Artix.com Design Notes Archive - all - all

Test #6 Postponed!? posted by Artix on 5/23/2013 1:00 PM

WHAAA!? NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

We were scheduled to begin Alpha Test #6 on Thursday for our new game, AdventureQuest3D: Legend of LORE. But, an avalanche of game breaking bugs (likely caused by the Trolluk DeathKnight who is this test's new boss monster) has forced us to postpone the test until next week. What went wrong? Short version: The new area, the Cathedral, featured new lightning and a large network of cooridors that worked great in development, but when put into the live game engine, spiked lag and started crashing browsers. We are just as dissapointed to have to wait for this test as much as you are. To make this up to you, we will be doubling the Alpha Points this test will be worth from 250 to 500. Thank you for being so understanding.

About the upcoming Alpha Test #6

Alpha Test #6 is worth 250 Alpha Points (All you need to do is log in.)
New Dungeon: The Cathedral
New Monsters: Sneevil, Trolluk DeathKnight
New Weapon: The Soulbourn (Soul Axe) - obtainable through quest.
Where you in the last test? Zhoom is running the querry to give everyone their points right now. (+400 Alpha Points if you completed the new quest and had the "Fire Sword" in your inventory and +100 Alpha Points if you re-did the undead slaying quest.)
All items will crumble to dust before the NEXT test... but they did not crumble to dust for this one. Wooohooo!

Tranzor Z vs Mazinger Z! posted by Artix on 5/22/2013 3:12 PM

Fan art of the classic super robot by Diozz

Are Giant Robots making a comeback?

Most of us here at the lab are excited about the movie, Pacific Rim, which is coming out this summer. Giant robots fighting giant monsters!!!! It is the next best thing to someone creating a live action Neon Genesis Evangelion movie. *dreams* I grew up watching TV shows like Robotech, Voltron, Transformers and Tranzor Z (originally known as Mazinger Z.) Needless to say, MechQuest was highly inspired by my love of those shows. Not to mention all of the anime series that I got into: Gundam, Eva, Code Geass, Gurren Lagann, Full Metal Panic, Eureka Seven, Big O, Escaflowne (OMG I LOVED ESCAFLOWNE.... Giant Robots with Swords and Capes!) and a lot of obscure ones like Nadesco, Rahxephon, Fafner and for some reason my most favorite spoof series, "Dual! Parallel." I really do hope giant robots are making a comeback... if so, the end of MechQuest's main storyline is coming at a perfect time. An upsurge in robofatuation would let us build MechQuest 2 as an Omni game! *dreams more*

Comment Question: What are your favorite robot shows & movies?

The Sword Gem posted by Artix on 5/21/2013 6:31 PM

"Would a SwordGem of any other name not slice as sweet?"

For the past week we have been talking about our first Omni-Game. It is a fun and addictive fantasy puzzle game which will play on your phone, tablet, web browser, toaster, and more. It does not have a name yet... but it does have shiny gems including the Sword Gem pictured above. What would surprise you, is the insane history of how that gem came to be. It started as a hastefully drawn circle I made when showing the team the game board. But it needed an icon to be more easily itentifiable as a sword attack gem. So Samba drew the sword icon. Then she penciled some various shapes around it. Meanwhile, Jemini created a bunch of shiny orbs. She was out of the lab, so based on a screenshot of her orbs, Cysero re-created them. Yergen then took the shiny orbs and started modifying them to match the colors of the game board. He thought making each playing piece in a different shape would really help players with color blindness. So he crafted a dozen different shape concepts until we all finally agreed on this hexagon crystal shape for the sword gem. He gave the other gems their own shapes. This was important, because until this moment they were all orbs... now the game pieces are gems. Possibly changing the name of the game. (If we had one. Which we do not.) Finally, Draven took Yergen's gems (which were created in Flash) and recreated them in Photoshop as you can see in the image above. So when you finally get to play this game... run your finger along the Sword Gems to launch your devastating attack, you will be one of the few who knows all the love and effort that went into creating it. We love you little Sword Gem. Now... ATTACK!

Monsterous Monday posted by Artix on 5/20/2013 5:32 PM

Creatures, Crypts & Chaos

The picture above is the Necromancer armor for our new mobile game Project: Omni.I am looking forward to posting more about the game and its monsters, but first... we need to update you on all the things happening here at the lab! DEPLOY THE BULLET POINTS!

