Designing and Directing

Before We Leave

Before We Leave is a city building game set in a cozy corner of the universe. Nurture your Peeps and their surroundings while rebuilding and rediscovering civilisation. Settle new lands and planets while avoiding hungry Space Whales.

Hey Gang! I have two developer blogs to share with you today: Tom, our Lead Artist and Kiwi humour expert wrote about his process designing buildings for Project Charlie (the Before We Leave sequel). Here’s an excerpt from his post: One of my jobs is to design the buildings for our next game: This means talking to Sam and the team about what properties/functions the building will have and designing it appropriately. You might find when looking at the drawings how accurate they are in terms of perspective - this is because I will go back and forth building it in a 3D programme (Maya) so I can create something that looks great from all angles, as well as fit onto a group of hexagon tiles (the tiles can make it a challenge to design sometimes as it is an odd shape). [img]https://assets.website-files.com/5fbdb6fba7195896124485e1/638e80b40bb5eab027bb5b16_Metal_Smelter02_copy.jpg[/img] Once the 3D draft has been made, I will usually paint over a screenshot of the 3D model in Photoshop. At this stage, this is all about showing what materials the building will use as well as if it's painted and the condition it's in. This isn't just to make a pretty picture! This image will be seen by Sam and if he likes what he sees, I will send it off to our 3D Modeller, Rafał who lives in Poland. If the concept art is clear, he should have no problem recreating a high resolution version of it to throw in the game. That's about all I can show you all at this point because we're still keeping things pretty secret… ([url=https://www.balancingmonkeygames.com/articles/artists-dev-blog-mushy-peas-and-haiku-edition]Full post on our website[/url]) Thanks Tom! And last but certainly not least, Anna (aka MamaMonkey) wrote about her hectic life as our Managing Director. It’s a little lengthier than Tom’s post, so if you want to get a snapshot of how a role like this operates at a game development studio, [url=https://www.balancingmonkeygames.com/articles/its-time-to-get-together]give it a peep on our website[/url] (pun intended. You’re welcome). [previewyoutube=iiKl4TTLXVc;full][/previewyoutube] That's all for now - you'll be hearing from me next week with a final post to see 2022 off. Thanks for reading! - Emily, Community Manager