So, KAOSHIVE has two main parts and they are related in a specific way. For part 1 I have written no story, it is a playground of ideas, it is a (mostly) dark fantasy setting. Part 2 has a detailed, ambitious background story I've been writing and building for about a decade now (and still adding to it) (mostly inspired by 2nd,3rd,4th Dune books). I am only focusing on part one, until it is done and I am confident enough to start fleshing out something larger. Part 1 feels more realistic to accomplish. I plan on building a more ambitious game if get to the the level of being able to handle something bigger... preferably not alone. Parallel to pt 1 though, I intend to draw pt 2 as graphic novel/comic book. These projects give me goals and aims to look forward to in life. Okay! What to expect? KAOSHIVE part 1: video game THE SETUP, THE PLANS: A third persion view, visual art-oriented "action-adventure-explorer-survival" game for desktop computers/LINUX systems. Basics: -single player, offline + P2P multiplayer (player's computer functions as the server) -played via keyboard+mouse or controller/joypad + -this is an art project, art direction is in focus - but the idea is to present an exceptional gaming experience -(semi-)realistic visual style (with (occasional) cartoonish elements (Another World) for a little humor or such) + -no character customization but a generous selection of "heros" to pick from -one large map -minimal (and only optional) tutorial, no handholding -no map, no minimap but player can "make" a map in-game -small wysiwyg "visible" inventory, no item stacking -minimal dialog system with a twist (...) PVE focus: -atmospheric, dark, spooky and also wonderful, "imitated pretty nature" environments -mysterious, unfamiliar, strange creatures -no "all is hostile" nonsense but plenty to look out for Game Mechanics: -no grind, no tasks, no missions, nothing "given" to complete -(close to) no repeated enemies -no leveling, no overpowering items or such (no who is better, no competition) -nothing necessary to collect (except for survival), no tricky enhancements -except few key items "for the story" (player has to figure out) + -focused on melee combat, with special skills and arcade style fighting/combat moves (SF3) -various hend-held weapons -no projectile weapons, only semi-realistic bow and arrow -stealth play and "detective work" "puzzles" + Survival Aspect: -gather roots, edible plants and herbs - eat them, get poisoned ... -hazardous weather, protective armor, rain poncho, etc. -bonfire, shelter, tent, dig/hide gear/items other notes: -there will be no ads, as in paid slots online, no advertisments -i couldn't care less for social media and "alogrithms" -discord server for announcements and to provide an "official" discussion "board" for gamers This is a solo developer project but I am LOOKING TO EXPAND. Please find my email here: https://kaoshive.com/ [ KAOSHIVE ] Began as a graphic novel (and will eventually manifest as one as well, if my life will take a positive turn). Ideas for a game version began in 2020 and after many failed beginnings, a 2.5D version was scraped. Current status and final (yes, final) version/form is being worked on continuosly (with breaks) since 2025 august but 3D work only began in December. Development is handcrafted, drawn on paper first, art direction-based, art-driven, maximalist-minimalist, meticulous, rote work. Programming mostly via trial-and-error methods... in Godot Engine, whichever is the latest version (4.6b2 atm). All work was, is and will be done via Free, Libre software only, drawn on paper first. Please take note about how -entirely dismissing any debate about it- I strongly oppose anything LLM related, anything "gen ai". by Richard [ˈrihaːˈrd] (he/him/they/them), craftsperson, traditional and digital visual artist, designer. ☇ link to this entry

Empty posts here mean the images were removed. Also there aren't any on the ko-fi page -> Trying to figure out where to upload them... I do not consent to the absolute madness that is going on. And I am VERY upset how people do not care and are unable to tell things apart. This "ai" nonsense is still turning my guts and boiling my blood in the worst ways possible and I find no solid ground, no sense. I want it gone. The symptom and the cause. I liked to see real justice served, the truth crawl up from the well and the earth swallow the wicked. That said, I am about to update the roadmap, again, as tasks have changed. With 3D some things need to be done just once - this sounds silly and like a lie but I found the idea how a model has to be modeled once and animations "just" applied is a much more streamlined process and much more aligned with the way of thinking I am "in" while programming. Indeed, I've found I am in an entirely different mindset, call it left-right brain, when drawing and creating art. Somehow the 3D pipeline is just more aligned with the endeavour. I will still have to allocate separate times to sculpt bodies and faces when I will get there. I am very happy for MakeHuman though, for the time being. Libre, free software is the only "good" tech we have for one another. ☇ link to this entry

