Puzzle Club-blog

No, you're not Going Crazy

sg-dave — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:34:57 -0500

We’ve renumbered the episodes for an upcoming site redesign - we realized that it might make more sense to people if the first episode we released was Episode 1, not 0. Many updates and shared links have been retroactively changed to reflect the new numbering.

Puzzle Ptuesday: Time's (Almost) Up!

sg-dave — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:51:00 -0500

I’m late! I’m late for a very important (up)date!

We have been busy playtesting Episode 4’s game and finding ways to make the gameplay more clear. One of the ways we did this is by hiding the other keys that don’t need to be pressed - we found that the game was already challenging enough without the extra keys floating around to obscure the keys that need to be pressed.

Additionally, more of the art has been integrated, which not only makes the game look awesome, but it also gives the player a lot more feedback about what’s happening.

Chez made the time tunnel between levels look good! We’re also highlighting the goal object more clearly on this screen, and letting players decide when they’re ready to start the level. (The art for the buttons and text is temporary)

We’ve also added some in-game text to help teach the player how to play the game. Here’s a screenshot of one of the early levels:

Not EVERY screen will have this text, but we made sure to teach the player everything he/she needs to know in order to play the game.

Another problem players were having was that they weren’t sure how, why, or even IF they were failing. So, we stepped up the feedback to be absolutely clear. Now, not only will the screen will flash to red, but it will also explain what went wrong so the player can try to avoid that mistake in the future.

The remaining work to be done some level tweaking, bug fixing, and last second polish to make the game as solid as possible before we launch.

Tick tock!

Time Loop Chicken Polka - audio update

sg-bonnie-blog — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:28:00 -0500

Happy post-turkey day, everyone! As we are nearing the wrap-up period of production on Episode 4, it’s time for another audio update.

It feels rather appropriate for me to do a post after a poultry enhanced holiday, as a similar feathered creature was a main part of this episode… of course, I refer to the time travelling chicken. The winning community submission for the ‘sound of time travel’ was very enjoyable, and we did our best to blend the rest of the audio sound scape to match that feel. In addition to time travel empowered poultry, we got to play with clunky gears, electrical storm portals, dropped “swiss army marbles”, falls, breaks, and dramatic music.

One day I came across a ticking stopwatch sound sample. It felt like something that might work for the base of a game music track so I started mixing in some bass, tuba, accordion, and our chicken friend. We ended up going a different route with game music, more techno and faster paced, though the “Time Loop Chicken Polka” still lives on in the Episode 4 credits sequence. Want a sneak preview? Click the link to check it out!

Puzzle Ptuesday: Pturkey Day

sg-dave — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 12:16:00 -0500

Something smells… fowl.

Just a short update this week (we have a short week here at the studio for Thanksgiving) - the animation for Episode 4 is completely finished! All attention is now on the game, and the current focus is to make it look as nice as possible.

One of the issues we’ve been running into during playtests is that players are initially having a hard time understanding what the goal of the game is. The game is actually pretty simple, but we need to better communicate the rules up front. The other feedback we’ve been getting is that there needs to be more feedback within the game - some people aren’t sure if they’re winning or losing (which is bad!), so a lot of the art treatment and audio treatment is geared towards giving the player a sense of whats happening in the game.

That’s all I have for… oh! I almost forgot. A few of us on the team are still participating in Movember, and we have some new photos for you.

I’m not doing it right. Everything BUT my mustache has grown.

Matt is looking goooood.

Mike T has won at mustache.

Okay, NOW I’m done. We’ll see you after the holiday!

Hello Puzzle Clubhouse community! If you’ve been eagerly...

sg-brittany — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:51:00 -0500

Hello Puzzle Clubhouse community!

If you’ve been eagerly waiting for another glimpse into the art world of Puzzle Clubhouse, then wait no more!

For Episode 4, the game called for various characters. Each character had two restrictions- they could be no larger than 150 pixels in width, and their hands must lay at relative positions. Fortunately, this wasn’t as challenging as I had predicted, but it still brought some issues in posing characters. The video runs through my process of each character, so check it out!

Puzzle Ptuesday: Game Changer

sg-dave — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:19:00 -0500

Hello friends!

The team is wrestling with some larger questions about the future of Puzzle Clubhouse, but work on Episode 4 continues!

We’ve finished the game prototype that’s more aligned with the original winning design - you can play it here!

