Multiplayer!

Branden got it set up so that we could walk around the level with multiple people! So we did the only logical thing: run around the level taking pictures of the two protagonists with a third hiding creepily in the background. 

Dani and Gabe with Dani lurking in the background, shot 1

   

Dani and Gabe with Dani lurking in the background, shot 2

Dani and Gabe with Dani lurking in the background, shot 3

Rough Dani Push

Rough animation of Dani beginning to push something.

Rough Gabe Push

Rough animation of Gabe beginning to push something.

Rough Gabe Walk Cycle

Playblast of Gabe's current walk cycle.

Dani Model

Dani Idle Animation

Playblast of Dani's idle animation.

Dani Walk Cycle

Playblast of Dani's walk cycle.

Head of the Class

Progress update for Dani and Gabe.  With the final designs nailed down, we begin working on the creation of assets to bring the game together!  These are the current head models for Dani and Gabe respectively.  Their featureless, hairless craniums are rendered in porcelain of added creepy effect.  The bodies will soon be completed and connected to make our full characters, and the next task will be clothing them.

Biweekly Games Proudly Presents

Hello all,

We’re Biweekly Games, a burgeoning independent studio, and we’re happy to announce the first game in our series:

Shove Aside is an co-operative episodic adventure series following brother-sister duo Gabe and Dani Kassa as they adventure throughout the pacific northwest, facing off against all variety of supernatural creatures. Think a mixture of the show Supernatural and the game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. Shove aside offers great characters who will grow and change based on your choices; choices that have a lasting, meaningful effect on not only the characters but all of the world; co-operative gameplay including puzzles, conversations, and exploration; a pacific northwest setting, and elements of horror directly relating to the evils you’ll be facing. The evil's you'll be facing each episode are based on a different emotion, the first installment is Grief.

Characters

Players will take control of Gabe (Gabriel Kassa) and Dani (Danielle Kassa) a brother and sister from Arizona. After a litany of mistakes over the past few years, the two have been recently reunited. Together they’ve taken on a strange responsibility, putting their faith in each other to overcome the trials that lie ahead.

Dani is the muscle. She’s playful, headstrong, forward, and instinctive. Always the outgoing life of the party, shes acquaintance to many, friend to few. She keeps her guard up, never wanting anyone to close. She’s always looking to solve problems blunt and quick, often great short term, but with big consequences in the long run. Working as mechanic since she dropped out of college she’s been yearning to get out and see more. Shes excited to tackle the world with her dork of a brother, one of the few shes close to.

Gabe is the brains. He’s snarky, charismatic, thoughtful, and philanthropic. A studious orator Gabe has a way with people, but a problem with authority. Gabe will often get in trouble bending the law, and stepping on the fortunate. Often to prove a point, or help out the vulnerable. Gabe tends to think patiently things through, but can easily lose his focus in the face of injustice. On the run for white collar crime, Gabe found his way home looking for direction. He’s eager to put a smile on his sisters face, as they face the trials ahead.

Gameplay

At it’s core Shove Aside is a narrative adventure game, with the gameplay focusing on investigation. You’ll have to solve the mysteries behind the supernatural entities you’re trying to defeat. You’ll accomplish this through exploration, dialogue with townsfolk, and the the occasional puzzle.

We want your experiences with NPCs to be rich and open, encompassing more aspects of a conversation than just the dialogue itself. You will be able to approach the dialogue in different ways.  If a hobo asks you for money you can be aggressive or caring. If a cop asks for your information you can be open or guarded. Whatever choice you make will set the groundwork for the conversation. You can also make actions during conversation. Pacing could make someone feel nervous, or sitting down next to someone could make them comfortable. Along with all this Gabe and Dani will have some different options in conversation, reflecting their unique personalities and experiences. All this will give the player a wide range of tools to run a conversation however they please.

Choices

While you are investigating the world still moves forward, changing and reacting depending on the choices you make. As you explore a church the tide may come in a cove you we’re interested in investigating. Breaking an entering may have the police waiting for you on your return. Threatening a pastor may result in a run in with his crazed followers down the road.

