Progress Report 1: Wind God Paper Girl
04 Jan 2025 - lyd
happy new year!!!!!!!!
how ya’ll doing? personally im a bit worried about the new year, but we’ll get through it i guess.
oh yeah, I guess I can talk about the project a bit more, now that I’m slightly more confident about the direction it’s taking.
oh look a video game
(Hey look, a logo! I’ve never had to make one of these before lol.)
I’ve been chipping away on my Touhou Project fangame, Wind God Paper Girl, based on a game jam project you can read about here.
(Work in progress footage; I still have a lot to tweak enemy patterns wise, and the stage terrain is far from finalized. Music is placeholder and obviously not mine).
The game is an arcade-y on-rails shooter, in a similar vein to games such as Panorama Cotton, Panzer Dragoon, and Space Harrier. You play as Traditional Reporter of Fantasy and misinformation Aya Shameimaru, shooting down enemies and delivering papers, all while trying to find out the truth behind a new conspiracy that has taken over Gensokyo.
As previously mentioned, this project is a Touhou fangame. I recognize that the consensus outside of dedicated fangame circles is to just make your own thing separate of an existing IP, but I decided to do this anyways. The official policy towards Touhou fanworks, combined with my love for this series just made it seem like an appealing idea.
visuals
I’ve been creating nearly all the visual assets myself. While I have experience with 2D pixel art, this is my first time doing a ‘serious’ project with 3D, and also one of my first times properly working with 3D rigging and animation; I still have a lot to learn, but I already know more than I did when I started work on the project. I decided to go with a flat/low-poly/low-pixel look, intentionally based off of the Mega Man Legends series. I decided to incorporate outlines for characters and other important interactables; for me, its been finding a balance between something that looks visually good and something that is easy to produce as a solo developer balancing many responsibilities.
For reference, here’s what the models look like in engine:
The initial plan was to go with 2D-billboarded sprites, but I ultimately settled on 3D for a few reasons
- 3D models simply convey depth much better.
- With the amount of animation required, 2D might be more time-consuming.
I think the current style is a good compromise between looking presentable and being quick to produce (for reference, I was able to go from concept art for Reimu (the stage one boss), to a rigged model in about a day’s work). As I continue creating assets, I’m sure I’ll get more efficient.
I still have a lot of work to do; I’m hoping to start official playtesting really soon though, while I continue working on the game’s content. No promises though!
so whats the play?
I guess all-in-all, I have a few major goals with this project
- Create a game based on one of my all-time favourite Video Game franchises.
- Release a paid game on Steam, so I can say “Hi my name is Lyd and I’m an indie game developer here is the game I published on Steam :)”
- Get my 3D-workflow down pat; I want to figure out how I, a (mostly) solo developer can yield good results quickly. If development on this goes smoothly enough, I’d like to keep making cool Video Games. I have too many ideas for Video Games I Would Like To Make, Thus I Need To Make The Video Games.
I hope you will continue following my cool blog for cool video game development. More updates will follow in the coming weeks/months!