I've started writing this post ten days ago, now I finish it up as a last entry for the year (well, slipped a day): So, indeed, I ditched my 2D project in favor of going 3D and so far it doesn't look grim. My life does. It has been a very bad year for me. I do not really have anything else in my life, in the worrying and scary sense and I do not really care for much else right now. This is a distraction for my mind but I also hope and wish to solve some of my problems in my life via working on this project however pitiful it may sound. If you can, do consider checking out my support page on ko-fi. Thank you. Enough of that, Game things: Okay, I "retargeted" (imported, etc) animations into my first (temporary) character model (made via MakeHuman). I presume once you control your own character with your own specific controller code, that is the first mark of, that's when you actually start developing something. Now I do not expect anybody to follow this devblog at all (not only cause it is some obscure static page somewhere at the backrows of the web with no social media presence at all nor with working RSS feed...), and these entries are more of just "tape recordings", dry documentation of what I am doing but in some cases, such as this one, there is a little essay or a somewhat more fleshed out blog post, detailing and expressing my views. So, as I am going on with this project and it seems I have finally chosen a specific route and final destination, which is to go and create in 3D, this may be a good time to share some of my views on video games and "gaming" again: This is a 3 points article, summing up: the dislikes (and why), contrasting with the likes (and why) and lastly, the little strange intentions of mine: I am by no means a "gamer", my interests lay elsewhere, yet "art and interaction" is very much connected to video games, so my curiosity interescts "gaming". Bringing visions to life is what I do even if I do not get paid for it... IF I MUST simplify my existence, that is my purpose. I create art. I am a craftsperson. I must create nice things. "Playing with dolls" and "doll theatre" is kind of the way I think of (3 dimensional, third person) gaming. ----dolls pics etc---- There are aspects of "gaming" I terribly dislike though. [after 30mins of typing and deleting] ...on a second thought, maybe I shouldn't explicitly specify all of my personal views on this, perhaps it is better I avoid talking in length about what I dislike and why - so, just to summarize, a very incomplete list and soem notes, briefly my outlook on the topic [warning, i couldn't keep it short]: Disliking: - the focus is (only) on defeating enemies, killing or blowing things up - pointlessness within the game - tasks and tasks going nowhere - pointlessness within the game - missions going nowhere - pointlessness outside / thinking about the game - why waste time with it? why not read a book instead? - the(gaming) skills (proving of self-worth, competition) - boring or too easy puzzles - repetition I refuse to think all gaming has to connect to the animal nature within, indeed, there are many wonderful, narrative-driven digital experiences. There are many intutive games where firiing a gun kind of makes sense, as it is exclusively done in self-defense. BUT Like it or not I am on the side of the "the male ego" video meme girl. AND There are just simply things which are "join the army propaganda". Like it or not that grand theft auto is all about masturbating the male ego: you can do whatever you want, have what you want and get away with anything. And egotrip. Mostly feeding the "straight cis mysoginist sick conservative aggressive" male ego. There is a vast difference between rampaging with the pixelated Carmageddon and a "fleshed out, story rich, tv series-like" game where the absolutely violent aggression is completely normalized and diluted in the "story" and the somehow justified violent rampage of the main "actors". Before anyone stands up or wants to get back at this: the difference is context, context in the palyers own life. If one started with playing tetris, then super mario ... going from understanding actually how a game is just a game, playing nintendo as almost a physical activity AND THEN LATER having and being able to grasp that sentiment and having context of "gaming" they get to Doom and Quake, and from there they get to GTA5, it is a whole different story. Than taking "shooting and pissing on and setting people on fire" as "the gaming experience". It is all fun and games until a 9-13 year old takes that piece of shit of a man (characters in the game) as a role model. I am not a wife of a senator (picture of Agent Denise) and I wouldn't ban anything in the world cause I do not think anyone should burn books. And I couldn't care less who plays what. Hell, I want custom blood splatter mechanics in my own game. I would -give-, personally hand over a copy of San Andreas to my theoretical child. (And that one, that one is satire, btw.) "MISSISIPI WOOOMAN, LOOSIANA MAAAN" Again, my problem is not with the "shitting on and setting on fire people and shooting them in the face". If I for some reason would adopt an orphan (not even that), I would absolutely let them play the stupid game, but it is my own special case, cause I would raise a person responsibly, ensuring they get a grasp of reality and a compass for this insane world and they would very much have the ability to understand the context and "shit and pisskill people" within that frame and be able to come back to reality with no mess in their head. I just know how it works and what can push what. I've witnessed adult friends hurt one another violently for no reason. Mindless niches and egotripping or the combination of these can be a "blurring effect", they can wash together. The problem is always the parents. And many are retarded enough to prohibit and think the restriction will work. Little they know that is how they give birth to hate. Only idiots raise idiots and then again there are exceptions and so many factors... I am not a sociologist, I just want to end this extended paragraph. Yet role models and the notion of "what i can do" and also the "why couldn't i" and the "join the army" propaganda is real and are powerful things. Normalizing gun use is not something I support. Nor any sort of violence or aggression. And I put the blame on the parents. Raising children is terrible responsibility. Some are lucky, some are lucky to find meaning and sense and orientation in this world outside the family. I really had to state these, sorry. Not sorry. It is necessary to consider: there is just way too much information blurring what we think. The internet is being destroyed and even more context is being taken away. This is already a horse carriage on fire, running wild. I do not want to be punched in the face so I do not want to punch anybody in the face. Violence is bad. War is bad. Killing bystanders is sick and wrong. Let's have a working compass, let's not roll around in our own shit. To state it in another way, just to be clear: I dislike most games where the only goal is to kill. Cause, for me, there is nothing happening, i see game animations and hear some noise. I want a meaningful experience. I try those games: the art direction, the mood drives me in, i am curious but then the "just hack everything in your way" makes head to the exit. I don't like guns. It is simple: War bad. Sadly most people, lots of child-adults and many, many gun-idiots see no problem with firearms filling up the place. It is not good being shot at. I think education, culture in every sense, reasoning, discussions, critical thinking, you know, all that... I think