AdventureQuest Worlds
AQWorlds is getting ready for "The Summer of Evil." The popular artist Nulgath will be featured in this week's artist shop starting wednesday. Then, in just a few eeeks the Summer of Evil will kick off with the first GRIMSKULL DUNGEON. I do not know if you have been listening to the rumors about Grimskull, but... his dungeons are evil, evil, evil, evil, evil... evil x 9999. No matter how deadly his first dungeon, "The Vault of Endless Doom" is, adventurers cannot pass up the opportunity to try to reach the bottom and obtain what is guarenteed to be "The most powerful weapon in the world." (With matching enchancement.) The weapon and most everything about the vault is free. The heavy focus on gameplay is part of AQWorld's commitment to "put the game back into the game."

AdventureQuest 3D: Legend of Lore
There is a new alpha test scheduled for this Thursday. While the coders are working on project Omni, the AQ3D content team is going to preview some of the new areas that they have been working on. In this Thursday's test, players will enter the cathedral. We will leave the servers up as long as possible.

MechQuest
We are all in eager anticipation of the "End of the Universe." It is the finale of our giant robot battling game's main storyline. Since it was announced, the MechQuest team paused weekly releases and have been working on preparing the 4-part finale for the hard core fans. The final part is much bigger than the releases we normally make and requires help from the other teams. We expect "The End of the Universe" to begin at the start of summer... possibly in two weeks!!!

Also

Limited Print "Mirror Realm: Xing and Xang" available now at www.HeroMart.com
AQWorlds Battle Cards - 150 decks to be available next week. (We had a lot of decks with battle damaged packaging.... so Faith took them all out of the packaging, built a special new box that will contain the all the cards from the original Card Game AND all the cards from both Booster packs -- including all in-game items.)
It was hailing at the lab today... WHAT!? Since when does Florida have hail storms... and in the Summer!?
Mia J. Park wrote a new song, "Us against the world." I REALLY like it... that is a link to ReverbNation where you can listen to it and her other stuff for free.
As you know, I read and answer fan mail every week... I was thinking that maybe I should open and read it on camera this week -- and post it on YouTube. (My real life-self is a lot crazier than my game character, it might shock people.) What do you think?

What Monster are You!? posted by Artix on 5/20/2013 4:58 PM

Is your's cooler than "Dark Clown?"

Within all of us lurks a Monster. Some of them have cooler names than others... (Way to Go "Death Ninja!" and... sorry "Invisible Eater") Take the first letter of your first name, and the first letter of your last name and figure out your Monster Name. Then, comment your monster name on this post, or on the Facebook Post. You also have my permission to download this and post it anywhere you would like. I really love making things like this... a really fun way to start off a Monday.

Friday is AE RELEASE DAY! posted by Beleen on 5/17/2013 2:20 PM

It’s Friday! And you know what that means: Artix Entertainment has just released new monsters, items, weapons, and adventures in your favorite browser games! Whoohoo! Check out all the fun in store and make our fantasy your reality!

AdventureQuest Worlds
Return to the Mirror Realm… to save yourself! Because you have no reflection in the Mirror Realm, the Universe has been thrown out of balance, and it’s up to you to restore it! But hurry—Xing and Xang are free to play their Chaotic games and are ready to erase you from existence! Gear up in Mido’s Featured Artist Showcase items, the Game Booster Bundle AC package add-on, Dragon to the Darkness Shop items, and more rares in Quibble’s shop before facing your fears in the Mirror Realm!

OverSoul
The new Shadow Card Series has just surfaced! Here is your chance to possess and harness the:

Master Drow Assassin: second Rank up choice of the Shadow Apprentice

Master Flesh Void: second Rank up choice from the male Void Incarnate

Legendary DreadFiend: purchasable directly in Malakai's Shop

Get your Shadow On in OverSoul!

EpicDuel
Davarril has been defeated and the Arborgeddon Event is ending. Claim your spoils at Cinderella or a defeated Davarril who has saved the best gear for last: The Botanical Nightmare set. We've also introduced a new player-to-player mail system to make staying in touch with your friends and fellow Faction members easier than ever.

HeroSmash
Are you a Hero of Good or a Villain of Evil? Two pet capes have just been released—an angel and a demon—that come with the purchase of HeroMart’s brand-new Xing and Xang Chaos Print.Over the weekend, enjoy more Cino de Mayo items as we prepare Memorial Day items and Birthday Rares.

AdventureQuest Classic
The 8 Elemental Fists have been updated with new tiers, new designs, and new animations! Special versions in the Martial Artist class shop receive a bonus when used with your class armor. Get your hands on the Phlazer, the little gun that packs a huge punch—but hurry, it’s only available in the Limited-Time Shop for 1 week!

