Hi everyone!

My name is Anna. I have been in the animation and games industry for over 9 years. For as long as I can remember, I have dreamt of making my own game. I stalled - thinking I needed to do better, or be better, or maybe someone's affirmation was going to be enough to motivate me to follow my dreams...but it took a devastating loss in order for me to realize that the only person waiting on me to take action was myself. So I decided, if not now, when??  When it seemed like it would never be, action beckoned me. 

Finally, after months of planning and brainstorming, I'm in a position to introduce you to a game I'm going to make: 

This is a game about a family of fire fighters who work together to save the world...a world is known as "EarthLand". After a catastrophic event, Earthland was wiped out and turned arid and dry, riddled with dangerous fire entities known as "embies". Saving themselves by using their firehall to break off and rocket off the planet, our Firefighters wait 30 years above the planet, anticipating the perfect moment to drop down and save EarthLand - bringing it back to life, and returning it to its natural state. 

There will be three playable heroes that we will be able to control, Heavy man, Light lady, and Medic. They will each be equipped with skills and actions that will enable us to utilize them to overcome challenges, explore the world, farm the land, raise animals, gather materials, and craft better gear. The fourth character, will be known as Buff dog, and she will buff the party along with guiding them to their next objectives! 

If you're interested to learn more about Fire Fighters Fighting Fire, consider watching my first devlog here, where I explain the concept of the game and talk about my goals for it. If you have any questions for me, please leave them in a comment below! Otherwise, welcome to the ride! 

Inspirations And Motivations

Video games for me, like a lot of us, have been a medium of escape, of learning, of experiencing, and of playing. It is a medium that has allowed me to really embrace and enjoy story telling in an active way. Games like the iconic Zelda, Mario, Sonic, and Megaman games are absolutely a number of many to name a few, but it is the games I grew up playing like Sly Cooper, and Jak and Daxter that really cemented my love for games today. For Firefighters Fighting Fires I want to make a game that will incorporate everything I love. Storytelling, animation, art, atmosphere, depth, and gameplay. In this post, I want to talk about a few influences that I will often refer to to keep my motivation up when working on it. 

The first will be The Firemen, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. 
Singlehandedly, this is the game that sparked action in me (no pun intended lmao). I remember being 6 years old and booting my SNES up to play this game. I was absolutely obsessed with the idea of playing as a firefighter who had to clear multiple levels of a chemical corporation to save injured or trapped civilians. It gave me a sense of fulfillment knowing I was directly the reason of saving them. Funny enough, it is games where I'm doing something morally powerful that resonate the hardest with me. The second will be Red Dead Redemption 2.

Red Dead Redemption left me stunned for weeks once I beat it. To this day, I still play singleplayer mode. I love roaming around the world searching for hidden secrets, studying the animations, helping NPCs with their problems, and hunting/fishing etc. It's like...a more adult, more intense and more realistic Stardew Valley with moral decision making. It's amazing. The world and the events within it is where I want to draw inspiration for my game.  I briefly mentioned this in the phrase above, but the third inspiration is Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley’s relaxing atmosphere and engaging gameplay (from planting crops and raising livestock, to fishing and mining) was an element I thought deeply about when it came to adding systems in my game. I want to make something that is compelling and inviting. I want to make a game that will encourage me to fight baddies, and return to my base to decorate it and make it look cute when I’m done.

Finally, the last two games that will be contributing to the essence or the vibe for FireFighters Fighting Fires will be Don’t Starve and Cult of the Lamb.Cult of the Lamb’s combat specifically was something I really enjoyed when I was playing it. The hack and slash, dodging and running mechanic is just so fun for me. Ideally, I want to be able to implement a beat em up style combat system to my game. 

So yeah. That’s basically the gist of it. I’m still at my complete and utter preliminary stage. This game is meant to be a guilty pleasure to learn how to make a game without the pressure of a time constraint or goals. It’s purely designed to enable me to explore my abilities and create whatever I want. Through FireFighters Fighting Fires, I want to be able to completely inundate myself with new skills 6 years from today. I genuinely have no idea how long this will take me, but I don’t really care. I’ll just work on it a little bit each day.

-Anna

The Main Characters

Welcome back to my thread! Today I want to talk about the main characters for the game I'm developing, Fire Fighters Fighting Fires! I did a brief introduction of the characters in my first post, but I'd like to get a little deeper talking about them. I decided to have four dominant characters that the player will either be able to control, or always see during their playthrough. It took me roughly 30 drawings in total before I was able to finalize my designs, and that's just in 2D! I'm sure by the end of this journey, these little guys will evolve alongside me and my skills. :P Now that I finally have their turn arounds, I can finally start exploring 3D modelling types. Currently, I'm thinking of making all the characters lowpoly (think Jak and Daxter 1!) but we'll see what they'll end up looking like by the end of this project. So to start, I'd like to introduce you all to the characters we'll be seeing in the game!