those are good and important... So I dislike all the "looter shooters" and "first person kill the bad guy" stuff. Propaganda is a thing. To be able to play these simulations and still not condone violence, takes character, takes sense of empathy and a healthy morale. "I just kill the enemy" is not okay. "It was doing something weird so I shot it" is not okay. The planet is spinning way too fast for everyone to be able to catch up with what is going on, so I do not support the context-less-ness. My actual personal problem, something I am truly pissed off about is how "Originality" is getting lost and too much artistic input is wasted on the "join the army propaganda". There is another "artsy" game coming up, which looks thrilling, - although, despite how I love some aspects of the work of the visual artist, he is on my "suspected not okay guy" list. Something is off and I am often right about these hunches. Okay, that's all what I wanted to say about the dark aspects of it (gaming) for now. I adore, all I care for is great art direction (see below), atmosphere () Now the good list! Yay! What: Samurai Jack cartoon series The episodes in which Jack travels on foot for seemingly ages to the volcano man, the one with the archers in the tower, and the one with the desert/basket robots. Why: What: The Dark Souls series + Elden Ring Why: The art direction. The romance, the interwoven and unexplainable romantic feeling there is, or more like there is an imprint of love and it is completely absent. As if there was a love story. But there isn't. Everybody, the whole world is mad. Vast japanese darkness with so, so, so many details. Sadly nothing to do but to kill everything. That ruins it for me. Just kill the same things over and over again. I prefer the linear world designs of the previous pieces, the DS series, as there is somewhere to go. There is a direction, something is actually happening. The little icons, the tiny paintings. The designer fashion oriented armour. The absurd creatures. The absurd situations. The madness. The all out and constant weird. The travel to the dark. The horror of it. The feeling of challenge and escitement. Traversing world. Mystery. Hidden passages. There is always something new and different waiting. The sleek characters (except the horrible, wide-shouldered, rigid player character... But again, the only thing to do is to kill. Hack hack hack. Dark world. What: Batman Beyond cartoon series Why: Unbearably cool. Shway. Sleek. Inque. Slim. Fast. Dark. Latex. Leather. Grand. City. Punks. Future. Loud. Electro. Dark world. What: Kenshi video game Why: Now this is the ultimate freedom simulator (well, kinda). Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek - but only the sand planets and you are a nobody. But indeed, the entire planet is open and there. The complexity (everything affects everything on multiple aspects) and the amount of things to discover.... Although the game lacks variety miserably... There is excitement, there is just so many things to do... Always something to discover and other little nobodies are also out to do their own business. And factions and holy people and their weapons... And cannibals and herds of wild animals. And so on... Madmax without cars. Then again, it lacks on the side of "art", variety and frankly, there could be more things to do, even more, yes... Dark world. Why: Some aspects of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games: flashy effects, customization, vast map, possibility to role play and to play with friends (if you have them). Sometimes the art direction or parts of it. Fast character movements. Dark worlds. What: Under The Skin movie Why: Yes, certainly she did a good job but no, I couldn't care less for the main character, the actor. It is what and how the movie represents the constant feeling of alienation, doubt, mystery and inner darkness. And it is a satire. The way things are represented. The deep, haunting droning of it, the murr, the constant dread. The bleakness. Unexplained hostility. A dark world. What: Aeon Flux cartoons Why: Definitely not the movie. Peter Chung, the master showing athletic, sexually over-driven (and not as in balls-round nonsense), agile, angular love for Egon Schiele in motion (the hands "things" are a direct homage), in absurdity in a razor sharp series of images. Mind-blowing is the description. Dark world What: Cyberpunk 2077 with my own mod collection (1000+ mods) Why: The base game has some excitement to it as is but its story makes it unbearable to play it. The second story is kinda great if we do not count how childishly stupid and overtly pushed its fake-feminism is but then the nonsense and the unnecessary bodyhorror signals the absolute nosedive. Now the community modifications... those and ignoring its intended story altogether and turning off the unbearable voice actress of the character (switching to the japanese voice actress for example, away from that cringegarbage) turns it into a whole different world. ...with still too little customization, barely acceptable third person view and still lacking a lot... but the hard-working little ants, the developers, designers, modellers, probably all young artists, they built and designed something extraordinary and with the modifications it is something to behold. Except, indeed, the lack of multiplayer and the not-much-to-do, the world-isn't-so-alive-after-all. ... What: Ninja Scroll anime movie Why: The art, the art direction, the darkness, the mystery, the (design, looks, clothes of the) characters. Too much of the japanese sickness, too much wrong sexuality. Dark world. What: Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust anime movie Why: The same as with the other anime movie, but this one is much better, there is romantic love instead of the sickness. What: Blame! manga Why: I think the previous descriptions are more like a pattern, vast mystery, somewhat elegant danger and excitement. I sound cheap and cliche. Daring to be avante garde, sticking to principles, staying with and within the vision, going along with the intentions <- that is good art direction, that should drive a project, not sucking up to external expectations, communities, trends, unnecessary influences. DARRRKG: The fascination with the "dark" is simple: mystery. Mystery = excitement. Mystery = possibility for something new anytime. Mystery = woods at night in moonlight. It really can't be and don't have to be describe further. . note: And again, for the record, I won't steer from certain ethics even if threatened, dying, tortured, paid ten gazillion dollars: Typing in VScodium, building in Godot Engine (latest beta, at time of writing 4.6b2) and Blender with MPFB2 plugin (MakeHuman). Using free mocap animations I can lay my hands on, for now it is Mixamo, sadly it belongs to Adobe. Planning to record my own animations. Ideally... No to "gen ai", no to any "ai", there is no ai. No to nfts. No to ads. No to the madness. I do not consent for my work (not even notes or ideas) to be reproduced or modified in part or in whole. I do not consent for my work, notes, ideas to be provisioned to third parties in part or in full. I refuse for my work, notes, ideas to be reproduced, modified, distributed or provisioned to third parties. I do not permit the reproduction, modification, reprinting, distribution, use in AI research in any sense, nor provision to third parties of any of my work, nor any of my illustrations or ideas or notes. This extends to parts of my websites and to all imagery, all illustrations and logos. Do not copy, reproduce, modify or analyze without given hand-written consent by me, Richard Kramenstetter. ☇ link to this entry

