Release Preview

This is it folks. 

On the 5th of July, 2013, you'll get the chance to try the (almost!) final iteration of the game. This will be a simultaneous release for Windows, Mac and Linux. 

If you only backed at the mobile (iOS, Android) level, you will still have access to this preview.  This will be a public release, open to try for all backers and non-backers.

What We've Been Up To

As you already know, this is an art heavy game. Over the past few months, that's exactly what we've been working on. Improving and creating a LOT of new content. 

This included coming up with tons of ideas and designs on paper:

Creating hundreds of these:

So they can be assembled to create these (work in progress, sample only): 

And of course:

We've already talked about our new animation system in the past. Here, you finally get to see it in action:

The secret's in the:

Compare it with our OLD animation and sprites from months back:

...and of course, why not try it for yourself. Just remember that this is a work in progress, if you see anything wrong or missing, chances are, we're currently working on it. ;)

This is NOT the game, just a demo to show off the game's new quality. For best experience, please play with audio on. :)

Controls:

• A - Walk Left (Double tap to run)
• D - Walk Right (Double tap to run)
• 1,2,3,4 - Assorted Actions

> Play the Animation Demo here.

> Play the Animation Demo here. 

*Requires Unity Webplayer plugin.

http://unity3d.com/webplayer/

NOTE: Custom Character Backers.

As you may already know, we hired new lead character designer/creative director, Jennee Yang, who spearheaded this ambitious redesign just a few months ago. Together with lead animator Ryan Quizon, we believe they've created something special here. That being said, we're in the process of re-designing and re-animating your characters with the new style. This will require some time as we've got more than two dozen requests from our first Kickstarter, second Kickstarter and outside Kickstarter backers. If you haven't heard from us yet, your character is still in the queue. Thanks for your patience!

Example: backer Chris and Melissa's sprites, finished just before the style change and now need to be remade.

New Rara and New Sebastian with Old Rara and Old Sebastian.

New Staff = New Stuff

January/February. We posted an ad for multiple job openings on our Facebook page - something we've never done before! We usually scout and headhunt our members meticulously via other channels so we didn't know what to expect. If you were one of those that sent in an application and did not get a reply from us, we really appreciate your interest! Keep your head up, keep working on your craft and please try again in the future! :)

March. Jennee Yang officially joins the team full-time as our new Creative Director along with brilliant Animator/Concept Artist John Dy, Colourist and Tuna fish enthusiast Cristina Chua, Concept Artists and Sprite Designers John Carreon and  Eriko Pedojan. We also saw the return of Concept/Environment artist Tey Bartolome who was part of our original 2011 team.

Sebastian and Anino by John Dy.

YouTube and DeviantArt legend Mike Inel and his sister Lara also joined our newly minted animation division. Check out Mike's highly popular "Draw With Me".

Extracurricular Activities

April. Had the honour of working with the brilliant folks at Alter Ego Productions on the ambitious Torkaizer project. We provided both art and animation - this is our first time working on a full length animated project. 

Together with Alter Ego, we assembled a new team to work on Torkaizer (above) and Grim Hearts (below).

Both projects were on display at the recently held Dubai Comic Convention.

Our writer Chris Lewis Carter, author of "The Puppetmaster" stories seen in Rival Threads, launched his own app, "Camp Myth", based on his book with the same name. Book cover by our Creative Director, Anne Ballaran:

From the app description:

Based on the recent Camp Myth book series, this all-new visual novel allows you to experience the fun of earning amazing merit badges. Whether it's Golem Building, Kelpie Racing, or Basilisk Tracking, there's always something happening on the grounds!

Get it here, free!

Sadly, we couldn't work with Chris on this App, but here's hoping we get the chance to collab on something just as awesome in the future. (aside from Rival Threads!)

Conclusion

So there you have it, a blitzkrieg of exciting news not just for Rival Threads, but for our young team, in general. All of which is thanks to YOU! Thank you for supporting us and opening new doors. We'll keep our side of the bargain - continuously learn and improve and keep pushing to create worlds and experiences that hopefully, you'll enjoy and love as much as we do. So just hang in there a little longer, we know it's been a long wait. :)

Follow us:

Facebook

Design and Technical Director Leo (@FinalBossLeo)

Creative Director Jennee (@draa_)

Creative Director Anne (@anneballaran)

Fan Shout out!

