So, it's been a little while since I've posted an update and thought I'd let everyone know that I wasn't MIA. These last few months have been somewhat tempestuous. As Josh posted awhile ago, we lost our Dad back in October and I've sort of buried myself in work in order to deal with that...whether that be my day job or with WNG; I've been plowing ahead with blinders on...just focusing on what's in front of me. What have I been focused on, you might ask? Many, many things.

I've recently updated our Unity project over to the latest 4.6 codebase and have been overhauling our point & click UI interface to make our game a bit more "contemporary" when it comes to adventure games these days. Originally, everything was based around a ray-cast from the mouse pointer that would basically just look for a "hotspot" within the world whenever the user would move the mouse around and would let you know if an interaction was available. This was all fine and good, but I didn't really like the whole issue of "pixel hunting" that could plague some of the older Sierra On-Line point and clicks of the 90s. I decided to switch the system over to be based on the player vicinity instead. I created an invisible "sphere" around the player that basically "pings" the world around it to see what hotspots are available. This means that you can explore the world and discover hotspots based off of the player location rather than simply passing your mouse around the screen to find things that the player may not be able to realistically see in the world. It seems to be working pretty well.

In addition to that, I've been cranking out a lot of 3d model creation, geometry layout, texturing, character design, animation, lighting, and scripting. Basically...everything under the sun. I just finished a system that lets the player turn lights on in the world based off of items that they have in their inventory...so lighting candles, torches, fires in fireplaces, lanterns, etc...is now possible. It's allowing for some pretty atmospheric/moody exploration.

Besides all of that, I also created a 3d avatar for our Dad in the game. During our last visit, he and I sat down and wrote some lines of dialogue and I recorded his voice. Now, we might not be able to afford a full VO budget for this project, but I do have several lines of dialogue that are very much "Dad" that I will be holding dear for the rest of my life. If we're able to get budget together, I'd love to be able to let you all hear his smart-ass self and sort of "immortalize" him in my own way.

In the meantime, here's a screengrab of his 3d avatar:

I guess that means I just posted the first screenshot from our first game. It's appropriate that it's of our father. :)

Love you, Dad!

WATCH: The History & Evolution of Arkhangel. A mini-doc about the development of an original point & click adventure by brothers Josh and Zachary Quarles.

"Arkhangel: The House of the Seven Stars" is available NOW!

An Update about WNG's Point & Click Adventure!