well, until the whale escapes into our world! The heros learn that it is a rare animal that normally lives in the Infinite Ocean and shouldn't be held captive. The people of this world had tamed her to entertain the king. And now, she's so large and heavy that she could do some damage in the real world! They're gonna have to send her home and free her! But the king doesn't seem to want to cooperate...

Gameplay:
The game will be a point and click adventure game in 3rd person view, made of 3D characters in 2D environments (like Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, etc). The player will go through the story (text) and will have to solve a few inventory puzzles (find and use items) and maybe other puzzles (if I have the time and ideas).

Engine:
This project will be developed with Visionaire Studio.

Graphics:
3D characters in 2D (pre-rendered) environments. The graphics will be created in 3dsmax and After Effects.

Music:
This is not decided yet, but I don't have a music composer so it is more likely that the music will be free royalty free music from the internet.
Update: FInally Yaz is joining the team!! We're going to have great music in the game!

Devlog:
You can follow my progress on the game page on Game Jolt, where I post WIP articles and pictures.
https://gamejolt.com/games/mvem_aj2019/418477

I will share some of the in-game screenshots here as soon as I have something playable!
I hope you are interested by my project and that you will want to play it. Don't hesitate to share your thoughts, give ideas, suggestions, etc.
Thanks!

Oh what a Joy! - I am really looking forwardto this Simon, and congrats for what you have achieved so far!

Wow ! Just Wow !

I'll not participate to the Adventure Gamejam, beacause of my lack of free time.
But I can obviously propose my music services, if Simon want them.

Do I want the music services of Yaz ? Let me think...

YES DEFINETELY!!! It would be an honor!!!!

Yaz many thanks for suggesting it. I didn't want to bother you because you are busy with your other jam, but it's a pleasure to know that you can help me.

I will contact you soon then!

No problem : making a new project for another gamejam would be too much for me, but the music is not a problem at all. So feel free to contact me ^_^

And, now, I go back to Frgament GJ : everything I'm making to put all the prototypes into one software brings a huge mont of bugs everywhere. The prototypes are not very stable, but now, it's like I can't even imagine what will happen when I launch the game ^^" The most increedible is that sometimes, everything is OK. And the time after, nothing is good at all ^^ A pure mystery ... I'll have to solve in few weeks ^^

Oh wow, sounds incredible Simon! Seb and Tommy look great, can't wait to see more.

Good luck The characters looks nice !

OMG! Simon, this is amazing!!

The story sounds really interesting, you have a lot of imagination!

And I'm very impressed with the characters... just are incredible!

Great news to hear that Yaz will help with the music, the project is getting serious...

Keep us informed!

Thanks everyone, I'm very happy to see that you like my project. I don't know how far I can go, there is a lot of work (many background pictures to create in 3D). But I will do my best!

In exclusivity for the Icehouse, the first scene of the game with the characters in front of their house:



Please don't share, it's for preview only. I will post it later on Game Jolt on my devlog, but I prefer to explain my process there, so before I will show the making of the house.

Like WOW!

It looks good Simon!

Thanks everyone! That motivates me a lot to read your comments!
This view is inspired by my house in real life haha

I keep this project and the graphics very simple, with a lot of photoshop changes (vegetation, improvements, etc). This is the advantage of using pre-rendered 3D!
In the GIF above, you can see the only scene that I have created for the moment. It takes a lot of time. I will try to go very fast in producing the backgrounds, because I will need a lot of them if we want to visit the village and the magical world a bit.
Now that I have created one scene, I hope to go faster because I have a basis of work (style, models, etc).

I know that there will be many bugs and issues in this game for the Jam (the characters skinning is far from perfect, the modeling is very lowpoly, the houses are not very detailed, ...)
But I try to find a good overall quality nevertheless, so I hope that people will like it.
If I am happy after the jam, it is possible that I continue this project, so I don't want to waste it by going too fast. Of course after the jam I can come back in my 3d scenes in order to polish the details, I will have the time. More specifically I would like to add some animations in the scene, because now everything is very static.

Which render style do you prefer below for the characters?

1/ Not shaded (flat)
Gives a nice cartoon style, hides some of the modelling issues
Easy to use in most situations, doesn't require to change the sun position depending on the scene.
Much faster to set up for me.




2/ Lighted
A few shadows are projected on the character model, thus we can see more volume, they're not flat. However it makes it visible the 3d modelling issues (lowpoly, bugs, skinning problems), and it requires to change the light orientation in each scene.

I guess you should use the flat version. You already have a lot of work with the backgrounds.

Thanks Ormusto, I agree and I think I will choose this option for the jam. I can change later anyway if I decide to continue the project.

I'll wait for other opinions just in case.

For me Flat.
The Lit (3d?) version is amazing, but seems to me to be too impractical for a Jam scenario.

Yeah, I think flat render is better for the jam

Woah! this sounds so cool!
I agree I like the Flat version.
Good luck!

Flat seems to be better for a gamejam (faster & easier to use), but the intergration in the background works less well as the background has got its shadows, but I'm probably a bit too perfectionist here ^^. It would be perfect if you could render the background with the same "flat" unshadowed aesthetic than the characters (like a cartoon style), if it's possible of course ^_^ I'm very impressed by your efficiency ! Great work !

Trop mimis les deux mômes ^_^

I agree with Yaz.

Thanks everyone!

Yaz I prefer to avoid flat textures for the environments, I know that I wouldn't have a nice result in such a limited time. Cell-shading (or similar) is difficult if I want it to be beautiful.
However I think I have found a nice setting between flat and lighted, so I hope you'll like it!

As long as I'm working in 3dsmax on simple things (box modeling, etc), I'm going fast!
But I can already see some problems that I will meet in Visionaire Studio soon, and I already have problems that take me some time. As a result today I worked very slowly on my prototype....

Wow Simon, did Juanjo give you some of his "secret" jam? You're producing quality work very quickly!

But yes, I agree to use the flat version for the jam. Once the jam is completed you could always go back and spend more time polishing it. Overall very impressive so far!

14 days are short, I have no choice but to produce the game very quickly
I drank Juanjo's magic potion and now I'm full of energy!! It had a taste of sangria....

(Josh are you surprised? I don't often participate to game jams, but after all I created Myha in 10 days in January 2016 ^^ It doesn't mean that this MVEM game will be great, I have many issues right now ahahahahahahah)

Hahaha, yeah, Simon drank my magic potion and now the disciple is beating the master!

Simon, I can't wait to see the progress but what you've done so far is awesome, keep it up!