Happy Wednesday, folks!

Cary here, back again to talk about our progress with Twosoulled. Our? That's right! Last time, I talked about how I started the project and built a lot of the main systems from scratch, but one day, it occurred to me... Maybe this isn't a project I could manifest on my own. But isn't it  a concept worth investing in?

So, with no prior experience in this kind of thing, I wrote up a post seeking artists and devs to help me turn Twosoulled into a reality and posted it to Reddit.

What a whirlwind that was.

Within less than an hour, I'd already spoken to twelve different artists from all across the globe, and over the next three days, I processed almost 70 applications, for everyone from game designers (which I didn't even post looking for!) to level designers to developers. It was a crazy process because, to be honest, I learned from every application I took in.

Around noon on the first day, someone asked to see my GDD (Game Design Document). The first response that came to mind was "My what?" Instead, I said "I'll get back to you on that." I researched what a GDD was, how to write one, what would go on one, I referenced my full design documents, and by 6pm that day, I had a GDD to share. Around 8pm, someone said "I'd like to see your GDD, but I'm sure you'd want me to sign an NDA first..." and I said "...yes, that is something I'd want you to do." By 10pm, I had privated my GDD and written a simple NDA.

On this continued, sponging information from all the extremely talented and eager responses until I had a really solid idea of what was needed.  Then came the extremely difficult process of narrowing my options down to the few I would hire.

Before long, I had a GUI Artist, a Lead Artist, a Promo Artist, and two developers. And the real work started.

I had to back away from developing code for the first month for two big reasons - first, my developers had to explore all the stuff I'd done, get comfortable, and fix up anything that was a bit silly, and second, because I now needed to divert a lot of attention to making sure my artists knew exactly what they'd be doing. I drew up dozens of GUI concepts for Nermak, which he turned around into gorgeous potential GUI designs in no time at all.

My blueprints.

Not a final product, but a damn good one. The background is just for context.

Similarly, Keo got right away to redesigning the characters and coming up with a cohesive art style.  It wasn't long before we had a nicely rigged (and beautiful, and chunky) little guy.

With bones for emphasis!

Before long, the devs started to revolutionize the codebase and started chomping away at all the tasks I set before them in no time - touching up the multiplayer aspects, making an easy test area, building enemies and AI - all stuff I'll be happy to go into.

Next week! Thanks for reading. Twosoulled shall continue!