Thank you so much to our fan, Rebecca Collis, who sent us a ton of pictures of her Mini Sebastian papercraft's adventure. We promised her we'd turn it into a real stop motion video but it turned out more difficult that we thought. We didn't have enough frames for a smooth animation. ;( We'll have to settle with this terribly short Vine video for now, but we promise to do you and Mini-Seb justice, Rebecca! Consider this a teaser.

Wow. The past two months have been insane. We just wanted to chime in real quick, since we haven't done this in a while. Once the full update goes live, we hope you'll understand and forgive us for the long stretch of silence. 

We've been busy preparing, with our new friends from Alter Ego Productions, for the upcoming Middle Eastern Film and Comic Con. This is the biggest (and only?) event of its kind in the whole Middle Eastern region. We'll be posting footage and never before seen material from the convention here, after the event. 

If you're in the area, drop by the Alter Ego Booth on April 5 and/or 6 at the Dubai International Marine Club!  

Oh and whatever happened to part two mentioned on the last update? I addressed this in the comments section but in case you missed it, some drastic changes occurred shortly after the last update was posted, making most of the intended part two update irrelevant. Will explain more later! :)

Because of the stretch of silence, some have voiced concerns over email and twitter, but no we're not abandoning this project and yes, we're still alive, in fact, more than ever! We've got a ton of exciting new developments not just with Rival Threads but with our group, and our future in general. 

Can't wait for this hellish two month stretch to end!
We'll see you soon! 

Leo (@finalbossleo)

This is the first of a two part update.

Happy new year!

2012 was a very special year for us.

This project started in 2011. Back then we had a very modest goal. In two years, we went from this:

To something totally unrecognizable.

Something amazing.

It had to start somewhere:

In 2012, we grew twice our size. A lot of amazing people came and left, including friends who helped us get on our feet. 

We had a lot of ups and downs. Heartbreaking delays and amazing breakthroughs. 

And we had YOU. You either joined us in 2012 or you've been here patiently waiting since the beginning. This project is alive because of you.

We hope you had an amazing year! 

We can never thank you enough. :)

It Keeps Getting Better

Back in August, the project suffered a big blow when we parted ways with our Lead Character Designer. In September, we considered Jennee Yang and a number of other candidates for the role. It was clear from the very beginning that Jennee was extra special and was quickly added to our core group where she swiftly unleashed her artistic prowess.

Early trial of the Jennee's style (old sprites on the right):

These were early tests with Jennee's redesigned Sebastian and Maya using our old colouring style.

This is the new style perfected. Softer lines, painted look, 85% more awesome, 100% cuter.

We love it. What do you guys think?

Final Playable Character Revealed - Nikola Northcott

Hailing from the prestigious Northcott family (a lineage famous for their elegant visual performances), Nikola is an artist groomed since birth in the ways of dancing. An accident has left her severely debilitated, depriving her the use of her legs, and has since locked this painful event deep in the recesses of her mind.   

Her marionette is a broken albeit beautiful simulacrum of her forgotten ego. It also provides her mobility as an artifical pair of legs, and at trying times a sturdy companion in battle.

During her time in Vermilion Academy, she shares the beauty of her cracked psyche with the ambitious Maya, and embarks in a quest to reconcile herself with a past she has long decided to abandon.

Nikola is voiced by the amazing Cristina Vee.

More from Cristina:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cristina-Vee-Artist/240306522705028

http://www.cristinavee.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/ValliereVee/videos

The gang's all here.

The Ouya And What It Means For RT:LCH

Our Ouya Dev kit arrived earlier this month and we've been playing around with it since. While it's definitely far from ready, we can safely say that the hype was totally justified. The Ouya has amazing potential and will open exciting new opportunities for the little guys - the indie devs.

Watch us unbox the Ouya after a long day of going around in circles to retrieve our package from DHL. 

We're sorry for the poor camera quality. It doesn't do their product justice. The packaging and the console itself look and feel higher quality than what you'll see in photos and videos. 

