Escape Industries has been working hard over the holidays to bring you new content (who needs sleep anyways?). This includes new enemies, bosses, parts and, most importantly, biomes. Without further ado, we bring you the next area of Finn and friends’ journey, the Kelp Forest.
The Kelp Forest sleeps just beyond the Coral Reef, and is one path you can choose to reach the heart of the Dolphin empire. Of these paths, the Kelp Forest has the advantage of being relatively uninhabited by dolphins. This was not always the case, however. Deep within the murk, you’ll pick out traces of long-abandoned dolphin buildings and machinery. Once, this must have been a mighty bastion of dolphin-kind.
So why did they abandon it?
One clue comes from the forest’s current inhabitants. Enemies in the Kelp Forest are teeming, overgrown, and wild. If there was a battle here between nature and technology, nature won. And it was a massacre.
But questions remain. How did things get this way? How were the dolphins involved, and why did they leave? As you explore, keep an eye out for answers and discover the truth.
The Kelp Forest features a plethora of new enemies, most of which are more organic than those of the Coral Reef. Floods of enemies can invade your screen quickly and aggressively. If you enter this biome, have a teammate ready to dish out area-of-effect damage, and someone able to patch up the team once the frenzy subsides.
Visually, this biome distinguishes itself by its lush and overgrown feel. The backgrounds are filled with giant kelp stalks and leaves, which we’ll use to embellish its themes of ancient mystery and wild monstrosity.
With a new biome comes a new song! Check out this preview of the Kelp Forest theme.
Charles McGregor, the composer, had this to say about the Kelp Forest theme: “For the song, I wanted a much more mellow tone throughout the track compared to the Coral Reef. To help give the lush feel to the environment I emphasized the pads chord progression on all of the instruments and made the pads have longer chords that are more drawn out.”
So, how do you feel about the Kelp Forest? You can comment here on our blog, or on our Facebook and Twitter.
One thing that I feel doesn’t get the recognition it deserves is lighting, and up until recently I didn’t give it that either. Lighting can really effect the mood and tone of a setting, changing something from looking friendly and approachable to menacing and repulsive. Again up until recently I didn’t really give it much thought (well, that’s not entirely true… I knew it was important I just didn’t bother to learn much about it).
So I set out to make a lighting system in the game to help vary the level overtime. And boy does it add a lot to the game. Having dynamic lighting (where the light changes in real time) makes the levels feel more alive. For example, instead of having a three minute level look the same throughout the entire level maybe have the lights get progressively darker as the level goes on; or when a nuke goes off change the lighting to accommodate for that. It helps vary your scene and it isn’t that hard to accomplish (I’m saying this in regards to Unity). Grab a directional light and start messing with the values.
I approached lighting with modularity in mind. I wanted to make sure that I could accommodate any situation that we need as well as transition between two lighting conditions easily. This system has been extremely helpful in making the some of the set piece moments that occur in the game really pop. Though I will be the first to say that I have a long way to go before the lighting is on point, but it really is a proof of concept at this point.
So if you are finding your work looking bland, whether that be 3D or 2D, try messing with the lighting of the scene. If you have already set up your lighting try changing it every once in a while to see what else your scene can invoke. Try it out and let me know what your results are! So far it has been a positive one for me.
Remember to check out Stephen and Lane on Monday and Friday, respectively.