I'm very excited to show the first look at gameplay in Broken Spirits!

This trailer runs buttery smooth because I'm using Unity's in-engine capture, which keeps the framerate constant no matter what. But it actually has a pretty good framerate when playing the game normally as well (no noticeable hiccups)! That might change once I add more rooms and stuff though.

I had the Midori model mostly ready, and a few of the textures and props, but the rest of the content in this trailer was entirely created in just a week for the trailer itself. I don't know if that's representative of how long it takes for me to make three rooms. Some rooms had more props to make than others.

The thing that will probably change the most from what you see in this trailer and the final game is the exterior. I slapped it together with assets from an even older prototype to finish this in time. But I plan to add much more detail to the roof, extra design elements, redoing the foliage, etc. The outside of the mansion will likely be an entirely separate level to ensure I can add more detail. There will probably be other changes as well once I bring a cultural consultant on board to help make the environments and story more accurate. That was something I wanted to do on Broken Minds, but lacked the resources for.

Midori's model was initially created by vidavic. I tweaked some things about it afterwords, but it is 90% made by her. I used bits and pieces from this model in other models — for example the models in Catalyst Wake are all mashed together with bits from this Midori model. It's also been super helpful as a reference for myself when modeling human characters. I can't thank her enough!

You'll notice there's a new look for the logo! The calligraphy was drawn by shodowave. It's so cool to have custom work done for this logo, and they did a great job!

The maneki-neko is my first in-game photogrammetry object. I scanned it myself. It's a great technique, but you shouldn't use it for everything. It works best for organic shapes.

As was mentioned in the presentation, I estimate it will take two years to make this, but take that with a huge grain of salt. Going into Catalyst Wake, I thought each part would take a month. Turns out it takes two and a half months. There are six chapters in Broken Spirits, so two years would mean four months per chapter. That seems doable, but who knows? I never know for sure until I'm actually making it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1600470/The_Evolving_World_Catalyst_Wake/

The good news is, because I was originally going to start making this in 2018 I've been planning it for many years now. I am very clear on the kind of game I'm making, what the parameters are, where I can scale things back if need be, etc.

In any case, I'll be releasing chapters as I complete them, so you won't have to wait two years to play it.