Monthly Archives: November 2011

Kodama – Whats it all about?

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This post is meant as more a FAQ of sorts, many people have asked various questions regarding Kodama, what it is, what I plan to do with the project and what makes it unique, this post will go some way to answering these questions for you all.

What is Kodama?

Kodama is an independent game designed by a small team with a lot of passion.

What is Kodama about?

Kodama is the story of the Japanese mythological creature of the same name, you (the player) control Kodama on a quest to rescue the other Kodama from the clutches of the evil Yokai, as the game progress’s Kodama soon stumbles on a plot that effects not only the fate of his forest, but the fate of the whole world.

What Platforms does Kodama run on?

For the moment we’re using Flash, so the software should be able to run on all formats excluding iOS, however if all is sucessful then we would like to port Kodama to XNA and xbox live, possibly creating an iOS port for the iPad.

What IS Kodama?

Kodama himself is a tree spirit, you may recognise the name from the studio Ghibli movie: Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫),a movie that also uses the ‘Kodama’ myth for one of its creatures. The Kodama in our game is drastically different from the Mononoke Kodama, taking on the creature in a slightly more literal sense.

How long is Kodama?

We’re aiming for Kodama to be around 4-5 hours in length for the plot specifically, however there will be alternate routes to get to the same area’s each with their own reward, along with 2 different endings resulting from the number of Kodama you save, however this isn’t a final number, as development continues things will be added and removed in order to reach the perfect balance.

 

Chris – The scribble demon

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Note: Sadly Chris has left the Kodama pod, but we wish him all the best for the future

 

This is where the scribble demon lies, waiting in his lair, ready to pounce and savour on the next delicious morsel to amble by. He feasts on the finest examples of colour, scurrying and ambling around the woodwork of the Kodama team’s headquarters, predominantly in search of the colour of magic itself..

What ho! My name’s Chris and I’m Kodama’s resident artist, and tea drinking Brit. I currently work in Soho at a studio not far from Dan, creating motion graphics and other bits of design, working with a wicked bunch of people from different disciplines and backgrounds. Dan and I have known each other since studying animation at university, sharing interests in games with good storylines and narratives, Japanese culture, and having a similarly terrible (but well deservedly querky) sense of humour. I met Abel just after the founding of the team, and have been massively inspired ever since, he writes seriously cool code.

I can be found stalking the Kodama dungeons scavenging for materials to paint and work with. A plank of wood here, a hammer and chisel for my tablet there, a squashed jaffa cake over here, a gallon of Earl Grey tea up there. Unbeknown to most folk, scribble demons are very partial to cups of tea, oh also pints of stout and cider, but the latter have been known for mutating the little creatures into lazy heaps of mischief who never get any work done.

So there we are, I better get back to the drawing board as it were! Cheers for now.

Abel Toy, the code

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Hello :D

I am Abel Toy, also known around the Internet as Rolpege, and I’m in charge of writing the code that brings Kodama to life.

I’m also the one who’s coding Mori, the Kodama editor, from scratch in AIR, so the level designer and the artist can work together to create some wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous, fun and entertaining levels.

Moreover, I’m also kinda the founder of the project together with Dan, the manager and game designer, as we both built an initial platformer prototype and developed the idea into this. We both were in the very initial team, and then we looked for the other members.

So, about myself… I’ve been programming for some years now. I mainly do games, and I am very experienced in AS3, which is what we’re using for Kodama at the moment (mainly as an extensive prototype. If Flash can’t handle it, we’ll port the code, which is a very easy task, to a more powerful platform). I also know other languages though.

Here I am, that’s the introduction! I will be posting here about the editor or maybe I’ll talk about the technical aspects of the game engine, the physics and everything…

See you around!

Dan Tsukasa – All the things

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Hi.

I’m Dan, I’m the game designer and founder of Kodama (and Kodama team of course), I dabble in all the area’s of Kodama except for the code.

Before hiring the current Kodama artist I was the artist myself, creating everything in pixel art, things looked great but I wanted more so I hired the most talented guy I knew, and well… the rest is history I suppose (a short history, but history nonetheless).

I’ve been and on & off game designer since I was 7, drawing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 stages across several sheets of A4 paper, it might not sound like much now but back then that was game design as I knew it. Since then I’ve worked with almost every game engine imaginable, never finishing anything but Kodama is where this all changes, partly due to my passion for the game and also due to working with such a wonderful group of people who share that same passion.

I’ll be posting all the screen shots along with talking about the games system and a little on the history of the project and how it came about.

What do I do now? Currently I’m working in movie post production but hoping Kodama can really get me started on the indie game designer route. Kodama is not the first, and will certainly not be the last project I work on.

Once upon a tree spirit

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Welcome to the Kodama blog. This is where Kodama Team will be blogging about Kodama and its progress, through reading this you should be able to get a unique insight into the minds of Kodama team.

Coming soon are the introductions, and then the best part, pictures ( ^____^ ).

I know thats what you all look forward to, the pretty things.