Cyberpunk Visual Novel

Hey all, I know it's been awhile.  We've been off the radar cause we have been making our Visual Novel, "Neon Tide."  Comes out next year for PC, MAC, Android, IOS and will be on Steam, GOG, Itch.io and Humble Bundle.  Keep an eye out and we will post more info here as it gets closer.  You can also follow us on twitter and instagram to see some cool images or chat with us.

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/skyridestudios
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skyridestudios/

We have some exciting updates to share and we will have a playable demo as well for you to check out.

That's all for now.  -end transmisson-

Kickstarter!

Hello and sorry for the long hiatus.  We have some good news however!

We have officially launched our kickstarter campaign here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skyridestudios/city-of-rain-0

This will help us get the game up and running and pay for people like programmers and animators to help us out in creating the game.  We've done most of the work in our spare time for free and have hit the limit of that.

Please help spread the word if you like the project.  Thank you!

Anime, cosplay and jewelry

Been a busy couple of months here at Skyride Studios.  Some exciting new announcements:

First off, Anime.  Not sure how many of you watch or are interested in anime, but today we have locked down the final letter of intent for casting our video game.  Although we don't want to announce quite yet who we have until contracts are signed, we do have some of the biggest names in american anime voice acting.  (10 to be exact) and we can't wait to let everyone know who they are.

Secondly, cosplay.  Since our voice actors are from the anime world, we want to add some things to our video game that other companies have yet to do.  Cosplay.  We hired a fashion designer (the incredible Lisa Bryne) to put together a outfit based on our Lielah character:

And this is the result of a month of crafting, sewing and fittings:

We are proud of the efforts of everyone involved in making this concept art a reality.

And last but not least is jewelry.  If you notice in that last photo, the necklace being worn isn't just any run of the mill necklace.  It was custom made by Jenny Ming Tu.  It's a locket that opens up with a USB drive inside pre-loaded with a copy of the game.  Best part of all for people who aren't fond of necklaces?  It also has the ability to turn into a bracelet and will be available as a special boxset once the game is released.

Why are we doing all this you may ask?  We are testing out some of our marketing strategies before hand, so if you like what we are doing or have questions, feel free to email us at: will@skyridestudios.com and we'd love to hear your feedback.

Other than that, keep an eye out later this month for details about our cast members.  See you later, screen slavers.

New Year, new stuff

Welcome back.  If you're reading this message, it means you've successfully made it through the holidays with little to no causalities.  Congrats.

With the new year comes new stuff and we here at Skyride, if nothing else, have new stuff.  We've set out a lot of personal deadlines for ourselves this year so make sure to check back in every now and again to see the lastest/greatest.

As you know from last year, we've successfully modeled our main character:

Right now he's getting rigged and weighed and once that's done, we'll put him into the game engine and start running around with him doing all kinds of bad ass stuff.

What you may not have known is that we've added some new stuff to the game.  For example:

A dock over in the warehouse district with a bridge that leads to a cluster of skyscrapers outside of the main city:

A warehouse where an important scene of the game will take place:

And finally, we've added a thick, dense forest inside of the city and hidden a old shack that may or may not have some treasured items you may want to pick up:

So, while we continue to model and create these cool new areas of interest, this year will be mostly dedicated to finding an investor, hiring anime voice actors/actresses, partnering with clothing designer in an attempt to bring some of the outfits of our game to the real world for cosplayers and most importantly getting some characters not only in the game engine, but walking and talking as well.  So, sit back, relax and let's get to it!  Til next time!

Main Character

So in the stream of important news lately (Supermoons and water on mars), we at Skyride Studios, would also like to share our own big news.  You may have seen images of this man around:

His name is Epios and he is the main character for our video game (City of Rain).   After three years of searching for a character modeler, we found one that is not only amazing at his job, but does what he says he'll do and sticks to the blueprints.  Without further ado, here is the untextured  3d modeled version of Epios:

The level of detail makes me start at him for long periods of time and once he is textured, I can't wait to plug him into the game and start moving his around.  Congrats to both our concept artist Leandro and our character modeler Imran for bringing this character to life in ways I never thought possible.  Humbling to have such professionals on our crew.