The goal is to press the two adjacent keys, forming a chain to grab the goal object(s) at the very end. Pressing the wrong keys or not pressing any keys when you need to will trigger a failure, causing the level set to reset. We have four levels increasing in difficulty.

After playing it for a bit, we had some discussions about how to improve it and where to take it from here. Here’s some of what came out of our meeting:

Current Issues:

Lack of triangularity - the game currently has no risk vs. reward in it, which is common to a lot of rhythm games. This is sort of an additional thing that would be nice to have, but probably wont make its way in.
Right now, this game requires you to look at the keyboard most of the time - Unless you’re a superstar typist, you’ll need to fairly often look at the keyboard for the key combinations.
The keys that you press should be close together - right now they seem random and difficult to press. This can be ironed out fairly easily.
Time changes are too slow - the right pace for the game will become apparent through playtesting.

Next Steps:

Add the ability to make longer chains of characters. (Can reuse characters so there are duplicates of Jasper, Cornelius, etc.) Currently the game only supports 11 total, want more.
Press spacebar to “engage” time machine - do we want to use three keys?
Levels can be made up of smaller mini-chains; Completing part of the level will poof out the characters, clearing the board for the next group.
Have a time machine that flies across - represents accuracy, like most rhythm games
Time period should last fewer than 3 seconds – maybe 1.5 seconds. This will be variable based on the difficulty of the levels (earlier levels = longer)

That’s about all we have time for this week - we’ll check back with our progress soon!

Toodles!

The Clock is Animaticking!

sg-patrick — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:53:00 -0500

Hello!

This is my first blog post here, so I’ll start things off with a (brief) introduction. My name is Patrick, and I’m a designer for Puzzle Clubhouse. I work closely with Dave and Laura to do the Episode writing, documentation, and game designs for the episodes.

But this blog entry is going to be all about animatics, and how we get from a hastily written script to Chez’ final animation!

Part 1: Planning the Community Submissions

Even though we release an episode a month, we actually start planning for an episode 6 weeks before its release date. By T-4 weeks we need to be writing the script, so any community submissions that determine the “what happens” part of the episode need to be done by then.

Part 2: Writing the Script

By the time 4 weeks from release rolls around, we need to have the script pretty much thought out. Dave and I have 2-3 days to write the first draft. It’s pretty intense, because we’re also still finishing up the previous episode! The lines are numbered to make it easier to identify dialog and lay it into the animatic quickly.

Part 3: Storyboarding:

As soon as we get a workable version of the script, it’s passed off to me to storyboard. Each episode has between 80 - 120 panels, churned out over the course of a day and a half. Storyboards let us rough out the camera angles, cuts, and rough posing for the characters in a quick and disposable way. The script is usually revised and changed even as the storyboards are being made- so it’s important that no one panel take long to draw. (My personal goal is that no storyboard panel should take more than a few minutes to draw).

At this point, Brittany takes the storyboards and begins making the real art assets for the episode, and Chez develops any new characters.

Part 4: Animatics- Revisions, Revisions, Revisions!

While the storyboards are being made, Dani is reading through the script and sifting around for the appropriate sound effects, and Dave gets “scratch” (temporary) recordings of all the lines of dialog in the episode. (Fun fact: Usually before Jasper and Cornelius’ voice actors are even shown the script, the whole animatic is made using Dave’s voice for every part.)

It takes about a day to throw together all the storyboards, sound effects, and dialog into the first animatic! Then it’s shown to everyone, critique is given- and it’s back to the drawing board again- often literally. There are typically between 4 and 6 revisions of an episode animatic made, and all within about a week. During that time somewhere between a tenth to a fifth of all the storyboards are tweaked or redrawn to reflect the new changes (Which is why it’s so important that they be quick to make!).

Part 5: Blocking and Beyond!

Because Puzzle Clubhouse is made so quickly- the animatic is often changed slightly after it goes to blocking. The latest revision to date is given to Chez (our Animator) to block, and another copy to Bonnie (our awesome sound person!) to make everything sound like it wasn’t thrown together in Premiere over the course of four hours.

Then the episode is fully into production, and I shift focus to helping Dave out with the game development! Tweaks to the animatic, blocking, and sound continue to be made throughout the whole process, and the week after we’re already working on the next episode!

And that’s pretty much how we cobble everything together. Feel free to ask any questions!

Puzzle Ptuesday: How Time Flies!

sg-dani-blog — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 21:42:00 -0500

Current Voting:
Anne Tagonist

Current Submissions:
Chews Your Own Adventure!