Breakdown of the process of how i got to the first step: 2021: Start familiarizing myself with Godot Engine 3 -> life fast-forward to 2025: Find an acceptable 2D base template to develop a very dynamic controller from, re-writing the code to achieve a sophisticated 2D game. -> write my own player-switching, make an inventory work with joypad and whatnot -> burnout now: Moved to 3D, started porting all my previous 2D work into the other setting. -> need a character and animations -> see community templates and dissect them, investigate and sort one by one -> investigating how they work and would they suit me well, can i update them?, are they complex+simple enough? do they utilize the new tools in the latest Godot? -> (no) -> pick the official Godot Third Person Demo instead which isn't really meant to work as a template, so have to figure out how to dissect and utilize what i can -> see how it is, decide to keep P2P multiplayer function, so keep that in mind and structure that way (players spawn, they aren't "put" in the scene etc) -> see which templates to merge and take note of how much i have to restructure -> still need a character: see what tools are there make a semi-realistic human, not from scratch so i don't spend a year on it but obv hate llms, remember the excellent tool that is MakeHuman -> MakeHuman works better (for me) via the plugin version of it, MHFB2 for Blender so gotta start familiarizing myself with Blender again -> generate human character via the million tweaks and options but it needs more details, thankfully the community has come up with tweaks, import them -> look for free, downloadable motion capture animations cause i have no idea how to animate and rig (skeleton), have to settle with mixamo as everything is different for different rigs... -> try the five million rig and export options with Godot -> Blender, have to settle with mixamo (limited) -> there are many videos about everything -> MANY CONTRADICTING each other, many useless, filter that, go with a minimal instruction -> keep in mind i will have to move everything again later or figure how to add eyes and mouth etc... -> there are no root bones -> spend ages trying to find out how to -> there is no animation info track or whatever -> spend ages trying to find out how to -> download mixamo animations one by one (takes half a day) -> they don't work with the rig i have -> tweak everything, try to finalize the model and the rig -> go through the one by one download process AGAIN, renaming, organizing everything -> watch tutorials on how to export/import/retarget/create animation libraries -> forgot to set the "rest pose" to Tpose before downloading one by one from mixamo... need to figure out how to fix the animations -> again, contradicting videos, plugin drama, finally find a plugin which does just that -> now this export works in that version of Blender, the other option only works in a previous version of Blender... -> the current controller doesn't play along, switch to another temporarily from another template -> export the animations with a root-boned and correctly rest-posed model -> it finally, at last everything behaves as supposed to and i do understand the process and what is needed ☇ link to this entry