Also, as a side bonus, here's a young version of our main Villain, Scythe:

Malice in Wonderbread

Lately we were inspired by the game "Hitman Absolution" (which if you haven't played it, you're missing out).  Inside one of the levels are a bunch of hippies that have this AMAZING black light bathroom/massage area:

It's a little hard to see here but if you play the game, you'll roam around it for a hour like we did.  ANYWAYS!  We wanted to see if Cryengine 3 could handle a black light looking room as well so we tested it out and bingo, totally, so we started carving away at a black light business and came up with the idea to make it Alice in Wonderland themed.  Knowing that Disney has a HUGE copyright on this story we checked around and even though Disney's version and images are copyrighted, Lewis Carroll's illustrations in the book aren't (because they are over 100 years old past copyright law).  So that's what we used in the level along with some of our own custom fan made, Alice inspired artwork.  Check it out in this video!

   


Pretty cool, yeah?  Let us know what you think in the comment section!

Sludge, sweets and sewers

Hello and welcome back.  We've been in the background continuing to work on the game and it's finally starting to come together.  More bigger news later this month.  For now, lets start with the alleys:

Lately I've been hard at work making every single prop in order to make this town feel like a town.  Cardboard boxes, crates, pipes, stairs, trash cans, etc.  You name it, I modeled it.....and lit it....and added animation to it........you get the idea.


We here at Skyride like the "Hands off" approach when it comes to gameplay.  We will set up areas with specific treasures to find, but we don't want to have to blatantly point out where you need to go next.  Characters and props will help lead the way.  One of the cool concepts we are going to do incorporate are posters in the city like this:

Even those these posters won't be moving, they will be plastered around town and will "magically" change their image depending on where you need to go next.  So incase you ever get lost or can't seen to figure out what to do next, all you'll have to do is track down a poster and you'll get a good hint.  This hint is what you'll get when you first arrive in the city and need to get a place to live while you are here.

RainChecks are the in-game currency you use to buy things.  You will not need to buy fake money with your credit card, because this game is a non pay-to-win game and we feel like if you bought the game, we don't need anymore cash from you. (You're welcome.)


Another big idea we've been bouncing around are the idea of sewers.  Since it's a city of Rain, there sewer system should be large and vast.  We didn't want to make this game about living in the sewer and hiding with the mole people because we want to force the player to interact with the people in the city.  So to meet in the middle, we hid a secret underground room somewhere in the level (no, we aren't telling you where and good luck finding it) and as a bonus we put someone special living inside that room.  Take a look:

We might add some special weapons or a loot of money or something cool in this room later, but for now, it's just a sewer room.


So that basically wraps up the latest on our end.  Hopefully you start to get an idea of the feeling of the game as well as how some of the gameplay might be.  Keep an eye out this month for big news about our characters and we will see you next time screen slavers.

Holograms, Hunny's and Haters

Hellooooooooooooooo again.  Welcome back.  Let's get started!

First off is Holograms.  Now if you've been reading the blog, you may remember THIS post about us wanting to incorporate holograms throughout the city.  This is no longer the case as the city isn't mean't to be futuristic and we don't want to give the impression as such.  

HOWEVER, that being said, we do have gadgets in the city that resemble a little future-tech and one of which will allow you to get a map of the city in hologram form so you can see your position.  Here is our first attempt at this:

Where your character stands in the map is where you are located in the city.  At the moment it doesn't update your location yet but that will be something we are working on for sure.  The idea is to keep as much of the immersion in the game as possible while also freeing up your screen from HUD's and other distracting information.  The green buildings are placeholders for marked locations of importance.


Next up are Hunny's.  Lielah to be exact.  As you last read in THIS post we finished the adult version of Lielah and although that version is locked and ready to be modeled, we still needed a younger version of her.  This is the version we've locked down:

As usual Leandro, our concept artist, did a fantastic job!  

