Overgrowth Alpha

[ibly31]

Hey guys, I stumbled across something a little while ago that I'm sure many of you have heard of. It's a game called "Overgrowth", being developed by the independent developers, Wolfire games. It is currently in a preorderable alpha and it looks pretty damn sweet. They have a giant series of youtube videos that are weekly development logs and give great insight into the development process.

My explanation of Overgrowth would NOT do the project justice, so here is a great Rock Paper Shotgun article/interview that really sums up the game's goal:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09 ... interview/

The youtube series also has a great art asset overview weekly video. Sometimes the artist does time lapse paintings in photoshop, comic drawings (they have a comic also! ) or 3D modelling. The art really is quite amazing for such a small number of people working on the project. I think the thing that makes me most impressed by this is that for the longest time I thought the project was in Unity 3D, but turns out it is a homebrew engine that has scripting, ragdoll physics, amazing graphics and AI all programmed by ONE programmer. These videos usually provide me with enough inspiration to do great work on my projects, so if you are looking for some inspiration, definitely look these guys up. They definitely deserve more recognition!

[TheBuzzSaw]

I have been subscribed to their video feed for a long time. GOOD STUFF.

[MadPumpkin]

For the past 2 and a half years I've been all over Wolfire, in fact it's the reason I'm not on these forums nearly as often as I was around a year ago.

[ibly31]

I feel like Wolfire and Elysian Shadows are the only people (I know of) that have a series like this. I'm actually genuinely disappointed when Wolfire doesn't make a weekly video or yet another week goes by with no Adventures in Game Development (cough)!

If you know of any other "open development" style videos, please share!

[dandymcgee]

I feel like Wolfire and Elysian Shadows are the only people (I know of) that have a series like this. I'm actually genuinely disappointed when Wolfire doesn't make a weekly video or yet another week goes by with no Adventures in Game Development (cough)!

If you know of any other "open development" style videos, please share!

I hear JForce games has an awesome series over on YouTube.

Aside: Lmao, the joke in your sig is great.

[MadPumpkin]

Yea but those guys are assholes... Anyway, yea I've been following OG for ages it's such a fun game. I love open development video series like this, I hope to start mine going like this when I decide which screen recorder is good, and get a camcorder.

[GroundUpEngine]

I have been subscribed to their video feed for a long time. GOOD STUFF.

Same! Very good quality game!

[davidthefat]

Now, is the game from scratch or does it use a commercial game engine?

[ibly31]

100% from scratch. All written by one guy, who says coded it in C++ and that it uses Angelscript for most game logic.

I know he has written engines before, but thats just ridiculous!

[MadPumpkin]

Yea, but you have to note the other developers just to be fair :D. David Rosen does the programming on the engine, the engine is written in C++ and uses AngelScript and xml data for maps and what have you. Aubrey.. Cerr? Serr? is the artist and does everything visual apart from the obvious such as shaders which David also takes care of. John is the business side of it but he also runs The Humble Indie Bundle and Jeff does webcode for both wolfire and HIB.

The crazy insane part that I not only love them for, but have learned from them and now use in my engine. I definitely credit them 180% for this too, it was not at all my idea. The inteface in Overgrowth is all webcode by Jeff and interfaced by David using WebKit and Awesomenium. It's crazy to think that the inteface is just html and javascript in my opinion! I've started adopting it from them. David was pretty willing to explain in short how it can interface with the javascript to the C++ engine control.

EDIT: Shit I forgot Mikko Tarmia and Anton Rheil.. Reihl? one of those, they make all the insanely awesome music in Overgrowth, that flute playing you hear in the main theme is an original by Anton Reihl.
Antons site: http://antonriehl.com/

[ibly31]

Oops, just reread my post and realized how much I accredited David for everything! Haha, the quality of the art and the music far surpasses what I would expect for an indie game - it just seems like it's been created by a team of professionals.

The 3D models + different texturing techniques really put the engine in a good light also.

[MadPumpkin]

Yea, I just reread mine and realized how much of a stalker I am!