Presenting: the protagonist!

We are proud to finally present to all our readers the protagonist of Tsar Project.

These last months we were hard at work on his personality, backstory and design to create an unforgettable and unique character that represents the deep experience we wish to create with this game. And what character would be better on a stealth game than a powerful ninja?

Shadow Crow, the deadly shadow. From the secret valleys in the heart of China, his motives to be in Moscow are completely mysterious.  Is he under the command of a powerful noble? Is he on a personal vendetta, nurtured by sleepless nights? His figure is pale and stealthy, his movements are deadly. Shadow is armed with nigh-infinite shurikens, a kusari-gama cursed by 9001 demons from the 6 Shintoist hells and sharp iron claws forged by the steel wielded by his dead enemies.

As the game progresses we will discover together what obscure secrets motivates Shadow to plunge into the cold night of Moscow, and the scars left by his painful and irredeemable past. No one can stop him, his power is maximum. The Tsar Project is the greatest opportunity to become the greatest of ninjas!

Hello again!
Bruno already told you in the last update, I’ve just finished the character concepts arts. I’ve done around 100 concepts since the start of the project, and I think that, having finished the entire set, it’s a good time to start telling you the making of those characterss, back from the first week of April 2009.

At that stage of the project we’re working in the Tsar Project for a month, basically developing the idea, researching and searching for plots that would express our goals. And then came the question: how to translate all this visually?

To answer this I’ve first worked in the characters graphic style. Interestingly, after those 8 months, and all the researches I’ve done along with Ingrid for our graduation project, we’ve developed a methodology of creating visual worlds focused exactly in the characters style.

Some of our first references were illustrations by Vladmir Semenov

This creative process started with the selection of a character that could be both generic enough so it won’t need many individual features and could carry as many cultural and contextual elements as possible. A soldier was a natural choice at the time: we’ll have plenty of them in the Kremlin and they seemed the more neutral characters in the cast. Upon that, Muscovy armors and arms from the period were some of our major visual references in the beginning of the project.

Set the character, a Muscovy soldier wearing a heavy armor  and wielding a spear-axe, I’ve done a set of sketches during the first two weeks of April. What I had in mind was to see all the possibilities, from realism to pure geometric abstraction, from childish cartoons to the complex frenchphonic comics. The result was the next image, that we now call the Father of all Tsar Art. He’s a hand drawn lad 2 and a half inches high, made of indian ink and markers.

The next step was choosing a direction to go and explore it deeper, testing other characters in the same style. I’ve done that with another soldier, lighter and faster, and with a nobleman. A very synthesized style turn to coherent and flexible, allowing good consistency for the characters without needing too much visual complexity, just what we’re looking for.

And how the character creation continued I’ll tell you on my next post! See you soon!

The last fortnight was a productive one. The game prototype is now running in 0.1 version, we’ve got the pathfinding algorithms improved and our test dummy character; a Kremlin Guard warmheartedly called Josino, Iosifka in Russian; is getting it’s first scratches of a.i., starting with the ability of hearing, which, by the way, will be of great importance for both NPCs and the Player in Tsar Project.

Another important Milestone achieved in this last week is that all the initial ConceptArts for the Characters are done, that means that we’ve completely defined the aesthetics of the game and the appearance of all the classes of characters and the individual special ones. At this stage the Visual Art Department changes it’s focus to the Backgrounds, and Character Design will be on hold ’til we got the initial development of the Concepts for the rooms of the Kremlin, which is scheduled to end at the end of the Month. Talking about schedules, the Project Schedule has just been revised and optimized in a new project management tool this week.

In the other Departments, Beto and Bruno finished the most important aspects about the Game Dynamics (combat and ambient interactions, to be specific), the Enemies descriptions, and have planned the next steps of the Level Design documentation. Aural Art Department just finished the plot of the Conceptual Soundscape. And, last but not least, our dear Screenwriter is heavily working in the creation and development of the many scenes and dialogues of Tsar Project including the multiple endings of the game. Of course, her work is highly confidential as it is a torrent of spoilers.

So yesterday we’ve told you about the Tsar Coffee. Now for the hard work: it keeps going on. Marcel just returned from the 4th Information Design International Conference in Rio, in the Tsar Project I’m in the last steps of the Character Design creative process, Game Design and Plot are tidying up the core events of the game, Vermon is working dutifully to implement a fine a.i. pathfinder algorithm, and Sound Design just finished it’s creative guidelines.

As the new fortnight beings we’re overlooking the administrative aspects of the studio and will go back to the Kremlin works tomorrow. And so those are the news from the last few days.

See you shortly!