Hello everyone! For those that don't know me, I'm Jason, the developer behind CULTIC. If you've been following the project on Twitter, you are probably pretty familiar with the history of the project. If not, and you'd like some background on it, you can pop into my Twitter page and see all of the updates there!
https://twitter.com/JasozzGames
There are also some existing dev diaries on YouTube, which can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbMfwVGoBzn9muvFiudQGTEyn5KyIkbbB
I'd like to start putting some of this information on Steam, now that CULTIC has a proper Steam presence and Store Page, so to kick things off, I'd like to talk about the -
The art style of CULTIC has evolved significantly since the beginning of the project. Some of that has just been me growing as an artist and improving my processes and skills, and some has been responding to player feedback on things that work and don't work - primarily the readability of the visuals.
One of the earliest changes was an expansion of the color palette, as there were gaps in the palette where things would just get lost because there weren't enough colors available to make them visually distinct. See this example below, where the excavator in the background was almost getting completely lost against the scenery. About 10 new colors were added during this change, expanding the palette by 25%.
The next major change in the pipeline was updating some placeholder assets that I had used early on in CULTIC's development to try and get a playable demo ready as soon as I could, and with Realms Deep being only 8 months into CULTIC's lifetime, I didn't have time to revisit them before. The cultist model, for example, was actually an older model of mine from the last time I tried to put together a concept for CULTIC. It worked great for the demo and I really got attached to the original look for the cultists, but the vision and artstyle for CULTIC grew past that goofy, low-poly model, so the cultist sprites got a facelift across the board!
The player weapon sprites went through an upgrade too, as I wasn't satisfied with the quality of the arm/hand models, and the resolution of the weapons was a bit lower than intended, since it was rendered out with the original 256x144 resolution in mind.
These art updates, while a grand undertaking, have helped to build a much more cohesive visual style across the game. The art is more readable, and changes to the lighting and enemy shaders have helped to make sure your foes always stand out and aren't getting lost in darker environments.
For more CULTIC info and news, follow @JasozzGames and @3DRealms on Twitter!
Wishlist CULTIC and try the free demo!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684930/CULTIC/