Next, as we promised, here is Metis A.K.A.  The Cockroach King.  He is the evil overlord of the orphan children of Rain and uses them to push his drugs throughout the city.  He's crazier than crazy, just don't say it to his face. ;-)

Looks like the whole gang is coming together slowly and we promise there are many more along the way:

Take care and have a great day!

Halloween Treat.

Here's a small Halloween treat for you all.  Progress continuies with the texturing of all the buildings.  I believe half the city buildings are textured and by the new year my goal is to have the other half finished as well.  Here's a few sneak peeks:

The Blue Wolf will be a night club where the main character goes when he first enters the city.  The inside is already modeled with a long hallway and elevator that drops down into the basement where the nightclub is.   

Here is some experimentation with flares and lights.  I needed a break from texturing and played around for a few minutes.  Can't wait to get a whole street lit.


In other news Leandro has finished three concepts for Lielah.

Lielah plays your sister in the game and is the object in which the whole story is taking place.  She is your kidnapped sister that you must find and rescue from her captor.  At different stages of the story she will be wearing each of these outfits with the one on the right being the last one she wears.


Well, hope you've enjoyed this treat and keep an eye out for more next month!

Concept Artist part 2!

Hello and welcome again!  What a busy month it's been!  So many new hires and wouldn't you know, we got one last one to share with you.  This is Leandro Furlanetto, our newest concept artist:

After a decade working in the advertising industry in Brazil for companies such as Young & Rubicam, one of the largest advertising firms in the country, he became a self-taught artist who works both in the traditional and digital media formats. His unique style and use of color, contrast and composition stood him out from the rest and we here at Skyride Studios couldn't be more happy to have him work on the video game: City of Rain.

Here are a few examples of Leandro's work:

To see more of his work, you can follow him on deviant art at:

http://slipled.deviantart.com/

In other news, we've been creating some cool props to place around the city.  Newest to show is a little food cart where you'll be able to buy fruits/meats and foods unique only in the world of City of Rain.   You'll be able to refuel your character, trade food for information or use it to place distractions.  These carts will be mostly located on main street but there will be other shops around the city scattered about:

Hope you've enjoyed this little update and keep an eye out for some more info about the game soon.  Until then.

Programming a professional

Greetings again!  Everyone is probably at E3 right now but you'll all take a break to read this blog.

We have a new team member for Skyride Studios and best of all it's a position we've tried to fill for a long time........*Drops curtain*

A PROGRAMMER!  *confetti*

Meet Chuck Scott:

Chuck has worked at EA as a QA tester for years and even longer than that he has worked various fields in the I.T. department.  His coding skills are in C++ and he's got knowledge in windows, mac and linux based systems.  We are so excited to have him on the team and can't wait to show off his skills.










In other news Rico, our Character Designer has been hard at work modeling a few of the supporting cast for the game; Dionysus and Willow:

Rico's been hard at work learning correct procedure on how to best implement these character into the game engine and since they are beginning to look so fantastic, we ourselves can't wait to see them in action.


On another front Luis, our composer has been cooking up some beautiful music.  I shared a little sample of it a few posts ago but lately we wanted to see how the forest song (the first song you'll hear in the game) worked with the visuals of the forest (the first location you'll be when the game starts) so we compiled the two together and created a little simple test video.  Check it out in HD in fullscreen (it's worth it)


A lot of exciting stuff happening so keep an eye out throughout the year.  Other than that we will see you later ScreenSlavers.

Graveyards and Gardens

Well hello again.  Sorry for the long wait, it's been a crazy month (as always).  You're probably itching to know what's been new, so here's what I got for ya: (keep in mind all of the photo's have not been altered.  It's all in game screen caps, the only thing I added was the Skyride logo.)

So I wanted to start from the beginning and get the feel of the game set up the best I could.  I drew inspiration from games like the new Tomb Raider game which has GREAT production design.  All these really pretty sections of the game you see as you go through the level.  So I did my best to try to capture that kind of feel: (really, if you haven't played the game, go rent it. It's masterful.)

