An indie game based on Winsor McCay's groundbreaking comic strip.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Podcast 21: Building Rooms + More GDEX
about 3 years ago
– Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 04:53:37 PM
Hey Dreamers! Adrian here.
As we begin to wrap the demo we're making for GDEX, we've come to the conclusion that are current method for making levels may not be the most efficient and doesn't play nice with our version control set up. So in this episode of the brainstorming podcast, we discuss building levels in discrete prefab chunks - essentially building out the room itself, and then connecting it to the larger map as a whole, so that way we're not working on one big map at once that has the chance of being overwritten and many hours of work in the process. This one's a bit more on the technical side, especially for Unity users, but we try to break it down for our listeners the best we can, as well as give insight on creating smarter pipelines for content creation while still building creative levels!
We also discuss how the GDEX booth is going, some of our plans for the booth and how you can attend. If you're in the Columbus, Ohio area on the first weekend of October, consider coming to GDEX and seeing us! As well as your first chance to play the game!
Until next time, Dreamers!
~ Adrian & Team Nemo
Saturday Streaming
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Sep 11, 2021 at 06:18:48 PM
Hi Dreamers! Sorry for the late notice, but I will be streaming some Nemo development at https://twitch.tv/pxlplz at around 9:00pm EDT until around midnight. The goal for tonight is to get game flow in, from a title screen to a game over. I'll be adding some death traps too. It'll be a fun time so drop by and say hi!
- Ben
Little Nemo Brainstorming Podcast #19: Introducing Nemo's Glide
about 3 years ago
– Thu, Sep 09, 2021 at 01:15:40 AM
Hey Dreamers! Adrian here.
In this week's episode, we discuss a small piece of the level that we're preparing for the game demo people will get to play at Columbus, Ohio's GDEX show. Specifically, the part where we try to introduce and teach how to use Nemo's glide. We discuss how other game's introduce new moves to the player, how we want to approach it for this game, how that differs in a show environment versus players experiencing the game at home and much more. It's a spirited, one hour conversation on one screen of the game, and a really interesting one to boot!
We also talk about a real trippy effect that is happening in the current version of the game I'm building with inside of Unity. Without getting too technical, this is the cause of dropping Chris' new camera set up for parallax scrolling (which some of you may remember seeing his experiments with on twitter and in the discord) without setting up a background to take advantage of it. The result was incredibly trippy, one that requires a visual aid along with the piece of level that we're primarily discussing in the podcast:
Finally, you may notice a lack of the normal intro/outro for the show. No, we're not throwing back to the halcyon days when we recorded these on a whim. Simply put, the hard drive that has my back up for the intro/outro is currently out of commission. It's not gone for say, so the normal intro should be back next week. Unless it is gone, in which case you'll hear a new recording instead! For now though, the same message applies as always; let us know in the comments or on the discord server if you have any questions, comments or things you want us to cover in future episodes, and thanks so much for listening!
Until next time, Dreamers!
~ Adrian & Team Nemo
Saturday Streaming!
about 3 years ago
– Thu, Sep 09, 2021 at 01:01:21 AM
Hi Dreamers!
It's Saturday night and it's time for the late night dev stream! I'll be working on some moon battle. Meteors specifically. If you want to hang out for a bit I'll be streaming on Twitch at https://twitch.tv/pxlplz. Drop by and say hi!
I start the stream right around 9pm EDT and plan on going until midnight. Make sure you follow on Twitch if you want the go live notification.
See you there!
- Ben
Sunday Funnies: Boss Moon Rising
about 3 years ago
– Thu, Sep 09, 2021 at 01:01:12 AM
Hello Dreamers!
It's been a wild few months, so we've been slow on this feature. Things at Nemo HQ have been busy on the game and off - we've had a few team members move, characters have been torn down and rebuilt as more responsive versions, and we've done lots of art and animation.
Team Nemo has been hard at work making more fun and stable versions of everything you saw in the Kickstarter video!
We're happy to say that we'll be sharing our first public demo of the game at the GDEX Game Expo in Columbus, Ohio during the first weekend of October. I'll also be doing a talk on the game's animation and how you have to rework traditional "principles of animation" for use in games!