Current Brainstorms:
Laz0r Frogz - The Next Generation
Movemeber Madness!

You know what they say: “Time flies when you’re having fun…” or working so hard you can’t stop to think! This past week really has been a whirlwind! It feels like just yesterday when we were writing our last Ptuesday update, so I’ll try my best to get you guys caught up!

Let’s see, what has happened…

We released Episode 3: May The Horse Be With You! with special guest Anthony Daniels (some of you might remember him as C-3P0 from Stars Wars®). This is our spo0o0okiest episode to date so make sure to check it out and let us know what you think!

To celebrate the release of this episode, we are hosting a sweepstakes for the chance to win one of ten signed C-3P0 figurines! For more information on the sweepstakes, click here!

We barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief that Episode 3 was complete because we were all already knee-deep in Episode 4 production. We’re trying to keep things short this time around, since we felt that our last episode really pushed the upper limits of what we can accomplish in our short production timeline. Our goal was to keep the animated segment under 3 minutes and keep the art/animation assets to a minimum (giving Chez and Brittany a chance to catch up). For the most part, we’re doing really well! Brittany is pretty much all done with episode art and has now moved on to game art, which keeps us right on schedule! Chez has finished with the blocking in record time and right now the episode clocks in at about 2:10 min! Wowzah! Today he worked on some special effects for the time bubble that Jasper and Cornelius find themselves stuck in. Check it out! (Click to watch the animation)

All in all, the animated part of the episode is really shaping up and we’re hoping to have final animation done around the end of the week!

Some of the bigger complications we are facing this time around is with the game. To refresh your memory, here’s the winning game idea for this episode:

When their respective keys are held down, [J]asper and [C]ornelius hold onto a time-machine object while looped backdrops in time phase in and out. Play twister with your fingers to hold onto strandees like [Z]ed and [P]am, chaining up the monkeys or scientists to bring them back to the present day.

We came up with a game design based on this idea that, in retrospect, was probably too complicated and ended up veering away from the original submission. After some really good conversations that came up on the forums we decided to rethink the way we were approaching this game. We decided to modify the game so it more closely resembled the original game idea, while still incorporating the community submitted content that we had collected for the game.

This situation brought up the bigger issue of our game development process. Are we cutting it too close? Should we be expanding our time line to create games? Unfortunately, with our current production cycle, we don’t have a lot of time to prototype and test our designs before they need to go into full on development and art/audio integration. We’ll be having a meeting later this week to discuss our current cycle and see how we can make it better and how we can get YOU more involved throughout the whole process!

Stay tuned PCH fans and as always thank you for your feedback and your patience as we work out the kinks and try to make this the best experience we can!

Phew…and now time for dinner… :)

Phew!

sg-chez — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:39:00 -0400

Hey everyone!

Animation for episode 3 is now done! This one was a doozy, and I ended up coming in with the finished animation pretty late in the cycle. That was kind of the plan too, as this was a special episode for us, and we wanted to put in a good bit of TLC to get it just right. We got all three user-submitted rooms introduced. We also got in all the decorations for the house, and all the fish silhouettes for the aquarium! And, of course, there was our special guest star! I think this episode turned out really well, and I can’t wait for you all to see it!

I took after Brittany and did a screencast of some of my animation process. It starts off with me finishing off Jasper and Cornelius’s facial acting and lipsync for scene 2. Then you get to see me add all the fish, the squid, and some watery type effects to the aquarium. Enjoy!

-Chez

Puzzle Ptuesday: Thyme Travel

sg-dave — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:23:00 -0400

Current Submissions:
Anne Tagonist

Current Votes:
Howl do I sound?
Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

Spicy!

With Episode 3 finally in the can, we are all looking to the future! And the past. And everything in between. Since this episode is fairly Halloween…ey, keep an eye on the site tomorrow for something terrifying.

Patrick has finished most of the storyboarding (and animatic) for Episode 4 - take a look at the beginning of Episode 4!

CORNELIUS: “Ah, here we are!”

CORNELIUS: “By any chance, do you have experience with… time travel?”

JASPER: “Okay, sleepwalking gnomes I’ll believe, but time travel is nothing but science fict-”

JASPER: “… Whoa.”

Jasper and Cornelius looking at themselves in some sort of time loop.

Moving in closer for a better look at the time machine.

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY TIME CHICKEN.

Speaking of which, Brittany has finished some early passes of both the Time Machine and our favorite trans-temporal poultry.

