Posted October 11, 2023 by Cary Reese
##devlog ##roguelike ##coop ##asymmetrical
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.
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.
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!