Elegy Wong created a crazy remix of the Main Theme music. You have to check this out. We added a dancing Maya just for kicks.

* * * * * * *

Cristina did Maya and Sancti in her own unique style. We love this!

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And last but not the least, the talented Kiru and her dreamy Sebastian.

If you've worked on anything Rival Threads related or are planning on doing so. We'd love to hear from you.

Check us out on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/atelier.kontrabida

Twitter: @kontrabidaHQ

or send us an email at mail@kontrabida.ca

Thanks! 

Leo

Another month has come and gone. Not much excitement in development land, just steady progress. I hope your month has been enjoyable and eventful and you're doing well.

As always, thank you for your support and patience.

Art and Game World

Seven areas except the second dungeon, third dungeon and final boss areas are now in the game. Each area consists of "panels". For example, if you tried the garden demo, that would be a 2 panel area.  

A dungeon consist of 7-15 panels and a typical Class or School Area(entrance,garden,hallway etc.) consists of 1-5 panels. 

As of now, we have 37 panels in total.

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Here's a sample of a Class Area and the different panels that make up one area:

"Class B"

(Edit: I quickly chopped these clips up from a longer video and the transitions between panels make it look like the sprite jumps into odd starting locations. Please watch the video above for a more accurate look at moving between panels.)

* * * * * * * * * *

This shows a typical NPC (Non Player Character) Interaction. (Woops! The recording was cut too short at the end)

* * * * * * * * * *

Aside from the dozens of unique characters in each class, we're filling the halls with generic looking or filler NPCs. Check out this video showing how little things such as hair, accessories or clothing can help us provide variety.    

Gameplay

As you may already know, we've recently moved to Unity3D, so it's a combination of learning a new engine and actual work at the same time. I'm a little hesitant showing these as there's still a lot of work and polish to be done here.

I'll post them anyway for the curious. Our attention is elsewhere in the game right now but the next few months will be dedicated on gameplay. 

* * * * * * * * * *

Here's some clips of the basic combat system. Take note these were taken at a very early stage and are not meant to represent the final quality of the game.

Not here yet: Skills, particle effects, UI elements (health bars etc), better AI, better animation, etc. You get the idea.

* * * * * * * * * *

The animated player sprite giving commands added later, but in this shot the marionette's basic attack animation was ruined. This is the ranged marionette, Sancti. 

The other playable character, Sebastian's marionette, will be Melee and play differently. 

Again, super early shots here, these are still temporary marionette animations and will be refined as we go along. 

Plug

Our writer, Chris, started a new Camp Myth campaign with a new video and a new format. Check it out.

http://kck.st/JfqrpP

Check out Camp Myth featured on Forevergeek.com

That's all for now! More updates (possibly) next week. 

Until then, 

Thank you and take care.

Leo

We received some great questions recently and as always, we thought we'd post the answers here in case anyone else was interested. 

Q: Can we see more of the storybook animations you posted a couple of months ago? I thought that was absolutely adorable! 

A: She was referring to this post.

We don't really want to give too much away so we won't be posting any of the other chapters anytime soon (Since there's only a handful of them and that would spoil the experience for some.) At least until after everyone's gotten a chance to play the game. 

What we can do however, is post some WIP (work in progress) sketches:

Link to image: http://lastclassheroes.com//ksembed/ksmay/rye1.jpeg

Link to image: http://lastclassheroes.com/ksembed/ksmay/rye2.jpeg

Link to image: http://lastclassheroes.com/ksembed/ksmay/rye3.jpeg

Link to image: http://lastclassheroes.com/ksembed/ksmay/rye4.jpeg

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Q: How do you guys do your animations? I'd love to make my own games too but would love to learn animation first. It looks like you guys use Flash? Any advice?

A: We're probably not qualified to be giving advices yet, but we'll try our best:

People on the team have different preferences. 

- Some of them use Adobe After Effects because of the puppet warp tool and other tricks and colour treatments you can apply to your animation. Not to mention, full integration with Adobe Photoshop. It's incredibly powerful but not for the faint of heart.

- The Marionettes are animated in-game, programatically, using a skeletal animator.

- We were really hardcore at one point and were doing traditional animation (also known as: redrawing everything) but we quickly gave up on that because it was silly. We still do this but only for things that absolutely need to be redrawn. Change in perspective, poses, etc. 

- We wish we could spend more time animating but we just don't have enough resources and manpower (Compared to bigger studios with $$$) so there will be a noticeable lack of variations. There will be glaring areas where we "compensated" or things that "could have been done better". We've already gotten comments on these but... c'est la vie. Hopefully, you guys forgive us.:(

- No one uses Flash. ;)

- Leo uses an app that no one else in the team has ever heard of called Anime Studio Pro 8 by Smith Micro. Because he's a hipster and he wanted to be different. On a more serious note, this and Toon Boom Animation, are simple but powerful tools for beginners. Not to mention they're cheaper than all the other solutions mentioned in this post. They might even offer you a student discount.

- Lastly and surprisingly, most of our 2D character animations were done in 3DSMax:

You'll want to click this link to see this in full size: http://lastclassheroes.com/ksembed/ksmay/kontranimation.gif

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There you go. Hopefully that made sense.

Again, thanks for your continued support. 

If you have any questions or just want to say hi, feel free to drop us a line at: leo@kontrabida.ca 

or

Interact with us on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/atelier.kontrabida

or 

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kontrabidacat

Always a pleasure hearing from you guys,

Leo

Walkabout Demo

Without giving too much away, we'd like to give you guys a chance to see how the game "feels". We've stripped it down to a basic, two scene demo. No combat, no story elements, just a simple walkabout. 

You're only allowed to walk, run and move from one of two locations. 

This is a teaser and is not meant to represent the final product.

Without further ado:

Click Here! -> RT: LCH - iOS/Android Demo (14mb, Plays on browser.)

EDIT Just got an email saying it doesn't run on an iPad. Sorry guys the Unity Web Player plugin will only install on a desktop computer. (Mac or PC) Sorry for the inconvenience. /EDIT

You will get a prompt in the beginning If you do not have the Unity Web Player plugin. The plugin installs within seconds. If you don't feel comfortable installing the plugin or having trouble getting the demo to run, please contact mail@kontrabida.ca

This demo is optimized for the iOS/Android version of the game.  

The PC and Mac versions will feature higher resolution graphics and a different control scheme. We don't have a demo for this yet but it will pretty much feel and play the same way except with different controls and prettier graphics.

We have no plans of releasing it as a browser game. This version of the game is purely for demonstration purposes.

Hope you guys like it so far. :)

Controls:

Walking:

Running:

Moving from scene to scene:

Troubleshooting:

The Unity Web Player is known to have issues with Google Chrome. If you get this message, simply refresh the page. Don't worry, the game is cached on your computer so it does not have to re-download the whole thing.

If the joystick gets stuck moving in a direction even after releasing the mouse, simply click anywhere in the scene or just click the joystick again. The joystick behaviour is currently simulating "touch" controls from a mobile device with a mouse and may sometimes register events differently.

Final Word:

Again this is not the final version of the game, a lot of UI elements, particle effects, moving background elements, animation adjustments and button functionality have been stripped or have not been added yet. 

Cheers.