Arbiter - Monthly Recap - March 2024
Greeting, Sorcerers!
I caught up on JJK this month so apologies in advance for the brainrot. No spoilers or anything, but a fun little thing I've noticed since getting into writing more is how whatever media I'm consuming at the time becomes the lens through which I see the world. Even in writing the word "brainrot" all I could think about was Kenjaku. Maybe I've lost it...
...or maybe he's already found his way inside?
Red & Blue
Spent the first bit of the month cleaning up the cliffs and floating islands. I'm feeling about 80-90% satisfied with the cliffs now, but I still wanna take a day or two this month just to polish things up. Regardless I'm much happier with where things are and a lot of the assets I've made are starting to compliment each other quite nicely! Yippee!
I read an interview recently with Tatsuya Okahisa, who works as a Tech Artist for FFXIV. He talks about a bunch of interesting stuff, but the bits that stuck out to me were some of the mottos he keeps in mind while working:
1. Design things that can be maintained over time.
2. Don't use a feature outside of its intended scope.
3. Avoid conflicting implementations.
Oftentimes I've found that whenever I get stuck, it's because there are two things that I want to achieve that are inherently contradictory to each other—Red & Blue. The most recent example being "I want natural looking cliffs, but I want everything to be flat surfaces for wall running!" I have a bad habit of getting stuck on problems like these because I'm a greedy fuck who always wants to have his cake and eat it too, but sadly the only one who can truly combine Red and Blue is Satoru Gojo, and look where it got him!
Honestly, part of the problem was that when I made my blockouts (which were all pretty flat surfaces), I wasn't thinking too hard about how those assets would translate into literal environmental objects. The second I tried to make everything look good while retaining the simpler surfaces was when I ran into problems, as I'd already rooted Arbiter's world in a decent level of realism that didn't really work with the flatter geometry.
Okahisa-san's lessons are admittedly pretty basic, but I think they speak to a truth that's easy to forget—especially as an indie developer. In getting so focused on the cliffs, I was subconsciously inflating wall-running's intended scope to be this all-encompassing feature, but Arbiter isn't a game about wall-running—it's about combat!
For all intents and purposes, wall-running is effectively a stylish ladder. It's a cool way to reach a higher elevation or lateral space, but it'll maybe represent literally 1-2% of overall gameplay at best. Is that 1-2% ultimately worth sacrificing the overall visual quality and clarity of the game? Probably not.
World Cutting Dismantle
So what's the solution? Split it in two. Some walls are for running; some aren't. Make it clear and easy to understand without one compromising the other, and gain the benefits of both. The second I implemented this highly advanced strategy, everything immediately clicked into place. Crazy how that works! To the untrained eye, it may even seem like common sense! It's not like dozens of other games have already solved these problems or anything!
Another thing I learned was that when everything was wall-runnable, it became harder to tell where it's actually required. I'd rather die for my sins than fall prey to the proverbial yellow paint, but I can appreciate why it's done and its value as an affordance. I've been pretty focused on the artistic side of things lately, but there's aesthetic value in people understanding what the hell they're supposed to be doing. The peace of mind in knowing what you can/can't interact with actually goes a pretty long way! Who knew!
I swear man, sometimes you'll be enjoying a nice day's work and all of a sudden you look up to find the surrounding walls drenched in saliva as you realize you've actually been marinating within the Feature Creep Demon's maw for nearly two months as it salivates at the thought of finally consuming you. Well not today you sick voracious fuck. Not today.
In summary: Occam's Razor is real, avoid conflicting implementations, and if you can't get past something, simply cut through reality itself! GGs!
Domain Expansion
I spent the remainder of March working on other assets like generic stones and large twisted branches. All in all those went pretty well and I'm liking how the art style's bringing everything together! As for what's next, the remaining assets for this level include some great big trees, props for set dressing, atmospheric effects, and the rest of the temple assets. After that, I can finally move onto the other levels! Yippee!
Knock on wood, but I think the other levels are gonna go A LOT faster with everything I've learned lately. So much of this process has been focused on creating an art style that compliments Arby's gameplay, and I think at this point I've pretty much settled on how I want things to look. I've started to notice my bad habits with the aforementioned Red & Blue problem and I've gotten a lot better at shutting it down before it starts. Aside from that annoying little snag with the cliffs, actually creating the assets and getting them to look decent in-game has gotten a lot easier than it used to be.
Conclusion
Like the Feature Creep Demon salivating to devour me, I can almost taste my domain expansion on the horizon. A year ago I was struggling to understand how environmental art even worked, but now I feel like I'm making intentional decisions towards an actual aesthetic. It's been nothing but constant growing pains, but it's finally starting to bear fruit. Hopefully over the next few months I'll be able to just bang out the assets I need, polish up the visuals, and move onto... everything else!
Anyways, that wraps things up for this month! For anyone interested, I wrote a short post about RWBY: Grim Eclipse's 10 year anniversary and my journey from making the demo to working with Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum. You can check that out here!
And as always, thanks for everyone's continued support!
Cheers,
Jordy
