Craft your own Magic abilities, Explore a captivating Open World and follow the heartwarming story of Pimpim.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Character redesign & Interfaces Preview
almost 3 years ago
– Thu, Jul 01, 2021 at 01:09:32 AM
Hello everyone, here are some news,
Starting with a new music!
Here is the theme for the open world exploration. A more rhythmic version will be available soon to go with the combat. The musical themes will be long enough to avoid too frequent repetitions of the melody in an area (here it lasts for 3.20 minutes). At night, the overal theme will be different (except while in combat).
We previously told you about the complete overhaul of Pimpim's look.
Before reworking the animations of the character, there was a need to retake some of her features from scratch. The goal was to give her a more modern and adventurous look. However, it was essential to keep some of the magical aspects of the character, for example the moving energy on the chest and on the gloves. Her haircut had to be shortened to avoid technical problems during the animations process. It's important to note that the next animated version will be created in a more traditional way: less puppet, more hand drawn.
We started working on the menu.
Initially, we wanted to make two separate interfaces for the PC / console and the handheld (Switch) versions. In the end, we opted for a single menu that will work across all platforms and will simplify the port from one system to another.
Here are some of the screens we have designed. It should be noted that the background will be animated and that the icons are placeholders. We are waiting for the major update of a Unity plugin before integrating it.
Let's start with the level design of the "open world" part of this second demo.
The first thing you will notice is the difference in size between the map of the first demo (in blue at the bottom) and the new one which is 5 times larger and more open. There will be platforms gameplay, narrow passages for the weasel to crawl through, underwater gameplay, clashes with enemies, puzzles, ingredients / items gathering, a small optional quest as well as different environments to vary the atmospheres (forest, plains, caves, ruins, mountains).
The level design of the second part (a cave serving as a dungeon) will be more linear than the open world but will offer several ways to explore and a lot of objects to find.
As soon as Pimpim touches the water, she turns into her weasel form and can swim. She can swim at various paces and jump out of the water. It is not possible to cast spells and your ability to hold your breath depends on the VIT stat. The water takes into account the physics of specific spells (such as spheres) and few enemies (the crab) and produces waves of various intensity. There are still some settings needing adjustment and the addition of special effects will improve the rendering.
This transformation also allows Pimpim to crawl through narrow passages.
These tunnels will often be hidden from view and will allow you to take shortcuts or find rare rewards. But beware, under this form Pimpim is more vulnerable.
The camera now manages parallaxes. There are still some adjustments to be made regarding zooms but we can already see a big difference with the previous demo. We spent more time than expected on this part because we had to readjust the way the shaders work with our assets (we had to deal with the use of several shaders on a single asset).
Finally, crafting will be available between the open world and the cave. We will talk about this later but in the meantime, you can enjoy the musical atmosphere. We took the decision to create a music that evolves according to the situation (exploration, combat, etc ...) using FMod.
Thanks a lot for your support and see you soon!
The Nevermind Team
Working on the second Demo
over 3 years ago
– Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 10:05:09 PM
Hello everyone!
Here is some news about our progress and next goals!
The first demo was quite well received and we are delighted!
Soon after its release, our team gathered and talked about what we could improve in our production methods. We then quickly started working on Demo N°2. As mentioned before, this second Demo will offer a real vertical slice of the Little Legend mechanics and it will be more representative of the experience we want to convey. The access to this Demo will be available to everyone so we can hear your opinions and gather some feedback.
Here is the list of what we want to include in the Demo N°2:
• An open world (forest) and a linear dungeon (cave)
• Dialogues with multiple characters, one main quest and 2 secondary quests
• 6 spells, 3 of which you get at the beginning of the adventure with the Magicraft system
• 6 enemies and one Boss
• Night time and Campfire mechanics (crafting, potions, guardian)
• Animal transformation (swimming and flying)
• 7 new musics
Improvements in this Demo:
• Music evolving depending on the action
• Way more parallaxes
• New sprites and animations for Pimpim
Concept art for the enemies and their animations
Benchmark for distinct environment moods
The Children of the Sky - Teens with powers similar to Pimpim
Please note that all these concept arts are worksin progress and might not be representative of what you will see in the final demo.
As this demo is more substantial, it will be divided into 3 phases.
We are currently working on the first phase which should end in early December.
Thank you for your support!
The Nevermind Team
Gameplay video and new plans for the future!
almost 4 years ago
– Wed, Jul 01, 2020 at 12:00:05 AM
Hello everyone,
Here we are, getting back to you after a few months of work to give you an update on our progress.