Well, at the cost of my health I overcame what seemed to be a mountain at first. Now to rest, updates and summary later. very first video, showcase of pre pre pre alpha sorry, no embeds here. follow me on the fediverse ☇ link to this entry

I'm not giving up on this, it looks like I just don't. ... Moved to 3D cause I disliked the lack of depth. Yes, yes, yes, parallax and drawings, scale and whatnot. After smoke and mirrors, it is just still not the same as "being able to walk within the space." So, as I looked where to start with this, properly, I chose the official Godot Third Person Perspective demo, since it is the "official" and most likely will be updated as well, offering me help and insight on along the way. That's a long sentence. The graphics, the performance and everything about it is rather impressive. Now may I come up with results soon... ... So far added: ✔ smooth user input camera zoom int/out ✔ smooth user input camera position adjustment ✔ run with modifier and animation ✔ smooth field of view change while running ✔ stamina with dynamic display, yay ✔ cool dashing/ghosting/trails/afterimage effect (everybody calls it something else) ✔ [head] look at camera when idle ✔ [head] look towards where the camera does ✔ waypoint indicators I have also experimented with custom models and re-rigging them, I am looking forward to creating my own models. Also also found easy ways to motion capture movement for free. Physically I feel very sick and depressed but that's not what this blog is about. Over and out. ☇ link to this entry

Okay. -New logo. May fix it more in the future. -Registered the domain "kaoshive.com" and fixed up a minimal landing site for it. Added a "very bubblegum" banner to the artwork website. Moved this devblog. Got a better email provider. etc. -Drew some more, organized the code, read up more on "possible problems and to-dos about intellectual property" etc., Will fix the images, eventually the RSS too. ☇ link to this entry

On a second thought, if I can't upload to show my artwork on my own website (more on this later...) then where else? I've downloaded Glaze and Nightshade. Once I've done a batch, I will post images of my artwork. ☇ link to this entry

