Update and 2022 Wrap Up!
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Jan 03, 2023 at 03:17:03 AM

Happy end of the year from all of us at Ratworm Games!

As we welcome the new year I wanted to share some recent progress, an overview of this year of TSLU dev, and other updates! Thank you for your patience—it's been too long since our last update, which is entirely due to my (Quinn's) personal challenges, and doesn't reflect on the project as a whole. This year I aim to get right back to every-two-months updates here. More on that at the bottom, after the FUN STUFF.

New Art - See Spoons in Action!

Spoons is Breeze's companion, an expressive coati. When Spoons isn't stealing things with their dexterous paws, they can be found climbing Breeze or exploring the nooks and crannies of the pirate ship. 

The Sky Left Us has several anime influences, and animal companion is one of them. Because Breeze isn't the most communicative kid, we wanted Spoons to show some big emotions in relation to Breeze. His sprite is nearly a full-body, because we wanted the option to put him on other people's shoulders. What you see below is the Spoons sprite with masks that fit Breeze and Spire.

Breeze and Spoons Sprites 

 Breeze and Spoons get Angry

Don't mess with them! You can also see a draft of Breeze's wind animation—we may only use an animation in key moments as opposed to a static wind-powers image, depending on what our programmer Ox has in mind.

Spire Makes a New Friend

Here, you can also see one of the features of the Pirate Ship Background. Behind the ship is transparent, allowing us to show how the ship travels to new locations. And do silly things because I can:

Priya and Zelly... I am Looking Respectfully...

Here are Priya's new sprites, including a Very Friendly and definitely Not Nefarious open arms expression. No, it's not a hug.

Zelly, Spire's mentor and the head scientist of the Clear Skies project. Please give her more coffee.

Writing Update

I'm very happy to say that we have 5/7 route drafts complete! Writing was the one thing that took a lot longer than we first estimated—twice as long in fact. We anticipated that certain things about this project were going to take longer than we expected, especially because our entire crew have other jobs. From the very beginning, Aysha, Sadia and I did not want to force the team into a crunch situation. At the same time, we want to get the game wrapped up and released so it doesn't become one of those endless projects.

The route writing is so good. I mean, I'm biased, because I helped Aysha pick writers whose work I really, really like, and I'm also a huge fan of Aysha's writing. But like. It's good. There's drama, and fun, and the way things will come together in the final route is going to be delicious.

2022 Overview

This year, the team completed 6 songs, 5 backgrounds, 29 character sprites, and wrote a whopping 87,370 words. We started, but did not complete, a vertical slice of the common route. Zelly, Emeli, Priya, and Spoons sprites are complete! This brings our totals to:

66/114 Sprites Complete

19/24 Backgrounds Complete

87,370/ Estimated 120,000 Words Complete

6/26 Music Tracks Complete

There's still stuff to complete, but the writing will be done soon, which means that programming can start. Programming will go fairly quickly, because Ox is a programming wizard, and then we're off to the races! We are thinking of releasing an extended demo to all of you, so you can get a more tangible feel of the progress of the game. Stay tuned!

Challenges

I am still behind on fulfilling rewards such as shipping the pins and jackets, and working on the digital bonuses. This is very much a priority for me, and I apologize for the delays. Time has been flying by, and I have spent a lot of this year dealing with health stuff to be able to be productive again (thankfully there have been big improvements there!) In general, my organization needs a level-up, or I need to hire an assistant.

Mabel and I did not complete as much music as we hoped this year, and will need to make a new plan or seek some alternatives in the new year.

Our wonderful sprite and background artists have had availability changes over the year due to the nature of freelance work and other job opportunities. Sadia needs to get creative to find ways to finish character sprites that will look cohesive with the previous character sprites, and hiring on new artists can take some time.

Thanks again for all your support!

I'm really looking forward to finishing this game and getting it into your hands. Let me know if you have any questions!