DragonFable
Get ready to stage a daring rescue with Kara SuLema! You'll search the depths of a Rose prison to try and find Ogorek's wife, You;ll face more than Manahunters and guards... this time Z is ready for you!

MechQuest
The airship carrying a crucial drop has been shot down, and supplies are dangerouly low! Queenadent Odessa needs YOU to battle your way to the supply crate to bring backammo before Soluna City is overrun with Shadowscthe forces!

Battle ON!

MONSTERS posted by Artix on 5/16/2013 1:43 PM

"Taste the Painbow"

What is the reason heroes wield gigantic oversized weapons? Answer: To battle giant oversized man/woman-eating, vicious monsters of doom, death and destruction!!!! Unless of course, you can talk them into being your BFF... "Best Fiend Forever." The hulking red fellow in the back is know as "Red Bull." His item drop is Wings. Naturallly... *coughs* Red Bull gives you wings. We are going to spend a few posts talking about everyone's favorite monsterous monstery topic: MONSTERS. When looking at fantasy games today, I feel like the app store is a sea of uninspired, shallow, and overly serious games designed to make you click a buy button. To differentiate ourselves, our team is building a heavily inspired, deep, and over-the-top funny game... *coughs* but, um, please do still click any potential buy buttons. (We still need to eat.) Since the goal of this new game is to be played in very short bursts, so the games humor needs to be baked into the monsters. We only have two monsters colored so far. They look more evil than funny. Which is perfect. I asked Thyton to make the monsters as evil and menacing as possible. Yesterday, he drew a horrifying fuzzball wizard named "Harry Otter" and a beastious Hog-wart covered boar with a lightning shaped bacon tail called "Porkachu." I choose you Porkachu! Porkachu's bacon attack is supper effective!

Comment Question: Monster Puns! The gloves are off. Do you have an idea for an over the top parody monster? For example, we were thinking of a time traveling Minotaur area boss named Doctor Moo. He travels in blue outhouse... we would tell you its name but it is udderly innapropriate. What ideas do you have? Combine something you love, with something absurdly strange that makes you laugh. Give it a try :-)

Future Dage posted by Artix on 5/16/2013 12:13 PM

In this inspired painting by www.AQ.com artist, Dage, we see a glimpse of the distant future.... where an army of soul powered mechanized Samurai battle a mysterious and unstoppable force upon a post-apocalyptic world.

About "Dage the Evil"

Dage grew up playing the original AdventureQuest and other Artix Entertainment games. He was a regular on the forums and posted his 2D weapon and armor art reguarly for the team to see. Impressed by Dage's growing skill and persistance, Nulgath took him on as an apprentice. It was not long before Dage's artwork made him a fan favorite. We offered him a full time artist position and he moved to work with us here at the lab. His story is very similiar to many of the incredible artists who build the games with us.

I walked into the lab yesterday and saw Dage drawing a sketch of the image posted above. He said, "Check this out... todays warm up painting." He worked on it for an hour or so. When he switched to working on the AQWorlds items you could tell he was thinking about his painting all day. Around midnight last night I get a text on my phone. It just said "Future Dage" and had the picture above.

What is really fascinating about Dage, and something I hope every young artist who reads this pays special attention to.... Dage pushes himself harder than anyone else ever could. He is never satisfied with the work he creates. He always strives to make it better or do something new. He wakes up in the morning, comes to the lab, and does a "warm up painting." Then he creates AdventureQuest Worlds. At the end of the day, he hits the gym, goes home, and then goes right back to work on his paintings (or plays some video games, or lately, works on Project: Omni art.)

For the past year, Dage has been focusing on his painting skills because he knows that the future of our games, both 2D and 3D will require artists with strong painting skills. Of course, no one told Dage he needed to do this. In fact, I have never given Dage a painting asignment. He has created all of the paintings that you have seen posted over the past year because "he just had to." And for those of you seeking a career in art, I urge you listen carefully. Do not wait for someone to tell you to make something. If you feel that need inside you to make something... do not hesistate, start making it immediately and force yourself to finish it. Spend your time looking at the type of artwork you want to create. Let yourself get mad because your artwork does not look that good... and study, read, and keep trying different things until you create artwork better.

Someone once told me "...being an artist requires sort of mental illness." If have a super human passion and motivation is an illness, then please tell me how to get infected!