Soldiering on. Frankly, it is quite overwhelming but there isn't really anything else i am doing, liked to do or make at all. I need to get this done, out. This is "the thing". Lots of new drawings on paper, which - i am sorry, i will not upload any artwork anymore - in static image form - but i do intend to post videos on yt/pt (peertube) and so will share them in context. I paused animating things and organized what i want to accompplish first, i couldn't wrap up the amount of work i wanted up to the periodic Godot submissions deadline - and it doesn't make sense to animate more until the main parts of the game is done. So, after arranging it all, everything's (more or less) sorted by how much priority i assign to them, not much else to say or to do until then, thank you for reading, here it is ( i shall update this post with little ticks and the roadmap down below according to progress, then i move on): edit: ✔ move to 3D ✔ fix waypoint markers ▢ fix ledge grab ▢ fix ledge climb ✔ make new logo ▢ Add ability unlock ▢ Add low crawl ▢ Add slide ▢ Add slide attack ▢ Add dodge ▢ Add backwards dodge ▢ Add "interact" ▢ Add search/scavenge ✔ Add "look at" ▢ Add pick up item ▢ Add pick up weapon ▢ fix inventory design ▢ Add items ▢ Add pick up/throw ▢ Add push-pull ▢ Add hud toggle ▢ Add hud parts toggle ▢ Add inventory hotbar ▢ Add ladders ▢ Add hills ▢ Add stairs ▢ Add 90deg ladders and "climbables" ▢ Add health system ▢ Add health display ▢ Add healthbars ▢ Add hurtboxes ▢ Add knockback ▢ Add hit flash ▢ Add hurt state ▢ Add death ▢ Add block/defend ▢ Add sticky surface ▢ Add slippery surface ▢ Add friendly npc ✔ Add hostile npc ✔ Add cool dash effect (SF style blue and Blasph. style purple) ▢ Add torch/flashlight ▢ Add character shadow ▢ Add dialogue system ▢ Add area zoom ▢ Add rooms ▢ Add checkpoints ▢ Add change scene ▢ Add level change ▢ Add basic menus ▢ Add settings ▢ Add UI translations ▢ SAVE ▢ LOAD ▢ make "language font" extra: ▢ Add mud ▢ Add rain ▢ Add toxic rain ▢ Add wind ▢ Add reflections ☇ link to this entry

Personal life's got in the way BUT GOING ON, -read up on the way Street Fighter II and Another World are built up, ported, etc. -checked out how to properly animate running/sprinting -kinda finalized one of the main protagonists (i think i did/said that at least five times already - well, working with concepts is working with concepts. Sculpting your first "big story" is no small task. Especially when everything was already done in fiction, a thousand years ago. "It's complicated" ...IT IS.) -began properly documenting related palettes -drew a ton of poses and NPCs -sketched up better logos -fixed bugs in the code (especially the "wall-latch then jump off") ☇ link to this entry

After contemplating and reading up on various events and (non)encryption etc., I will be only releasing videos and no playable demo. I keep my development and editing offline, leaving a window only to my vague roadmap. When a person invests so much time and effort into something, they sure don't want to store it outside on the streets. ...I also very much hope this isn't my last project in my life as I feel I have a lot more to say and to give. While this is something "bigger", I see the video game form of my story as something fun (...at the end) which (hopefully) also brings bread to the table... ☇ link to this entry

I so want to animate this thing already. Implemented (I like this word) multiple player characters and ability to switch between them. I am working out the tween/easing/soothing of the change of cameras which follow the little characters independently. Each character will move a little bit differently. I already have a good, verstaile stamina system, the characters energy use like, sprinting, jumping, falling down from large heights, dashing etc. take various amounts away of their energies. Aiming for a little bit of "real" feeling of it all, this way giving a serious undertone, while also keeping it all "actionable" and dynamic. And so it goes. Thank you for reading. ☇ link to this entry

I have figured out how to implement keyboard and joypad control onto/into an existing inventory system. This was a "problem" and a need - since, all available templates and cases and demos are mouse only. Unacceptable. It is working well, will need a little debug but I did it. Some joy entered the scene as I am getting very familiar with anything within Godot, with GDSCRIPT and therefore I am kinda learning C(#++@?), which was on my personal "To learn" list. Yay. So, hoping to leap further again in progress after I got this total drag of an ass done now. I may even get to start animating and painting backgrounds "soon"... Yay and yay. Now what's next on the roadmap? ... ☇ link to this entry