Your choices are determined by your actions, big and small, and not just a cut and dry dialogue choice. Choices also affect more than just the flow of the plot, they can affect the relationship between Gabe and Dani, bringing them closer or driving them apart.

We don’t want these choices to be an obvious fork in the game, you won’t be shown a dialogue box and have to choose between left or right. Rather you are shown left and right, each hallway silently implying what lies beyond. Some may be as subtle as this, while others are more obvious, the outcome relying on what action you take, if any at all.

Setting

The Pacific Northwest has a rich history, legends, and locations untapped by most television and video games today. Many of us have grown up here, while others have moved here, but at the end of the day we all have a strange love for the drab beauty of this place, and we want to display  that love to everyone!

We will be using real world locations, but taking some creative agency where it better suits our needs. This first episode will take place at Cape Disappointment near Illwaco, WA. We urge you to take a trip yourself to check out some of the rich naval and native american history.   

Horror

Gabe and Dani will be facing off against the unknown, the frightening, the supernatural. We want the powers of these creatures to be beyond the physical, you won’t be able to just shoot at them to win. Because of this we want our horror to be creeping, and tonal.

We feel horror isn’t about bombast, or making a player jump, it’s about setting a tone and building tension. We’ve taken a lot of inspiration from games like Eternal Darkness and slow building horror movies like Alien and The Thing. There will be no visual indicator that scary things are about to happen (like a horror meter, or screen effects), but places and situations. Dark corners, being alone.

We of course can’t tell you everything now, but we hope this is enough to catch your interest as we move forward. We’re updating every week and always happy to answer your questions. So keep an eye out however you like as more news comes your way.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BiweeklyGames

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BiweeklyGames

Email: biweeklygames@gmail.com

Design Process for Dani

Hello there!  I'm Danny Huynh, the concept artist for the team.  I take broad ideas and create concept art for characters, environments, and anything else that helps to refine and nail down the look and feel of the game.  Basically, I make pretty things.  Ryan previously talked about the inspiration and direction we want the game to go, so today I'll talk about the design process for one of the characters, Dani.

When I first joined the project, I had a rough sketch and a character background.  I read through to make sure I understood the character, and focusing on the main aspects of her personality, I needed to make a strong willed, outspoken, take charge kind of character.  Before I started fleshing out her character, I wanted to have some of the more key physical features nailed down, namely her hair and clothing.

Clothing and hair thumbnails.

One of my first sketches of Dani.

With feedback from the rest of the team, this is one of the first sketches I did of Dani.  This was before I had the design elements applied.  As you can see, her proportions and style are pretty average.  We wanted something a little more stylized.  Something with the grit of Backwater Gospel, the bold style of The Gorillaz, and the unique rendering of Ashley Wood.  Taking in mind the inspirations for the game, my next sketch came out like this.

Notice the sharper angles, the play on proportions.

For being a leader-type character, I wanted to play with having a heavier lower body to give her a more grounded look.  The other character in contrast is much slimmer.  With this as the newer reference of how I would draw her, I played with some brushes in Photoshop to get a better vision of how she would look with texture.

Dani with texture and thick ink lines.

Near final concept of Dani.

This is the closest to final concept that I've gotten.  Reassessing her design, I decided to go back a few steps to fix some problems.  Her baggy pants wasn't reading quite the way I wanted, and with the jacket, having her come off as bottom heavy was a bit difficult.  So, to remedy the situation:

More thumbnails, more silhouettes, MORE EVERYTHING.

I quickly pumped out some more silhouettes and thumbs to play more on her proportions.  In the end, I've decided to flip her design, making her more top heavy (makes sense with the jacket right?) and to have thinner legs.  Another feature that most characters will have is exaggerated hands.  Most of the stylization will take place more in the body than the face.  Even though the previous concepts won't be accurate to the final design, the work wasn't done in vain.  It helped to visualize what the quality of the final piece will look like, and it'll be interesting seeing how different the final design will look compared to the original sketches!