Hi, everyone! Thanks for the interest in our game :)
It’s the first entry in our Developer Diary on the Graveyard Keeper project. Though the work on the project started in August 2016, only now we have time and stuff to show in our diary. Working on our previous project Punch Club we were trying to report on its development from the beginning. In the Keeper’s case (as we call it in our team) everything turned out to be more complicated.
Our team doubled. The team of 7 people are working on Keeper and all the vim and vigor that used to spend on the communication with the game community are now absorbed by the growing pains of managing a studio. In general, the project turned out to be more difficult and time consuming than our previous game. This caused a few unrealistic estimates and dates in the beginning. I apologize to everyone expecting the game to launch last year. Yet now we think we’re in the homestretch, so I’ll try to report at least on these last steps in our Diary.
In the first part I’m going to outline the game concept and tell you what has been done so far and what it is still to be done.
The game world.
The main character (only one so far) is an ordinary guy from our reality. He wakes up in the game world and discovers that he is a graveyard keeper. His duties are to look after the graveyard and to bury corpses. Well, he still has a mobile phone, so he hasn’t gone mad. Sometimes a mysterious man with a red eye call him by that phone and say that the character’s totally under his control. He also gives the instructions. Well, next you just bury corpses, plant a garden, trying to understand what is happening. Or not trying, the world is beautiful, everything’s fine, low effort and so on.
Screen from game intro.
The world is limited by the graveyard, its surroundings, a mountain where witches are burned, and a village filled with the sweetest people. Also there is a big medieval metropolis somewhere nearby, which is kinda hard to get to. Yet a lot of important characters are coming from there. They are so important that they can influence on the main character’s capability and his development. There are six of them. All the characters have an relationship from 0 to 100. The relationship with these 6 are exactly the key to the (deepest) secret of the Graveyard Keeper’s world.
Six main characters.
Another important part of the game that helps to see progress is the development of available technologies. From rough wooden crosses to carved statues made of marble, from using the corpse bone powder to living dead helping you around the house. All of it is to discover, to build and to open during your difficult journey as a graveyard keeper.
I’m going to tell you about all of it in the next entries, and now I think it’s interesting to know what’s done and what is in the plans for next week.
Project status.
Today the project is in its homestretch. It means that the goals are set, the list of features and assets is 90% done. All that's left is to put everything together, put the finishing touches on the plot, and polish-polish-polish. Looking at the bigger picture, it seems not so much but considering all the details, it turns out to be a lot of work.
The game world - the game environment. We put every little bush and every little tree manually. I can’t say that the game’s world is too big. Yet the work on it is in progress. All the main items are set and the map is almost done. All that's left is to give life to it with tiny little details and trees taken in their perfect places.
Part of a swamp locaton.
Graphics and animation - 90% of big items are drawn. All the interactive items are drawn and animated. All the characters in the game have basic walking animations. The majority has custom animations. There are about 30 characters in the game. More than 200 item icons are drawn. About 100 of them are to be done. Now our artists are focused on how to make the world more alive, to add more little details and animations.
Programming part - the game engine is almost done. The tools which it provides allows designers to make changes with minimal programming. Now we’re working on performance optimization, the enemy’s behavior patterns and procedurally generated dungeons. Among the big functions to be improved it remains the battle system and the perks system.
Sound design and music - it’s one of the fields where it remains more work than already done. We already have 10 musical themes for the game. A few more, and everything will be perfect. As for the sound, things are more complicated. We’ve just started to add sounds to the game. For now there are just 10% of all sounds. Basically, we’ve just checked how our engine works with it.
The plot - In our (at the first sight) sandbox, the plot is still very important. The plot is already finished, but the dialogs are only 20% complete. We’re working on finishing the dialogs and their integration into the game and game scripting at the same time.
Game design- the balance is done in its draft form. Now while finishing the plot we’re polishing game mechanics. We follow our fillings and the rhythm of the game and trying to make mechanics feel natural.The game balance is based on 7 technology trees. Two of them are complete at the moment. The rest of them are done in their draft form. Their adjustment and editing along with the plot integration will take the lion’s share of our time.
Technology tabs.
Interface - almost done. We don’t like some parts of it, so we’ll redo them.
So. The biggest part of what we should do next is the work on game balancing and adding storylines. This is the sweetest part. What was in our heads now materialises, and it starts to look well and to be played well. The game is definitely to be finished. It’s definitely coming out. But whether it comes out to be so interesting as we planned depends even on you. Now after 1,5 years of development we need you more than ever. Your support and interest in our project are extremely important. And we in response we’ll do our best, so you can not only read about the project but also try the early build of our game in the nearest future ;)
Don't forget to follow our game! Click that FOLLOW button on the Steam page!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/599140/Graveyard_Keeper/
–––
Nikita Kulaga - Co-founder of Lazy Bear Games