UPDATE!!! NEW NAME!! SMHS --> KSHV: KAOSHIVE Renewals. Again. I've made the harsh decision of going plain "2d side scroller" so to deduct a lot of extra work i am not familiar with / shorten the work process. I could draw the characters from a slanted top-down angle but animating all of them one-by-one in all directions would drain my time away into forever and make me think "if i do all this then why the hell not go 3D in the first place?" ...and if i go 3D then i want to animate hands... I mean, animating hands? (thinking of the required time and effort here) AND!! I want my characters to walk in certain ways. ...without motion capture that is just... close to impossible. So, anyway, managing a "from the side, only 2D animation"-based endeavour is way plenty on my plate. That said, I will try to make it seem the viewer is looking onto a 3 dimensional space. Title change. From "Smothered, Hard-Set" (which was a reference to the band Skinny Puppy and their songs "Smothered Hope" and "Hard Set Head") - the title/name has changed to KAOSHIVE - this is shorter and actually is descriptive of what I've written, what is laid out in the story. KAOS is a known word and 'hive' is I hope recognizable. Most humans know of bee hives. And chaos. Roadmap. I have a more comprehensive and accurate "roadmap" of my own which I share in its current form now: roadmap The code. I arranged my own structuring but I decided on using this template: UCC by Noasey. Thank you for your effort and sharing it, it helps to streamline many people's work, I am sure. And I follow some of the videos of MostlyMadProductions. Wonderful, quick, straight to the point instructional videos. Very good explanations. Thank you so much. While I do use these as a starter an aid for my project, I do write my own code. I modifiy and totally rewrite things and come up with new ideas and program and code it myself, just to be clear. Such as the stamina bar which is now intertwined with all player action, it drains and replenishes according to character movement. For now I am more than overwhelmed by problems in my life, as it seems usual and such for me but I pull this further whenever I can. I hope to come out with a demo as soon as possible. Thank you for reading. ☇ link to this entry

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Guess what... ☇ link to this entry

Hi! Art first then text: As you can see, I am trying to narrow down what exact style of movement I want. (Got loads more but as much as I detest photo editing, this is also already 7MB in webp-format, which is heavy for a post according to me.) So, yeah, forget the pixel art... I will do all on paper first (especially in light of the AMAZINGFANTASTIC "renaissance" that is happening over the internet... (more on this later) - Not the backgrounds and effects for sure, those I will paint in Krita but the characters and props will start as ballpoint pen and graphite drawings. There are three "ready made" templates I plan on merging (and well, various other free assets are awaiting to be assimilated...) The important ones are: - the one I find most sophisticated and set for "proper" rpg needs, truly impressive to be sorted and tied all together by one very generous person: Cat's Godot 4 Souls-Like Template & Asset Pack - i will extract the vaulting and mantling and rope climbing from this one, but it is practically just a whole bunch of raycasts and license-problematic animations (...dude...), thought that climbing and "shimmy" over the corners are just too neat: Ledge Climbing In Godot 4 - Shimmy Turn and Ladder by Brokencircuit - and this, this one slams me in the face in it's simplicity and look, that negative light as a shadow (now, i haven't thought about it), how intuitive: https://github.com/golddotasksquestions/2.5D_isometric_pixelart_with_height by "golddotasksquestions" So... In my mind, the character(s) are "fully animated". Ideally I loved to make it like a living cartoon - otherwise I don't see much reason for this whole endeavour... THEREFORE - again, I call out for anyone who's interested in working with me. No idea what role, but obviously, I want to take art lead and this is my absolute passion project I am working on for more than a decade (if counting all forms). I need to paint out more stuff, to show what I is the ideal aim, I know. Yet I think the contours are here, I hope it shows. And narrowing down: Another World (dos game) + Kenshi (obviously not as vast) Third person 2D (in 3D, but all art on top is flat/drawn/painted). Ideal would be 3D for sure but I loved to see this done within the decade... Sorry for the compressed styel of writing, the heat here and my amazing life is taking the best of me. Thank you for reading. Have a great time! ☇ link to this entry

Okay, so, it appears that modifying the camera and applying a 2d sprite onto the 3d template I mentioned took close to nothing. Camera follows fine, character actions and directions intact. Cool. I will dump a wall of art and some progress tomorrow. At least I did something. ☇ link to this entry

