Hey everyone.

Thought I’d give a little information on how Kodama is going at the moment.

The concept art is all complete, I’ve since touched up one of the concepts myself as Dani’s idea of the stage was a little more ‘volcano like’ than my own.
The stage is here, its Yomi, or hell/Jigoku.. Yomi or 黄泉 or 黄泉の国 (for those of you who wish to know the kanji) Is the Japanese word for whats best described as ‘land of the dead/world of darkness’. Here’s a small Wikipedia entry on it.

According to Shinto mythology as related in Kojiki, this is where the dead go to dwell and apparently rot indefinitely. Once one has eaten at the hearth of Yomi it is impossible to return to the land of the living. Yomi is comparable to Hades or hell and is most commonly known for Izanami‘s retreat to that place after her death. Izanagi followed her there and upon his return he washed himself, creating Amaterasu, Susanoo, and Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto in the process.

 

And here’s Dani’s (and my edits) take on the place (It’s not as good as the ones Dani did of course).Other recent Kodama improvements have been on the more technical side, I’ve been designing a new editor for Abel to create. So I’m creating the layout and tools for it and he’s actually making it all work so its not a bunch of pretty pictures. I use Photoshop a LOT so I’ve become quite attached to the interface, so I’ve been designing the new which we will call Mori 2.0, to look slightly closer to Photoshop to accommodate myself and Dani’s photoshop experience.

I’ve no snapshots of Mori 2.0 just yet,, so instead I’ll show a shot of the old editor that I’m currently using. The background, sun and fog as of yet don’t animate, neither do the reeds, the ground dirt is temporary, it does NOT belong to us, I’m not entirely sure where I found it, but I believe it was on a forum somewhere and I’ve been using it whilst I test things because I like it.
Dani is still working on some floor tiles for this area to fit the background and be similar to the concept art.

Sorry for blurring some of the text out, but we’ve named them with some really obvious names that would spoil the surprise of the game before we release the trailer.

*Update*
I thought I’d put this in here to show this same area in polygon mode in the editor, i cropped it down so its easier to see though.

Kodama is still going strong, in fact we’re hoping to showcase the came in a gameshow sometime soon, I’ll bring more news about that closer to the due date.

It’s now almost midnight and I have to be up for my dayjob in 6 hours and 17 minutes, so goodnight and please comment if you have any questions or opinions.

Thanks
Dan