Now THAT’s a time machine.

Look at those birds!

HE CAN SEE FOREVER.

Meanwhile, Matt and I are working on the Episode 4 game - we have some very early (ugly) screenshots for you to take a look at:

This game is all about jumping through time, trying to solve puzzles.

You can pick up various things/people from one time period…

and take them to another, which is needed for creating new objects in the present (or future).

As you can see, none of the art is implemented, but we have the working prototype ready to go, so we’re busy at work making some interesting puzzles for all y’all.

That’s all for this Ptuesday! Chez will be sharing some sweet animation stuff tomorrow, so watch out for that!

See you next time!

Pictures From PAX Prime!

sg-dani-blog — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:08:13 -0400

As some of you may recall, we had our big Beta site launch during PAX Prime, this past August. For those of you weren’t able to go to PAX, you missed a few great Puzzle Clubhouse moments!

Check out some of these pictures our very own Jesse Schell took while he was there:

People playing Laz0r Frogz!

What do you think of when you see this picture? Creepy? Stay away from this guy? NO! You should be thinking about our amazing puzzle piece fliers!One of our promotions during PAX were these sweet, sweet puzzle piece fliers that actually fit together! Jesse also wore his PCH fez. If you came up to him with one of our fliers while he was wearing this fez, you would get a special prize!

Puzzle Clubhouse’s favorite Seattle hotel!

Should it be possible for a non-creative director using Chrome on a Mac to post to the forums?

sg-dave — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:50:40 -0400

Yes, it should - there are some flaky issues we’re working out with the forums, so we’ll make sure to test Chrome on the Mac. Thanks for the heads up!

Puzzle Ptuesday: It’s Just a Jump to the Left

sg-dave — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:34:00 -0400

Current Submissions:
No Time Like the Present
Sounds Like Time Travel

Current Votes:
Close Encounters of the Historical Kind

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Also ghosts.

Our team is growing! Mike V (that’s the third Mike, for those that are playing at home) has joined us as a web programmer. He’ll be tackling the website, making sure that it’s super radical.

We also have Matt K back on Puzzle Clubhouse! He was shuffled to a different project for the past few months, but he’s returned to us! And there was much rejoicing.

In other news, we’re almost done with Episode 3! Chez is finishing up the animations, and Mike T is beginning his search and destroy mission for bugs. Otherwise, the game is basically finished, and we should be good for launch on November 1st!

The rest of the team has moved on to Episode 4. Brittany is PCH-ifying Rollins, Patrick and I have finished up the first draft of the script, and now he’s moved on to drawing up the initial storyboards. Meanwhile, Matt K has begun prototyping the game for the episode so we can see what this weird time-travel meets twister style of game feels like.

Writing Episode 4’s script was an interesting challenge - we tried to see how simple an episode we could make while still keeping it funny / fun to watch. Episode 3 was a great test of our limits - it’s the most involved episode by far (especially for poor Chez), so we want to see how far we can rein it in while still keeping it awesome. Ideally, we’ll find that happy middle ground and make episodes that are juuuust right.

That’s all for now! See you next week. Or maybe LAST WEEK?

Time travel hurts my brain.

Episode 3 Spooooky Audio Update

sg-bonnie-blog — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:06:00 -0400

Spooky Soundscapes

One of the biggest challenges was figuring out the ‘type’ of spooky we were going for in Episode 3. This was definitely a situation where art helped direct the sound design. There were a couple scenes in the early animatic, pre-art, where sound direction started towards the ScoobyDoo end of the spectrum, with a hint of Munsters, but then when some of the scenes were drawn we turned on our heels and went down a darker path.

In a world such as Puzzle Clubhouse, and in an episode such as this, we were given the opportunity to explore the vastness of the mansion, while accenting the truly bizarre rooms and how, to a 'normal’ person, such as Jasper, would react to such things. The surreal ghost sequences in the episode continue to feel like a live action horror film, dragging us further into a serious landscape, so that when quirky comedy sfx and words pop in we are caught by surprise.

Special “Ghast” Stars

One of the greatest pleasures of Episode 3 has been working with a cameo appearance by our 'ghast’ star, who for the sake of not spoiling the surprise we shall call “REDACTED”. While working on Episode 1 we became aware of an opportunity to feature the one and only REDACTED in a future episode. The catch was REDACTED, being the very busy man that he is, had a very limited timetable to work with us, and it would be within the week. We had one afternoon to record whatever we could invent for REDACTED’s voice, so a quick mock-up of a possible script, with detailed lines for REDACTED had to be created immediately. This would be a one-shot recording session, with little to no chance of callbacks so the writers had to work speedily before the big day. Many valuable gems were captured, including some hilarious lines that made it into the video game, and helped shape the episode.