Sadly this goes back to the freezer again. Actually, I have decided this is not only going to a regular home freezer but into a hybernation chamber - until I bump into somebody who is willing to work with me on this. Developing a video game is a full-time or more like full-life commitment and I am unable to make that in the present or near future. ...Unless somebody dumps a million moneys on me, it is not happening. I am known to rotate between three outlets: visual art and traditional "crafting", music and singing and software programming. - Visual art (drawing, making little sculptures, arranging things) I can not stop, if my hands are tied I do it within my skull. - Programming and arranging things on the computer is how I try to escape the world around me and is absolute luxury (or irresponsible depression etc.). - Music is purely visceral and personal, it is a certain way I 'therapy myself' and ----- I am not able to explain but something I can do rarely and I am repairing my person in the present and foreseeable future. It is a time for that. In short, while I do have some available space and time to be creative, for various reasons I allocate what I have to making music now. There is an abudance of video games so the world is not exactly making a loss here. Hope you are all well in this crazy world. May the positivity of Mark Hamill be with you. Best regards, Richard 2024, May 4th ☇ link to this entry

I have relocated to my home country for a while as I was facing depression and paranoia. I am okay and in a few weeks, and when I can squeeze time until, I will start posting again. +++ ☇ link to this entry

I redo the whole thing in 3D cause this template I started to build upon, the "25d demo template" is a !"#@**(^&*). Or at least a whole lot of extra work and confusing me altogether. [Edit: AAAAaaand looking into how tedious is it to rig and animate low-poly characters.] [Edit edit: It don't seem to be so scary but I first try a whole work-out in 2D with one character.] #godoting #gotgodot #gogodottodogood #godotingitoutgood ☇ link to this entry

Started an entry on the official Godot Forum [forum.godotengine.org] if anyone else is godoting, the project is debatable over there. ☇ link to this entry

Hello again! To get back on track with programming in GodotEngine properly, I went through a few things: So, it all based on the 2.5 Godot (3.6.3beta) template, mixed 2d and 3d elements, as it allows to use "simple" animation, show a lot and have the capability to utilize engine physics, gravity and overall "3d capabilities". I would of course loved to model and animate the whole thing with rigged bodies and so on but keeping it "flat" is what I have time for if I do not want this to take forever-forever. Hopefully in the future there will be a hospitable planet to live on... and I will be able to continue to create more, maybe a 3d sequel. Anyhow. Before I get to the actual fun part of it all, drawing characters properly, animating them, drawing backgrounds, making props and interactions, I must get through with the "boring" coding part. Fortunately, thanks to the vast busy-busy community this game engine attracted, the resources are plenty and I do not have to figure out everything on my own, amazing people share their work and discuss their troubles on forums and all in all, this is a superior software to work with. Yay. Here is a list of most things I've done apart from the "old code". Will upload a video soon and then some silly pre-alpha to mess with. I decided to disclose my actual roadmap [it is still heavily cropped for brevity], see it at the bottom, after the posts: Roadmap ⌁ Created off-screen point-of-interest indicators by merging two different sources and then managed to fix and trim it down to about 50 lines. Now it all works as expected. ⌁ Got a placeholder parallax background for clouds/depth. ⌁ Drew the rough animations for the first own character, walks, falls and jumps in 8 directions. ⌁ Fixed unwanted sliding of the player again: after about three hours of coding i realized i just need to adjust a slider. ⌁ Experimented with a logo idea, worked it out it in Inkscape. ⌁ Created a transparent boot splash, when the game loads, there is a neat semi-transparent logo popping up, and did some icons for files and folders. ⌁ Discovered this spatial/panning audio function: the sound pans left or right depending on where the source is on the screen. ⌁ Added a screenshot function I am at a dilemma, a problem where I have to decide to go with just a single-player mode or introduce and take on building a multiplayer option as it would make great sense according to my "story" and beyond. There will be party/team-based gameplay either way. Keeping simple but not too simple. Thank you for reading. ☇ link to this entry

Just a few more images. Photo from 2020: Figuring how the character avatar/hud should look. This is too distracting but looks cool, would take a few shaders: I think I go with small eyes for this character: ☇ link to this entry