Making... YOU! posted by Artix on 5/15/2013 5:35 PM

Character Customization in Project: Omni

If Artix Entertainment was a Halmark-style Greetings Card company... we would definately be putting these adorable new characters on all of our cards. Their highly customizable face, eyes, hair, mouth and expression are perfect for "Happy Birthday", "Get Well Soon", "Happy Anniversary", and "Sorry you fell through a time Vortex and were eaten by a T-Rex." Maybe we should make that part of the game... "Dear player, we are not one of those lame games that tries to get you to post something to your Facebook wall every 10 seconds, but.... we were browsing your friends profiles and saw that your dear Aunt Sally is sick! Would you like to wear this silly hat and pose with a Necromancer's undead army to make her a get well soon or else picture? We recommend posting it to her wall every 10 seconds."

"Hue" do you want to be?

When you are not playing the game, the our male hero character does a lots of situps. Just look at that 4-pack! Yesterday, we worked on making the skin tone color customizable. Back in Flash, we actually broke every color into it's own layer, then put some code on it to change the color. (It is a lot of work to make a color customizable armor in AQWorlds.) It got even trickier in Project Omni. We want players to be able to pick any skin color they want from tan to Homestuck Blue to Hulk green. After playing with some options we found we could change the Hue, Saturation and Brightness levels to do this pretty effectively. But a closer examination of the picture below and you will see that changing the brightness is causing the hair and shorts to change color too! (Ack! The evil wash fairy washed my shorts too many times and now they are all faded!!!!!)

So Minimal did something really cool. He created a custom Hue/Sat/Bright filter than only changes areas that are in color (no whites, grays or black are changed.) So now we can set your skin color, hair color, eye color, etc to any color we want without messing up the outlines or underpants. Your armor will be drawn on top of the character and then the weapon will be placed in your hand. Whether you are a future game maker, an established game maker, or just love seeing what we are doign behind the scenes I hope you have been finding these posts interesting.

Join us tomorrow for.... MONSTERS

Character Design posted by Artix on 5/14/2013 4:31 PM

A new character creation method for Project: Omni

Do you love to draw? Drawing characters concepts is probably the most fun part of any video game project. All you need to know is, "How big are they allowed to be?" Then you can go wild... drawing and experimenting with all sorts of different art styles. For the new <name not decided on yet> project we are building, we are building a hyper animated and highly addictive fantasy combat puzzle game.

(I took this photo off an artist's screen with my phone. You can see my hands!)

Our characters will be battling monsters in a pretty small area at the top of the screen. So we made them small, boxy, and the heads are a little bigger so you can see their expression. We are planning on changing the expression of the characters when they attack and are hit. Something we have always wanted to do! Surpsingly, these little character have more moving parts than our AdventureQuest Worlds characters. However, and this may shock you... this game prototype will have NO GRAPHICS LAG. If you are an AQWorlds player you are probably thinking, "IMPOSSIBRUUUUU!!!!!!" -- or something like that. To understand why our new games will probably not have any noticable graphics lag, it is important to understand how the characters are developed.

Slime Monster Animation (Video)

A Tale of Two Characters

In the past, we drew the entire video game character directly inside Flash. Each part of the body was drawn on a seperate layer. Then, we animated the parts to make the character move. If we needed to change the weapon, we simply changed the art in the weapon layer. Flash is pretty neat, because it let us put animations inside animations inside animations inside (repeat forever.) That is why there are swords with lightning that streak down them and pets with ears that wiggle. It comes as a high cost though. All flash art is made out of lines. (This is known as "Vector Art.") Your computer has to redraw those lines every time the object moves. It is like the worlds most sophisticated game of connect the dots. The more complicated a weapon or armor, the harder your computer has to work to draw and fill in all of the lines to create it. Most phones are not powerful enough to handle drawing the insane number of lines for just 5 fulled armored, crazy weapon carrying AQWorlds characters. Just think of all the animation happening on the screen! To solve this, we are ditching lines and are now using .PNG images. (This is known as "Raster Art.") The nice thing is that you can make these images work on literally every device. Which is a good move since not many mobile devices support Flash files. It is semi-easy to take our existing flash character pieces and convert/rebuild them to bitmap graphics. Although, our games have way over 150,000+ pieces of art between them at this point (Keep in mind, a single monster is made of 12 pieces.) But you are probably wondering how this applies to our original question, "Why will there not be any graphics lag?" The answer is pretty crazy. Our new games will be sending all of their graphics directly to your device's hardware accellerated GPU (Graphics Processing Unit.) Can you imagine AQWorlds running at 60 frames per second no matter how many characters are on the screen? (Well, within reason... even the almighty GPU has its limits.)

Join me tomorrow and we can talk about character animation & customization.