We hope you really enjoy what is in store in Episode 3, the episode and game. To give you a bit of a taste, check out the “Episode 3 Teaser” audio file at the top of this post.

Puzzle Ptuesday: 1.21 Gigawatts

sg-dave — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:44:00 -0400

Current Submissions:
Time to Draw

Current Votes:
Bingo Was His Name-O… OR WAS IT?

When this blog hits 88 Miles per Hour, you’re gonna see some serious updates.

We’re at the tail end of Episode 3 - Art, Animation, Sound, and Programming are all coming together to make a beautiful bouncing baby episode.

Bonnie is cleaning up all the audio (and adding sweet sound effects) for both the animation and the game. She’s been adjusting levels, removing hissing, and making sure this Episode sounds as awesome as it can be. She’s also whipped up a background track for the game, which is spooky. Listen… IF YOU DARE.

Chez has his plate full with the animation - he’s completed one of the scenes, and is now fleshing out the character animation in the rest. He’s just about finished animating our SPECIAL GUEST (which we will totally tell you about soon, we promise), and Jasper and Cornelius are looking fly as always.

Meanwhile, Brittany is still doing her art thing - she’s finalizing the various art assets in the episode, as well as handing off the game art assets to Mike T. Take a peek at these:

The PCH Foyer!

Look at that rug!

… and that ghost!

… and that ghost trail!

As we’re about halfway through the month, that means Episode 4 is now officially in the pipe - Patrick and I are working with the winning game submission to draft up the game design document, followed by the script. As this episode is all about time travel, I’m pretty excited about where (and when) we can take this one! We’ll also be incorporating at least one of Cornelius’ prized possessions - I’m sure he’ll find a way to solve any problem with it! Lastly, this episode SHOULD have the first appearance of our faithful (if absent) butler, Mr. Rollins. Hopefully he doesn't run into anything that scares the daylights out of him in this episode.

That’s all I’ve got time for this week! I need to write some bad jokes now.

Great Scott!

The artistic process can be long and complicated, but through...

sg-brittany — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:24:37 -0400

The artistic process can be long and complicated, but through the magic of video editing, you can watch a sped up video of some of the Puzzle Clubhouse art process!

The room I worked on for this video is the Aquarium- a community submitted room with the following premise:

“The Aquarium Room is a peaceful respite from the craziness of Puzzle Clubhouse. Walk in, and it’s a reverse fishbowl (glass bowl, living room on the inside, the fish are on the outside and throw food in to the people every once in awhile). Just watch out for the kleptomaniac squids, which might reach in at any point and steal anything on your person.”

In the video, you’ll see me create a large chunk of this room, with some placeholder objects and empty space for other props left in place. Check it out!

World's Largest Jigsaw Puzzle Winners!

sg-dani-blog — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:26:00 -0400

Some of you might remember the sweepstakes we held last month for the World’s Largest Jigsaw Puzzle: Double Retrospect. This contest was for PAX attendees only, in celebration of the fact that we were launching the website AT PAX.

Well the 5 winners were randomly chosen and the Puzzles have been sent! Some of the winners have sent us pictures of them with their prize. Take a look!

Amy with her gigantic puzzle!

Lars was sure to capture the hand cart that was included!

Charles somehow managed to snap a photo with the puzzle next to a rare 600-lb Siberian Tiger!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the sweepstakes! Stay tuned for more contests and giveaways. After all…ANYTHING can happen at Puzzle Clubhouse!

Puzzle Ptuesday: Keep On Keepin' On

sg-dave — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 18:24:00 -0400

Current Submissions:
Flea in Terror

Current Votes:
Let’s Undo the Time Warp
Puzzle Club-Home Decorating

Current Brainstorms:
The Essentials

Ptuesday? ALREADY? Oh jeez, I hope someone wrote something…

Episode 3 is going swimmi ngly. Chez is blocking up a storm, Patrick and myself are creating levels for the game, and Mike T is moving from prototyping to full-on game development.

Now, you might be wondering: what’s difference between prototyping and proper game development? After all, they both involve writing code and, well, making the game.