In preparation for all of that, we're working on our GDEX demo, which will be a small portion of the Night Sky world, including the Moon boss fight - which is why he's going to be the topic of today's Sunday Funnies episode!
The Man in the Moon
This isn't the first time we've covered the Moon in these updates. If you recall, we took a look at him in our Night Sky update, where we looked at some of the comics that inspired our version of the character and how the artwork for the Moon reflects his appearances in the comics.
The December 3, 1905 episode of Little Nemo in Slumberland, prominently featuring the Moon as a character. This is one of the most famous Little Nemo comic strips in the whole series.
In this comic, the moon is not an enemy, but rather an agent of Slumberland that, along with a yellow creature named Lunatix (we're assuming the "luna" pun here is fully intentional), is sent by King Morpheus to retrieve Nemo so he can be the Princess's playmate. Things go awry, as they often do, when Nemo's bed lifts him into the air, crumbles under him, then takes him to Lunatix, who tells him that they should fly to Slumberland inside the Man in the Moon's mouth! Rather than taking his chances on whether or not the Moon will eat him, he runs away screaming until he wakes up on his bedroom floor (that's what happens when you have too many donuts before bed!)
Here are some concept art appearances of the Moon, along with early roughs of his animation. Despite a simple design, we've gone through a few different versions of our Moon to get the feeling of the face right. He's not always an enemy, so we wanted a design that feels like it could be friendly at some times, mad at others (as in our boss fight!)
This is not the Man in the Moon's first appearance in the comics though. He would instead appear the week before on November, 26, 1905 during the episode where a giant turkey lifts Nemo's house off the ground, landing Nemo in a lake of cranberry sauce in a celery forest.
Little Nemo in Slumberland, Nov. 26, 1905.
There in the center frame is the Man in the Moon with a bemused look on his face, staring at the strange turkey kaiju stomping through Nemo's town. This is a role that he would have throughout Winsor McCay's run of Little Nemo comics - as almost an avatar for the reader, providing emotional context for the action in McCay's surreal fantasy. If McCay wanted to highlight something wondrous or tell the audience when to laugh (much like the laugh tracks used in television sitcoms), the moon could be your guide.
The Oct. 7, 1906 Little Nemo in Slumberland strip, where the Moon watches as Nemo and the Princess jump a car off a a looping ramp. McCay was clearly still working on how he rendered the Moon character - the laughing Moon in the final shot comes across as more sinister than perhaps intended.
(Content warning for the next comic - includes Impie and therefore not-okay racial caricature)
The Dec. 25, 1910 Little Nemo in Slumberland episode, where Flip temporarily takes over for Santa Claus. The Moon appears in the penultimate panel to provide a visual "laugh track" for the comic's punchline.
A relevant reference
Audiences in 1905 would have been more than familiar with the idea of a Man in the Moon. References to the Man in the Moon date back to early Christian lore, including references in Germanic and Roman legends.
More recently in McCay's time was Georges Méliès' 1902 special effects film Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon), which was in turn inspired by the works of Jules Verne. Méliès' film was a huge success in its time and saw many exhibitions across the United States, so McCay's audience was primed for such a character to be included in something like Little Nemo.
As with other story ideas, McCay used the Man in the Moon in several of his projects. Months before he premiered in Little Nemo, the Man in the Moon appeared in Dream of the Rarebit Fiend as a figure taunting a man whose girlfriend had been kissed by the celestial figure ("They say the Man in the Moon kisses all the pretty girls.")
The June 21, 1905 episode of Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, where the Man in the Moon taunts a man whose girlfriend he kissed, while appearing as a nightmarish chorous of laughing faces.
We've had lots of fun developing the Man in the Moon so far! He's been a lot of fun to animate as he's a giant expressive face with really nice hatching effects. McCay always drew the character with a circular silhouette, which has given us an interesting constraint for how to move the face around and show different expressions.
The Moon changing expressions
The famous Moon roar found in the trailer. We made heavy use of squash and stretch and smearing on the character's expressions to create really quick transitions.
That's it for today's Sunday Funnies! We'll continue to share info on this character as we continue to develop him - tell us what you think in the comments!