Tomb Raider:

City of Rain:

In the story, someone dies (I don't want to give away who) and the main character takes their body up on a hill that overlooks Rain.  This is the spot where he buries that body:

Notice how I'm not trying to give away where the location is. :-p

Also somewhere on the hill is a cemetery I've been working on.  It's still a work in progress but I'll show you a sneak peak of what it looks like at night:

I've just started today on it, so give it another week and I should be done.  I'm slowly working my way back to the city.
1. Because these small area's are super important and need to get done
and
2. Because I have SO many more buildings to texture and I don't want to do them. (^_^)

If pictures aren't your thing, you can always watch this gameplay video of the intro and park area I had made a few days ago.  Bonus is the music track will be in the game and has been composed by my talented composer L.A.Z.

The park you will see is actually inside of the city and is about 75% done.  I have to add a few more special spots here and there but you'll get the idea.  It's suppose to look abandoned and forgotten with overgrowing trees.  Watch it in HD for great detail.  

Enjoy:

Well, that's all I got for now.  If you like what you see, I'd love to hear about it.  Or even if you don't.  Also, I'm currently looking for someone who'd be interested in character design/animation/implementation.  If you or someone you know would like to work on this video game with me, shoot me a email at: will@skyridestudios.com and we'll talk.  Thanks a lot.  Later, Screen Slavers.

Oculus Rift and Music

Hello crazies, how's it going?  Long time no talk and yes, it's my fault.  Lots of new developments and progress.  So here is what has been going on since my last update:

I've recently got my hands on a developers kit of the Oculus Rift.  If you don't know what it is, you can visit their page here and find out more:

http://www.oculusvr.com/

So now that everyone knows what it is, you can image how excited I am to have this fine piece of equipment even though it was purchased by a client of mine so that I could develop some software specific idea's for him.  This has taken a lot of my free time away from the video game but I am still pushing on none the less.


I've also had the pleasure of having a meeting with some super creatives over at http://in2itentertainment.com/
who have expressed interest in Skyride Studios and might partner with me in the video game world.

Since it's almost Halloween, I'd figured since my trick of not posting as often as I'd like has happened, I owe everyone some treats.  So here are two songs (works in progress) my amazing composer has been working on for me.  The first is a soothing song for the love interest of the main character:

https://soundcloud.com/skyride-studios/ateh/s-DNtuI

This next song will be in one of the shops called the Garden of Weeden we showed in a older post that you can find here:

http://skyridestudios.blogspot.com/2013/03/shop-til-you-drop.html

And here is the song:

https://soundcloud.com/skyride-studios/garden-of-nature-spirits/s-vpRXI

So there you have it at the moment.  Lot's of fun things coming along the way as they get finished.  Keep a eye out for some side projects that will be posted here as the video game continues on.  Thanks for reading!

City of Shame

Hey, how have you been?  Me?  Pretty good.  Getting a presentation put together to show some business clients and thought I'd give you a sneak peek at how my game is coming along.

I added some elements to part of the rundown side of the city and this is what I have so far:

I'm pretty excited about this.  The blue lights the man is standing under flicker and in the far right there is a candle light effect.  Obviously still a lot to add in but I've been enjoying it.  Ok, time to get back at it.  Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

Mansion

What's that you ask?  Where I have I been for almost a month?  Only modeling this crazy mansion.  This will be the mansion where the owner of the city lives.  Just a little shack.  Allow me to walk you through.

Here's the front of the mansion (see that tiny doorway in the front, that's about the size your character will be):

Once you walk in, you get this view (interior isn't complete):

From upstairs it looks like this:

In the middle of the building is a outside courtyard (this is looking down from the roof:

And finally in the back of the mansion where there will be a lush garden:

So as you can tell, I've spent a fair amount of time on the details, adapting about 12-15 pictures of actual mansions with features I liked.  The inside shouldn't take me too much longer, and then I will add chandeliers, huge fireplaces, etc.  Really "Citizen Kane" the hell out of the building.  

If you don't know what Citizen Kane is, it's a movie.  Go watch it.