A game is many things. Words. Pictures. Sounds. Code…
Mostly those four things.
We are hard at work getting Pro Philosopher 2: Governments and Grievances ready to launch and we are psyched to bring you along for the ride!
This week we’ll give you a look into the stuff that makes Pro Philosopher so fun to look at. Our art team knocked it out of the park and recently finished ALL the character sprites in the game! That was a tall order considering the number of characters in the game (no I won’t tell you how many), and the many animation frames necessary to make famous philosophers speak.
Here’s Marx’s sprite components. You can see his beard, eyes, and body are all on three different layers. When we want him to speak, we switch out the eyes and beard super fast and voila! The communist, manifested!
Going back in time a little, there were many steps before we got here. It all started with Marx’s character sketches
After the sketches we refined the linework:
Added color:
And finally layered in the animations!
And there you have it, a single sprite for Pro Philosopher 2! Now imagine doing that fourteen times and you have an idea of how hard our artists’ are working to bring you shouting philosophers.
…Ah, dang it. I said I wasn’t going to reveal how many characters there are in Pro Philosopher 2! Ah well, now that the cats out of the bag; there are fourteen characters in Pro Philosopher 2! That’s almost DOUBLE the amount of characters in Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher. (Which you should still go play.)
In addition to the character art, we’re doing a final pass on our environment and settings. The Intelligible Realm will look a bit different than what we had in the demo — an adjusted style that we think works better with our other art! Now those floating pillars practically leap out of your computer screen.
Out with the old.
In with the new!
The Intelligible Realm is one of a few different locations you’ll explore in the final game! But that’s actually all I’m saying on THAT matter.
The last major component of our art is the cutscene stills — which some of you might have seen caught making an appearance here and there. Like everything else in 2, we’re super happy with how they are turning out, and looking forward to sharing more!
Another incredibly important aspect of the Pro Philosopher franchise is yelling nonsense super loud. Since it's so important, we decided to make Ariadne’s NONSENSE shine with a custom animation. Check out this work in progress of her animation compared to her father’s. Maybe the two of them are more similar than Ari thinks?
We hope you’ve enjoyed this look into our art process! Expect more Dev Logs soon with insights into the writing process, code adjustments, and audio design we are finishing before launch. We recently hired an audio designer, Chris Burgess, who worked with Val and Connor on Guild Wars 2 making Charr Metal Concerts, so expect the sounds of Pro Philosopher to get a refresh too. I wonder what other kinds of audio delights they will cook up…
Which of these topics would you like us to hit next? Let us know in our comments, or on our Twitter, Discord, or even Tumblr!
It’s incredible what our artists have been able to accomplish, especially in the midst of some pretty rough stuff. As you may or may not know, we are a nights and weekends studio; all of us are also working for other big games companies. This month one of our artists was affected by the recent wave of game developer layoffs in addition to facing some difficult life circumstances. For that reason, we hope you’ll be flexible with us on our October 8th release date. While there are no plans to delay the game at present we will continue to keep you updated!
So until next time, this is your community manager Morgan signing off. Be sure to show the artists in your life some love this week!
Quote of the Dev Log:
“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake” -Kurt Vonnegut
OH YEAH: If you still want more info and also happen to be heading to PAX west, you can catch our lead narrative designer Connor Fallon on the Micro-Indies panel Monday, September 2nd at 2:30 in the Firebird theater! We hope to see you there!