In the prototyping phase, it’s assumed that any/all code will be scrapped at the beginning of development. If there happens to be usable code, that’s great! However, the main focus is to bring the game to life as fast as possible. By quickly incorporating all of the base features of the game, we (the team) can check if the game is actually fun much earlier on. If the game isn’t fun we can make quick changes, or scrap the prototype altogether. Because it was made quickly, we don’t have to worry about throwing away a meticulously crafted piece of code.

Real game development has the actual, careful planning, and this is where we make sure everything is efficient and running. During the transition from prototyping to development, any working code is saved, or incorporated into the Puzzle Clubhouse API for future use in other games. As an example, we took the grid-based level design/loading of Laz0r Frogz and actually used it for To Gnome Me is to Love Me’s game.

Elsewhere in the episode, Brittany is making everything look fancy. She’s almost finished all of the community content for the episode!

Check it:

The finished Fattening Cage:

The Kennel:

The Transplanar Bat of Whiffling (charged and uncharged)

The Woe Goggles (non-slimy AND slimy)

G-g-ghosts!

Outside of the episodes, we’ve had several serious discussions about the current state of the website. Laura is hard at work identifying problem areas of the site, as well as better ways to not overload new visitors.

We’re completely committed to making the website the best it can be - if you have any thoughts about how you want the website to look, don’t hesitate to let us know.

Alright, that’s enough for now. We’ll see all y’all next time!

Puzzle Ptuesday: Puzzle Clubhouse of Horrors!

sg-dave — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:49:00 -0400

Current Submissions:
Ghost Sounds
Puzzle Club-Home Decorating

Current Votes:
Spectral Bat of Whiffling
Room of Reckoning

Current Brainstorms:
Aquarium Room Fish

Let’s Undo the Time Warp
Make your own Laz0r Frog Levels!
Future Game Prompts

Boo!

October is here! Well, it arrived yesterday, actually. But that means Episode 2 has been released! We’re really excited about it - be sure to check it out and let us know what YOU think!

No time to pat ourselves on the backs though - we’re already waist deep in Episode 3, and things are lookin’ spooky.

Mike T. has got a pretty spiffy prototype going for the ghost game. Did I write spiffy? I meant HORRIFYING. (It also turns out that Mike T’s last name is TERROR)

We’ve got Jasper (the blue dot) running around with a flashlight, reavealing ghosts.

I think Jasper’s found one of the ghost’s trails. If we just head into that room…

OH NO THE GHOST FOUND JASPER RUN

Meanwhile, Patrick has just finished up the animatic, Chez is busy at work making the various characters for this episode, and Brittany is back from vacation and is now arting up the place.

It’s a good thing Brittany’s back, too, because Episode 3 is our most art-heavy episode yet. With the variety of props, spaces, and characters (including our SECRET GUEST), Brittany and Chez have their work cut out for them. Luckily, we have you guys to help us out!

All of your art submissions are super valuable - not only do they give us actual art assets, but they also give us specific ideas for what the assets need to be. So, as an example, here’s one of the winning room descriptions from Location, Location Location!:

“The door to the Fattening Cage is an unsavory discovery in the bowels of Puzzle Clubhouse. Undeniably secure yet airy, this portable cell swings in a snug kitchen built of gingerbread and candy! One cannot miss the kitchen’s homey fire beneath the cauldron or the cavernous oven. Those who enter the Fattening Cage (and live to tell the tale) recall motion sickness, regular and substantial feedings, warm buttermilk baths, considerable cackling and the heady scent of cinnamon.”

… and here’s a totally sweet (groan) rendering of the room by Brittany! (still in progress)

Delicious. Or is it?

As we get more comfortable incorporating community content, there will be more ways for you guys to contribute!

That’s enough horror for one day. Come back again soon!

If you dare.

Animation Update!

sg-chez — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:35:00 -0400

Hey PCH folks!

The animation for episode 2 is finished! Woohoo! Right under the wire again, too. We had tried out a new method for doing the animatics this cycle.

Instead of the traditional method of timing out the storyboard panels, I tried to make an editable animatic file in Flash with the actual character projects, to kind of condense the animatics/animation keyposing steps into 1.

It may have turned to be more trouble than it was worth, though, we had a ton of timing changes with this episode that would have gotten ironed out quicker the traditional way.

Oh well… we’re still getting the hang of this thing!

No time for a breather now, either… today I get to start on the character designs for episode 2’s special guest character!

It was a lot of fun incorporating all of the community’s garden elements and gnome designs into the world for this episode, so I can’t wait to see what gets in for episode 2!