Happy Halloween from Heck!

Yeah, didn't think Heckoween worked very well. Anywho, here's a an image of the Ferryman taking Stan across the River of Souls... Stan, eager to ruin any sense of atmosphere decides this would be a perfect time to try out his pirate impression.

Creature Features!

Hi diddly ho! I'm holding a mini competition of sorts for this bunch of uglies below- just name your favourite or favourites and in a few days I'll tally the scores and create more finalized images for the top 3! The inhabitants of Heck are a varied bunch so I'm hoping to make my next set even weirder! 

 

In the mean time I realise my progress and updates have been a little slack as of late so here's an image I did a few weeks back of a gentleman named Rodney. His skills involve knocking things over and making sure they don't get up again.
Heck will see Stan visit the mortal realm of Urf among several others so he'll have many people to interact with. Being the over thrown dictator of the underworld, he may not be as popular as he'd have liked...

Goddess Angelica

Ok, so I couldn't resist working on some characters outside of Heck. Whilst I work on a few animations for Stan I'll post a few of these up.

Goddess Angelica- daughter of The Mighty One. Kind, beautiful... exceptionally dumb and impossibly naive. She has spent an eternity in Haven, never being able to interact with the lowly people of Urf. Her dream is to win The Exploit Contest and become a popstar. She's not prepared to let small matters such as being unable to sing and dance get in her way.

In the Toilet...

Small update:

Soul Food Burger always excels when it comes to matters of hygiene. At least that's what they say anyway. This is it for the backgrounds for the time being- next up is working on some basic animations for Stan.

Locations Locations...

Bonjour mon Minions!

So for the past few weeks I've been working on the initial area of the game- Stan's place of work- Soul Food Burger. As you can imagine it's one of those fast food restaurants that tries its hardest to look family friendly whilst actually being dilapidated. Stan's quest begins here as he has something of an epiphany and begins his escape. In order to do so he'll have to solve some puzzles and maybe exact a bit of vengeance on his former boss and colleagues. In total the game will take place over several different worlds, Heck just being one of them.

I've been having fun with these environments - as always everything is subject to change- pushing the perspective and warping everything gives it a more cartoon style which will (hopefully) benefit the characters. An adventure game is only as good as it's characters and puzzles so I've got to make sure not to get carried away with endless drawings and really focus on the important stuff - though I do want the game to look good too. The images themselves are 1028 x 768 which I believe is the largest resolution Adventure Game Studio can manage so there's a chance they might have to be scaled down for performance reasons. Time will tell...

Creatures of Heck - Part Deux

Good Morrow!

Small update on the creature list- this is all the characters that will be appearing in the introduction area. Well, hopefully at any rate. Things are still subject to alteration at this stage but this should give you an idea of what I'm going for.

This is Jasper- he's one of them. Y'know, the sort of guy who acts like he's your best friend but is always the first one to run to the boss in order to make himself look good.
A real slimy, backstabbing weasel of a Heckian.

This is Chef (Hullo Children!). No not that Chef. He's just called Chef as no one actually knows his name as he doesn't speak. Well, apart from the odd grunt. Great whistler though.
Chef is Soul Food Burgers best and only cook- hacking up meat and charring it with Heck fire for that extra bland taste all Heckians know and love! Nom.

Creatures of Heck: Part 1

G'day, minions!

  I've compiled a selection of my creature concepts- this lot are residents of the fiery hot and immensely sweaty world of Heck. Perhaps I didn't need to detail them quite as much as I have done as the characters will become pixel sprites for the actual game, but hey, I was enjoying myself. The original design of Stan was actually a quirky drawing my younger brother doodled about 20 years ago, I believe he took some inspiration from Max the psychotic bunny of Sam & Max fame. Over time I've resized his head and added my own personal touches but his wicked grin remains intact.

I myself however, took a lot of inspiration from the wonderful Oddworld series- it's dark oppressive atmosphere fused with fart jokes really appealed to me- as did the 'realistic but also weirdly cartoony' style of the game. I remember seeing concept art for Abe's Oddysee where the artists had worked out the skeletal structures for the Mudokens (the gullible but loveable race of creatures of which Abe is a part of) and being blown away at the lengths that were made to make this odd world so rich and believable.

On top of that another major influence was Ren & Stimpy. The crazy expressions that those guys pulled and how far they distorted their features in order to show pure emotion was at times hilarious and at other times terrifying. 

So why return to this character now after so long? To be honest- I'm not 100% sure myself but Stan himself has always had a charm about him- and he's fun to draw. But alas- cease this witless rambling and show some images you bovine rectal cavity!

*By the way, these characters may or may not make it into the game.

This is Frank- the owner of the Heck branch of Soul Food Burger ("from Corpse to Cuisine!") where Stan find himself currently employed. He doesn't like Stan very much.

Your typical Soul Food Burger customer. Has many mouths. Complains a lot. Gorges even more so. Currently goes by the name of Mr Truffles.

Souls are the currency of Heck except people ingest them rather than keeping them in their wallets. With enough Souls even the smallest Heckian can go bad-ass.

Some Ren & Stimpy influenced doodles of Stan. Need to go more EXTREME.

And so it begins...

Greetings minion to my humble blog! Having sat in a darkened room for many an hour feeling layers of brain matter peel away as I sit doodling in Photoshop, I feel it's time to give myself a (gentle) boot to the mass that I call an arse and get this ball rolling.

I am currently in the first stages of throwing together a game. A game called Heck. Initially it was to be something done in full 3D using Studio Max but as time went on and patience wore thinner I've decided to go ahead and make it in Adventure Game Studio- a fantastic little program that helps us mortals create games in the vein of the classic point and click adventures from many, many... many moons ago. As more of a 2D/painty kind of a guy this appeals to me a lot more- and in my personal opionion, as a guy who's been gaming 25+ years, there's something about those old games and their chunky graphics that a lot of modern games lack. No, not shitness. Don't be rude. 

Anyway, the game will be written, designed, drawn and animated by yours truly as well as a friend of mine- so it's going to be an insane amount of work but I also expect it to be fun too. Otherwise I wouldn't do it. As General Stars and Stripes said in Kick Ass 2, "We try to have fun. Otherwise- what's the point?" Taking inspiration from the old Lucas Arts and Sierra games of the past we're hoping to create something that will... err... Kick Ass... too.

So... here is Stan. Ruler of the totally original and totally unique world of Heck! Or at least he was...

Until the flow of Souls into Heck started drying up - putting the Ferryman out of business too I might add. Now Stan finds himself in a demeaning job he can't stand, being pushed around and looked down upon by everyone around him. To be fair, he is pretty short though.
The player will take control of Stan as he finally decides to escape Heck to find out what's happened. Along the way he'll meet weird and wonderful characters and visit weirder and wonderful-er worlds.

Expect wit, randomness with a subtle blend of over the top violence. Yum.