1. Heavy Man
Jack Otto. In his childhood, Jack spent the majority of his days playing in his yard picking up bugs, studying plants and playing with his dog, Waffles. He lived with his single father, Peter. For Jack, his dad was the only parent he knew. His greatest role model - the chief Fire Fighter of their town. When Peter would work, there were times he would bring Jack with him, and it was there that a sense of duty and responsibility was instilled in him. As he sat back with Waffles closeby, Jack would watch the men and women of Kuttoot's Fire Hall take their responsibilities of protecting the town from harm very seriously. He would fondly recall of the times where he would be sat next to Peter at the dining table, with all the other Firefighters bellowing with laughter, sharing drinks and eating merrily. He also recalled the times where urgency would beckon the entire department to hastily, and abruptly command the fighters to quickly gather their things and run out the doors. When that happened, Jack would quiver in fear. He knew the call of Fire. He knew its power and its ability to destroy and constrict its victims of life. 

When Jack was 15, he met a girl named Alice at a local community event; it was known as "The Great Kuttoot Harvest". With a love for animals, a gentle spirit and a keen interest in medicine - Jack was immediately drawn to Alice. They quickly became inseparable, spending countless hours exploring the outdoors and sharing their dreams for the future. 

2. Light Lady Alice Kapur. Alice was the daughter of doctors' and professors', Ajay and Shaan Kapur. As a child, she was inquisitive and curious. She loved accompanying her parents at the University of Kuttoot, where Ajay did research of medical science and Shaan taught medicine. Despite only being nine, her keen interest in medicine cultivated a deep interest in biology. She would actively read as much as she could about nature and her compounds, and after years of learning, she found the action of building gardens and landscaping as something incredibly fulfilling. She built her first shed when she was 11. When Alice was 15, she met a boy named Jack at a local community event; it was known as "The Great Kuttoot Harvest". With a love for farming, an adventurous mind and a playful approach to life - Alice was immediately drawn to Jack. They quickly became inseparable, spending countless hours exploring the outdoors and sharing their dreams for the future.



3. Medic Max is Jack and Alice's kid. With an abundance of energy and great curiosity, Max is always ready to go on a great adventure with the family! They're most fulfilled when a great responsibility (like ensuring mom and dad don't die when fighting fires) is tasked upon them. Their greatest mission is to ensure that by helping mom and dad get the work done, EarthLand will finally return to becoming their home, thus allowing them the chance to truly venture out and enjoy the blessings of what's to come!


4. Buff Dog Waffles Jr. is the bestest, goodest, most perfect little baby in all of EarthLand. She is the 3rd clone of Waffles, the original. She loves her family and always wants to be with them. Waffles will bark at things that are interesting to her, signaling to her family that they too, should be interested at said thing. She also knows where to go irrespective of where she is! What a perfect little baby! Well folks, there you have it! Tiny little backstories of our characters. Next post, I'll talk about Earthland! See you all then!
-Anna

Conceptualizing a World for Fire Fighters Fighting Fires

As an animator, an artist and as a storyteller, one of the most important things for me to establish a motivation of commitment to a project this big is conceptualizing a world for the characters to exist. They need a reason to journey into the world and overcome whatever obstacle they face. It wasn't really hard for me to figure out where they came from - I already established my characters. Populating them in a world was the next step. Firstly, because they're human, they needed to be from a world similar to ours. Earth itself is too vast and intricate to produce, so I decided to create a world that was inspired by Earth, but wasn't necessarily Earth, so I could have the freedom to make whatever I wanted of it. Thus, Earthland was born. 



Please excuse how rough the above image is, but basically, Earthland is a planet made of "biomes" or "continents" that are vast land masses that my characters will be able to explore. There are actually 7 Biomes, 

1. A Forest Biome
2. A Fungal Biome
3.  A Plains Biome
4. An Ice Biome
5. A Volcanic Biome
6. A Desert Biome
and 7. A Swamp Biome

Whether or not all 7 will end up in the game, only time will tell, but the idea is that each Biome will have 3 to 4 areas (or zones) that the player will have to clear out and repopulate with their respected fauna and flora. 

There are a lot of ideas that I have that I'd like to implement but that'll be something I'll get into detail much later in the game's progression. Earthland is a planet much like our own - with an atmosphere akin to ours where the weather will act similarly. I think having a weather system will be super cool and it's absolutely something I want to implement. 

Also, to start, I'll develop two biomes and from there I'll see how long it takes me. Later on, I'll share more concept art for each Biome so if that's something you're excited to learn more about, consider subscribing to this thread, my Youtube channel, or follow me on Instagram. Itch will be the home of my blogs. Youtube is where I'll get more indepth with the process of it all by way of development vlogs. 

Thanks for checking this post out! See you at the next one, where I'll be talking about the enemy types I'm thinking of developing for FFFF!

-Anna