Arbiter - Annual Recap - 2021 (Patreon)

HAPPY NEW YEAR YOU WONDROUS DIVAS!!! 🥂

Once again I'll be rolling the December Recap into the Annual Recap to create a new, more powerful recap. Let's get to it!

DECEMBER

First off and most importantly, I hit Diamond in TFT. This is important because it means I am no longer Riot's slave and can play other games in my spare time! Playing games is an important part of the developer experience as it allows our imposter syndrome to bloom and flourish like morning glory on a summer's day, so I'm looking forward to constantly reevaluating my self worth with every new playthrough.

On a more serious note though, December was pretty chill! I spent my work weeks animating Ashe's new form, The Siren's Pulse, and it continues to go smoothly. I took some time off to spend the holidays with my family, but I'm looking forward to diving right back into things starting today! I'm about 1/3rd through her animations right now, so I expect those to be finished by end of January. Exciting!

2021

So! Initially my goal for last year was to solidify the game's environment art pipeline and finally make a new demo level. There were some struggles at the start, but overall I nailed down a workflow I'm pretty happy with and came quite close to finishing said level! I also worked on stuff like traversal mechanics, environmental interaction, and a whole bunch more! Many of the levels are still in the conceptual phase, but I'm excited to finally start working on them properly in the (hopefully not too distant) future.

All that said, about half-way through the year I was given an opportunity to work on another part of the game with a bit more focus. I've mentioned this opportunity before, but I'm still not quite able to talk about the details yet. The important thing is that I took the chance to work on something with a bit more predictability, so I started working on the transformation mechanic!

The transformation mechanic is one of the core mechanics and themes of the game. It basically allows Ashe to "fuse" with the bosses he defeats, gaining access to an entirely new moveset and appearance. Since I already had the forms modeled in 2020, I was primed and excited to finally start animating them and get them in-game, so when the opportunity to do so arose, I took it without hesitation! 

I started off with the first form, The Hunter's Pride, which comes from the boss named Wolf. This is a form focused entirely on combos and style, making it less of a tool to make fights easier and more to make them look sick. It was also one of the easier ones to animate (or so I thought) because he fights with claws, meaning no weapons or anything to throw around.

I planned out the form movesets years ago, but there were still a lot of fine details I had to iron out before getting started. For example, Wolf's form has an infinite combo string with nine unique ground attacks and eight unique air attacks, so I had to come up with effectively 17 unique attack animations, making sure every one of them had their own unique flair.  And this is only for his basic combo! 

It was stressful at the time since I've never really pushed my creativity that hard as an animator, but finishing and being able to share the result and see people get hyped for it was incredibly fulfilling, and I can't wait for you guys to play it yourselves. But alas, that was only for one form.

Shortly after finishing Wolf, I started work on the second form, The Siren's Pulse, which comes from the boss named Scarlet. As I mentioned earlier I'm still in the process of animating this form, but so far it's been very... liberating (?) by comparison. 

This form is focused on floaty movement, constant projectiles, and overall fluidity to the point of being an almost continuous dance. Since she's always floating in this form I don't really have to worry about ground animations, but because of that I can't reuse as many of Ashe's base animations, meaning I have to make a lot more from scratch. That said, her floatiness makes her incredibly fun to animate, so I'm not complaining. I should be able to start showing off their animations by February, but I'll keep you posted!

2022

For this year, the next 6-8 months will be pretty much dedicated to finishing the transformations. After that, I'll be getting back to level design and start blocking out the rest of the game's levels! 

On a more personal note, I'm also going to be moving out soon! My current living environment isn't super conducive to productivity, so I'm excited to finally get outta' here and start investing more time into the game. No promises yet, but I'm hoping with this change I can start posting more updates, stream more work, and FINALLY start doing those damn exclusive posts I keep promising! In general though I expect my productivity to go way up, so I'm really looking forward to it. 

Conclusion

All in all I'm really happy with last year's progress! Finally getting to work on the forms is an absolute treat and feels like I'm hitting a huge milestone, and while there's still some work I want to do to make the levels as pretty as possible, having a solid art pipeline so I can start actually making them is super exciting as well. The prospect of moving out soon is long overdue, and I'm really hoping the result is getting to both work on the game more consistently and share more regular progress.

I've been given some great opportunities in 2021, so I'm incredibly grateful both to those who've reached out and to you guys for supporting me. I know it's a pretty generic thing to say, but quite literally there are some big changes coming to my life that wouldn't have been possible without the enthusiastic response to Arbiter on Twitter, Discord, and here. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I'll do my best to pay it forward someday!

Cheers,
Jordy