(yes I’m really going to see how long I can go on with these pun/almost good blogpost titles)

Hey everyone, as I’m sure many of you have noticed, the Kodama developer blog hasn’t really been updated since the beginning of January, quite why this is… Isn’t too important, all you need to know is written below.

The Why

Kodama now has 2 artists, sadly neither of them have much free time, however both myself and Abel are happy to continue on with finishing off all the programming and gameplay touches before the art is so essential.

Art for Kodama is important to say the least, we’re trying to create an atmosphere that as always, relies very heavily on the visuals, though the visuals are nothing more than the ‘pretty’ they do really change the way the game feels. I mean, try to imagine ‘Closure’ without all the lighting and darkness… The entire feel change entirely, even though the gameplay itself is unchanged.

The Now

Now I’ve taken over as the Kodama level designer, previously we’ve had someone else doing level designs but he’s sort of disappeared, leaving the level designs for me to do. It took me a while but I’ve recently gotten the hang of level design, I have the usual moments of awesome where I’m throwing down design after design, and then I have hours where I can’t draw anything worth it’s weight in cat poop.

The future.

We’re hoping to release Kodama in the next 2-3 months, though if we aren’t pleased with the art then I’ll push it back, yup… I’m one of those anal bastards that doesn’t believe the public should be forced to play anything below a certain standard.

Kodama will be very soon starting up some form of funding, this will help us to attend game shows etc etc, and also provide the team with some general costs. We all work full-time or attend university, do the costs wouldn’t be going toward us but towards Kodama. The funding will likely be through something such as 8bitfunding or something similar to this effect.

Despite all that’s said above, Kodama itself is fully playable and stages are constantly being added, some things have been taken out and other hinges put in, partially due to competition with other platformers and also because I was starting to feel that Kodama is a little limited in level design if all he can do is run and jump like Mario, and as much as I enjoy simple run and jump games… I felt that Kodama needed something slightly more, and so it now has that ‘something more’ meaning the levels are more varied and players can go back an enjoy old areas with a whole new perspective.

That’s pretty much it I guess.. and just to make everyone smile, here’s a picture of a ghost/skeleton whale I drew whilst doing some Kodama level designs the other day.

Thanks

Dan