The last few months
Our goal for the beginning of this year was to make a demo to lay the foundations for the game systems, but the recent world events came to disrupt our production schedule.
We had to leave our new office. Our team gathered during an exceptional meeting (from home!) and we reorganized our strengths to keep working on Little Legend remotely during the quarantine.
To meet the deadlines, we decided to remove some game systems from this version. We reduced the number of features, to focus on the gameplay, the visuals and to have a quick overview of the experience.
This crisis has impacted the world and the video game industry.
This year we were planning to go to different game events to present Little Legend to publishers and investors, but all the physical events got canceled. It is important here to emphasize that the majority of contracts are signed during these events, that's why we are now adapting and reaching for contacts and partnerships remotely.
On the bright side, we managed our budget well.
We still have a good part of the funds collected in addition to our personal resources and we are able to continue working on the game.
However, it will affect the speed of the production and for that reason, we decided to postpone the release of Little Legend to a later date.
We hope that you will understand such decision, which is the consequence of an unprecedented serie of events. In the meantime, we will continue to communicate remotely with potential partners.
In any case, our team is motivated as ever and we are looking forward to the future.
Pre-Alpha:Gameplay
This version is a work in progress.
It was built as a tutorial and it introduces the player to the game mechanics: platforming, spells and confrontations.
We can say with confidence that managing such a large and graphically rich word is possible without loading screens and without sacrificing performances!
Some things you will see in this video are temporary or are placeholders that will be remade from scratch later:
⦁ Special effects
⦁ Obtaining spells (there is no Magicraft yet)
⦁ Pimpim (sprite & animations)
⦁ UI / UX
Pre-Alpha:Overcoming difficulties
We originally had a prototype that allowed us to create the scenes you saw in the trailer. We then worked on a demo but encountered technical issues during the transition.
Indeed, Unity released it's new "Prebuilt Scriptable Render Pipeline". This new technology offers better performances, better compatibility between consoles and PC as well as very useful tools like :
⦁ The Shadergraph (easier to use tool for visual effects)
⦁ Sprite Shape (easier manipulation of platforms and collisions)
⦁ 2D lights management
This technology under development (that may certainly replace the current built-in) does not yet have all the functionalities of its former version.
Therefore, we found ourselves facing important choices during the beginning of the development:
⦁ Switch to this technology now and benefit from tools that could accelerate the development in the long run (even if it lacks major features during the first months).
⦁ Stay on the current built-in which no longer seems to be supported by Unity, for a slower and more resource-intensive development.
We chose the first choice. It required us to readjust parts of the development and work without the 3D cameras.
A second obstacle arose : the management of game physics.
Pimpim's powers are sometimes "physical" (which means that her abilities and body are subject to physical constraints and can be less predictable than if they were pre-rendered). It can affect the enemies behavior in some weird ways!
We had to find a balance between physics and scripted behavior to avoid bugs and to not lose the feeling of control over the universe.
What's next?
We are going to make a new Demo. It will be longer, more open, more polished and it will provide a better playable experience. We will unveil the road map for this version and more info on its content during the next Kickstarter update.
To-do list:
⦁ Integration of the night time
⦁ Totally new Pimpim sprites & animations
⦁ Integration of the Weasel flight
⦁ Companion crafting / potions
⦁ Larger and more varied Level Design
⦁ More enemies with a drop system
⦁ More Spells
⦁ 3D camera management (if there is an update from Unity!)
Thank you for your support and patience!
We are looking forward to your feedback!
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Working on the playable Game Demo
over 4 years ago
– Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 02:17:02 AM
Hello everyone,
Time flies, here are some updates.
Following the first users feedback, we had to take the decision of improving the feeling of some of the game mechanics. To do that we had to rebuild from scratch a part of our engine and, as you may have guessed, it led to a slight alteration to our production schedule.
The main (positive) reason is that we started working on the playable Game Demo! It will contain a good chunk of the final game mechanics, some environments, different enemies and a boss.
Also, to answer a recurring question, we are taking into account the upcoming game consoles as our goal is still to make Little Legend available to a wide variety of platforms, therefore we are considering releasing it on the XBOX Series X and the Playstation 5.
Here is a screen of what we are aiming for working on the Game Demo:
Thank you all for your patience.
We know it's been a while since you heard from us, we definitely want to improve our communication. We will start updating our social medias and our Discord server during the upcoming month as soon as we have nice visuals to share.
