Hello, this is J, the art lead at LIFUEL. First, thank you for all your supportive comments. They come in various languages, but we make sure to understand them all carefully using translation tools and GPT. We are grateful for your continued patience and comments.
In the past few months, we have been expanding the content to offer a "newness" with new levels, monsters, and events.
You might encounter some new wolves on X (Twitter) or Discord occasionally. This devlog will give you a sneak peek at the visual evolution of wolves from the early stages to the later stages. I will try to avoid any gameplay spoilers, of course!
Background
The very beginning of STAND-ALONE is based on the story The Boy Who Cried Wolf, specifically speaking, based on various interpretations of this classic tale. In the early stages, we realised that we needed at least some reference or resource to continually generate ideas. So we decided to "simply draw various animals and come up with some concepts."
Here are some early stage images. We created several drafts based on simple concepts and imagination. At the time, we thought they were pretty good, but the more we thought about it, the more we struggled with how to utilise these resources. If we were in the present, we could use AI to quickly visualise the concept as a reference, but at the time, there were no such tools.
Since we didn't have much experience at the time, we changed our goal to minimise preliminary thinking, quickly create a prototype, and then run playtest!
On the other hand, we knew that the storyline could change at any time during the early development stage, and we also understood that the development process would be doomed to become passive without a definite story, concept and clear direction.
After careful consideration, we set up unchangeable rules for the current project:
1. A modern SF setting. (To represent the shepherd boy in "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" as a robot)
2. All enemies are wolves. (To clearly distinguish enemies)
As a novice developer at the time, I began to design enemies based on the above rules.
The image above shows the early wolf design. It had more weaknesses than strengths. My skills were lacking, so the SF design felt weak, and the enemies’ attack weapons were not clearly visible. Sadly, many couldn’t tell if it was a raccoon or a dog. The scenario didn’t include what we have now. It was just abandoned robots and a mysterious white mass (sheep) and raccoons.
The above is the initial image of the wolf. There were far more disadvantages than advantages during this period, lol. Due to limited capabilities, not only the SF flavour was weak, but alos the enemy's weapons and attack pattern were not distinguishable enough. It is frustrating that many times it is even difficult to tell whether it is a raccoon or a puppy?! Since the plot was not as clear as it is now, the original setting was just abandoned robots, mysterious white lumps (sheep) and raccoons.
Many people even said it was a battle between the Girl in White and the Raccoon Gang. (The running movements at the time were even more girlish than they are now, so...)
Therefore, the following adjustments were made to the initial resource design:
1. Make the sheep look more like sheep, and the wolves more like wolves.
2. Add SF design elements.
So, as you can see, we have added plot settings and concepts and redesigned the content. It is much better than before, and I am quite satisfied.
However... the real problem has arisen!!!
The Problem
As we continued to develop the demo, we reached the stage where we needed to add new enemies. Based on the data we had accumulated, we were able to complete the character design smoothly and progress quickly. The wolves looked more like wolves, and the worldview, weapons and props were more SF!
However, a problem arose. All the enemies felt too similar! Although there were differences between each wolf, the overall feeling was that there was a lack of freshness. Some of the test players began to express the hope that the next stage of enemies would be in the form of different animals, not just wolves.
I got lost in thought.
We can't just keep creating wolves that jump around, attack with knives and carry guns.
What should we do? They are after all wolf soldiers...
What about trying to resurrect the mechanical wolf we used before?
Theoretically, we can design the appearance of the mecha wolf freely to bring a fresh feeling.
Oh, that's a good idea. We seemed to have been trapped by stereotypes before and drew wolves that were all too similar.
This led to the creation of UFO-riding wolves and beast-headed mecha wolves. This was indeed a completely different image from previous ones. While improving the quality, many elements were added, and the attack mechanism and the game experience were also changed.
However, new problems arose. Shall we just go with regular wolves and mecha wolves for the next few stages?
Hmm.…
I had a somewhat uneasy feeling at the time. I imagined what the finished game would look like, and what came to mind was a game that was "not bad" game. Because the enemies were all very similar and repeated...
I decided to look for other ways.
We can't just keep going like this. This could lead to long-term problems.
Investigation
We summarised what we had developed and redefined the standard again:
1. All animals other than sheep and wolves would only be used as NPC
2. Setting all enemies as wolves would ensure uniformity and intuitiveness.
3. But we still had to come up with an innovation for the "wolves".
This seemed a bit confusing. Haha...
Anyway, we started looking for references to meet these conditions.
Is there any game that has a similar problem to ours?
Here are some examples of well-known games:
Katana Zero
• Most of the enemies are human.
• Although they are all human, they don't feel very similar. (This may be due to the characteristics of the human race)
• The details of the costumes and accessories such as hairstyles and sunglasses are very rich.
Conclusion: The design is excellent.
Hollow Knight
• There are many different types of insects.
• Overall feeling is fresh and interesting. (Although there are similar enemies as well)
• The characteristics of each insect are well portrayed and very attractive. The background changes to make each monster new and interesting.
Conclusion: New and interesting.
Skul: The Hero Slayer
• The visual balance between the knight and the demon is appropriate.
• The diversity of shapes and outline proportions makes each character unique and interesting.
• Each level has a new design, maintaining a sense of freshness and fun.
Conclusion: Very well-done.
In addition, we analysed a variety of games. Although the games mentioned above are all excellent, there are still games that have very similar designs for all enemies, with not clearly differentiated modes. We will not specifically mention these games, but through investigation, comparison and analysis, we have identified the shortcomings in our game design.
We believe that the following areas of our game need improvement:
[Improvements]
1. Use a variety of silhouettes/outlines.
• Use different silhouette/outline proportions, such as a wolf with a big head, broad shoulders, a hunched back, etc.
2. Consider the wolf as a human and highlight its profession or characteristics.
• Use profession and characteristic elements to highlight the wolf's special features, such as a police wolf, a military wolf, etc.
3. Optimise the visual effects of the characteristics and apply them to attacks.
• Just like a miner uses a pickaxe and a mechanic uses a wrench, incorporating these characteristics into the attack mode.
Although we think it might be easier to set up a story or concept with a tiger, lion or bear as the enemy... But we won't give up that easily. We will focus on how to present the wolf to the player in a new way.
(To be continued)
The article is getting longer and longer, so the rest will be continued in the next article. It really takes some time to collect images from the history. HaHa
We will meet you with more images in the next article. Thank you for your attention!