Best,

Quinn

And the rest of the crew at Ratworm Games

We've extended the anticipated release date, and also check out a ton of game art!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jul 30, 2022 at 09:16:16 PM

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Behind the Scenes: Sprites! And Physical Reward Update
over 2 years ago – Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 09:16:07 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Music Design Sneak Peak
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Feb 10, 2022 at 11:53:37 AM

It's 2022, about a year since our campaign, and this is the year we anticipate completing and publishing The Sky Left Us! (Knock on wood.) We're in a really exciting place in our game development where pieces are coming together. While we also have more art and writing since our last update, this month I want to show the behind-the-scenes of our music design.

The Musicians

Mabel Harper and I (Quinn Milton) are working together on the OST. Mabel does incredible bedroom-sparkly-pop/r+b/etc music as Don't Do It, Neil, and mixes some of my favorite beats ever. She's got the real production experience, where as I just make music for fun. We've jammed together before and I helped out on Raw, which is one of my favorite tracks on the incredible album I Want to See What Death is Like.

We're lucky in that we can work together in person, which makes it so much easier to collaborate when she can show me her sample library or I can noodle on her keyboard.

The Route Character Songs

Mabel is largely composing the songs for the Route characters—Rowan, Nadya, Breeze, Indigo and Avery, Lior, Vee, and Serene. Since this game is about navigating relationships and learning about the world through the lens of your relationships, we decided that the route characters would get two songs: one is how Spire sees them at first, and the second is a deeper look into their character.

For example—and no spoilers here—the first of Rowan's tracks is charming and suave, just a bit dangerous. The second track riffs on the first but is more somber and twisty.

We want the Peakborn music to be the most pop-y and catchy, like you're being seduced by a hit song playing at an amazing club, and are ignoring the fact that the floor is sticky. A little too glamorous, too polished. I think you can hear that in the demo tracks Saghert & Cream and Slither & Cream. Following that, Rowan has a lot of k-pop and r+b influences to his sound.

Listen to Vespertine Dreams, Rowan Track 1

Listen to No More Dreams, Rowan Track 2

For the Unmoored music, we're trying to find something that evokes pirates without sounding hokey or out of place. Not sure where that will land us, but Mabel did reference Pirate King by ATEEZ. (Yes, there's a LOT of k-pop reference points on our playlists.)

Breeze is reserved when you first meet them, and a lot of the route is about gaining their trust. So their first song is going to be chill, low-fi and atmospheric, evoking their connection to the wind. But their second song is going to be active, happy, and adventurous. I think of Breeze as our beloved teen weirdo, someone who would post the dank memes if that was a thing on Zé, so I think hyperpop and low-fi are a nice nod to that.

As a counterpoint to the Peakborn sound, we want the Sunken music to have more rock influences and grungy sounds, keeping in mind that the tracks overall will have a lot of pop. The design for Lior, the Revolutionary, is slightly different than the other characters. Instead of having "first impressions" and "second impressions" tracks, we have an "idealistic" and a "dark" track. These are two ways of seeing Lior: the righteousness of his dreams, and the feared consequences of pursuing them.

Spire's Songs

The other half of the soundtrack will be sounds from Spire's perspective, as well as some location tracks. I will largely be composing Spire's tracks. Like the route characters songs, there will be a good amount of electronic pop influence, but I want a sci-fi vibe as well. I've been listening to a lot of trip-hop and music that blends electronic, r+b, and pop.

You've already heard two of Spire's songs in the Demo, Fog + Clear and Stars + Myths. But you should definitely listen below to the remaster of Fog + Clear that Mabel did. She made my incredibly bass-heavy track sound so delicious!

Listen to Fog + Clear REMASTER

Want to hear the difference? Here's the old version.

Spire's songs will play across all Routes, giving texture to their perspective and uniting the story. And if we have space for it, maybe Mabel and I will do some remixing of Spire and the characters' songs.

Music Design Sneak Peak
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 05:02:40 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.