Hey Delvers,
It’s been so amazing to see the support for the game following the Showcase and the Demo launch. We can’t thank you enough for showing love to a project we have both been dreaming about making for over a decade.
From the very beginning, the goal was to evoke the vibe of playing those games with your friends, probably in a basement, maybe in Ohio. That’s a tricky thing, of course. It was months of experimentation and iteration until it even started to get there. We wanted to pay tribute to all the things we loved from that era, namely the stark B&W line-art, the rules that are both simple and arcane, and the pulpy stories.
The first hurdle was to create visuals that conveyed almost being inside that stark, often somewhat crude, art from the earlier TTRPG books of the day. Sean spent the better part of a year tinkering off and on creating a custom shader that let us dynamically generate cross-hatch shadow and lighting effects to complement the plan to have the 3D environment rendered with black and white line-art textures.
There’s so much art in the rulebooks and modules that the player never gets to enjoy, and we wanted to create something that gave a look from both sides of the screen.
Once the nuts and bolts of rendering the environment was sorted, the real work began, which of course led to the next thing that makes the game visually what it is… so, so much art.
Very much like how the original Dungeons & Dragons books (especially Basic/Expert, but 1st Edition AD&D as well) showcased an assortment of artists in the rulebooks, monster manuals, and other places, we wanted to do the same. The sheer volume of work involved would make it difficult for a single artist to keep up, but also the varied art styles of the old books are part of the charm we wanted to also bring to our game. Uniquely familiar, where it’s cohesive, but yet we still get to enjoy the individual style each artist brings.
Our memories are full of imagery from all the greats from classic TTRPG’s, names like Erol Otus, David A. Trampier, David Sutherland, Jim Holloway, Darlene and countless more. We both have our favorite pieces from many, though long ago agreed that we’re both huge Trampier (RIP DAT) fans (Sean of the classic AD&D Monster Manual Goblin, and Hunter of ‘Emirikol the Chaotic’ above all).
We knew we’d need to assemble our own rogues gallery of artists if we were going to make anything worthy of paying tribute to the greats, so we set out to find a selection of artists to help us illustrate the monsters, treasure, and possibly-doomed adventurers we needed to tell our tale.
The groundwork was done by Ian MacLean and Tommaso ‘Tom’ Galmacci. They did the initial illustrations used for everything in what became the prototype build of the game.
Once Hunter signed onto the game, and DreadXP picked it up for publishing, we really got to work. The demo is based on a much more developed framework, and of course, has far more artwork than the prototype.
The big splashy things we wanted to have finished for the demo were the opening illustrations, as well as the tavern scene at the opening where you select your characters. Those first moments of the game are so important for setting the tone, and helping draw you into the world and experience of what we think makes ‘Weepstone’ what it is: a gritty, downtrodden, mostly forgotten town. The goblins were the work of Ian, and the opening cinematic slides & character portraits were the work of Tom.
It’s easy to overlook all the additional art needed such as UI elements and 2D equipment. Another huge artistic contribution is the voicing. There is voice acting for all the characters in the game, but also the narration of the game text that’s read to you by the disembodied voice of the ‘Game Master’ (by far the most spoken lines in the game). The incredibly talented Steven Kelly serves as the voice of our GM, in addition to likely showing up in other places throughout the game (for example, Oswald).
The goal for the GM was to be casual and conversational, as a real GM would be. Not overtly campy, and riding the line cinematically. We think he nails it. We have been lucky enough to work with a few more voice artists (so far) with amazing range, so most of the non-GM characters in the game are currently voiced by Ellis Knight (including several monsters) and Sophie Roberts (Loronya, Starla and Della). It would be really easy to go on and on about all of the love and intent that we’re putting into the game, but I think it would be more fun to save some of that for another post.
Fear not, we’ve got more to share than any sane person would want to read, so post more we shall. Again, it means so much to us that so many have taken the time to play the demo. The enthusiasm for what we’re creating is such a morale boost and the kind of push any developer would dream of.
Signing off for now, but looking forward to more,
Hunter & Sean