While retailing for only $99, the Ouya felt solid. However, we feel that the controller could have been designed better, especially since they hyped it up so much on their Kickstarter video. We had some response issues with the touch pad located in the middle of the controller, which could probably be tweaked via software update. You also had to take off the controller's faceplate to reveal the battery compartments. Very annoying. Hope they fix this with the consumer models.

The Console: Here's the Ouya compared to the Apple TV, Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Kontrabida Cat. It's no Apple TV but yup, it's that small! 

The Controller: It's about the same size and weight as the Xbox 360's controller and about 10-15% heavier than the PS3's. Buttons and Analog Sticks felt just right; no judgment on the D-Pad for now.  During our tests, the buttons were very responsive. The touch pad (the rectangular strip in the middle) however, left a lot to be desired. 

Why is this such a big deal for us?

As with our Kloud unified save file system, we also want to provide a uniform control scheme on all platforms. As seen above, the button layouts and controls are similar on ANY controller - touch screen (top row), keyboard or game controller. The Ouya is the first console we've had the opportunity of running Rival Threads on and is helping us make some design decisions. We want you to be able to hop on any system and be able to experience the game the same way every time.

Here's an example of how the Ouya helped us make a design decision. The Ouya controller's touchpad allowed us to add a looping horizontal touch and drag interface which we're using for the inventory system. You can also do vertical but the Ouya's touchpad is wider than taller. This easily translates to touch enabled devices like tablets and smartphones. You can also scroll through the list using the D-Pad or an Analog Stick if a touch interface isn't available.

That's it for now! Part 2 soon. :)

See you in a bit.

Happy Holidays from our Rival Threads family to yours! Hope all is well and you're having an amazing time filled with food, family and friends.:) 

Most of us are taking a few days off to enjoy the festivities, some of us won't be back until after New Year's. The next big update will be posted shortly after the turn of the year. 

Holiday art/wallpaper!
by Jennee.

with Text

• 1280 x 720 
• 1920 x1080
• 2560 x 1440

without Text

• 1280 x 720 
• 1920 x1080 
• 2560 x 1440

Happy Holidays and a happy new year! Much love and blessings.

~ The Team

Find us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter (@kontrabidaHQ)

As promised, here's Part 2 of 2 of our November Update.

Rara Redesign

Jennee's take on Rara, one of the three new playable characters.

Rara Goddard's the meek little teacher of the rowdy Class Warfield. It doesn't take much to rattle her, but don't let that fool you. Despite her timid personality, she hides a wild side that's rarely seen by those close to her, and is feared by those that oppose her. She's a genius, and is considered one of the most brilliant tinkerers of her time, possibly even better than the great Rasputin Warfield himself.

As mentioned, Amanda Lee voices Rara. Amanda also provides vocals for the Rival Threads' theme song, "Strings of Fate", and a separate song that we're calling the "Main Theme" for now. (I know, confusing, right?) The following embedded video features the main theme, NOT the theme song, you can hear Amanda's haunting vocals in the background. 

Something we did for fun: Rara, Maya and Amanda doing the Gangnam style! You can also hear some of Rara's lines in the song.

Bonus Rewards 

Since we're redesigning the main characters with our new artist, we'll also need to re-do the characters in your rewards (wallpapers, toy, posters, artbook etc.) 

It'd be a shame to see some of these go to waste so here are some of our old art as wallpapers. Own a piece of Rival Threads history! These do not count as Kickstarter rewards. Just a little something from us to you. :)

• 1280 x 720
• 1900 x 600
• 1920 x1080
• 2560 x 1440

• 1280 x 720
• 1900 x 600
• 1920 x 1080
• 2560 x 1440

Sebastian Papercraft

Sebastian's papertoy will also need to be redesigned. So here's "classic" Sebastian, free for everyone.  

> Get the template here. 

Instructions:

If you decide to make one (or ten!), we'd love to see them! Please email your Sebastian pics to leo@kontrabida.ca and we'll feature them in a gallery!

And... that's it for November. 

Be safe.

Leo

Studio Kontrabida

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One more character to go!