Hi everyone! Since we are quickly approaching the end of the voting part of LD 44, I wanted to share a little about the intro animation we made for our game and go over all the different elements at play.
First, let me introduce you to the different people (and their LD profiles) so you know what individuals I am referring to in my text below.
Programmer: Eric @xand
Artist: Belle @belle
Musician: Daniel @danield
Main Voice: Dianna Conley (No LD name. Her twitter is @DiannaConleyVO)
Other voices: Franki @hankshaw, Zach, Aiko, Dove and myself @langotriel
Writing, direction & sound FX: Me! :D @langotriel
Other people on the team that focused more on non-intro stuff: @Simon-rahnasto (programmer) and @deoduckla (sfx assistant)
You can see the intro in a video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xANlQdlEh1w
STEP 1 - THE SETTING
Before we could create an intro sequence, we needed an idea of what would go into that sequence (seems obvious, I know). I am not the person who came up with the initial idea for the game or universe so the first port of call is communication!
1.1
Communicating with the team is super important. I talked to @belle a lot about her idea for the game world and I was informed that the game was set in a dungeon where people were being judged. They had to go through this dungeon and if they come out alive at the other end, they have proven themselves innocent. Fantastic! With that core, I approached belle soon after with the idea of having a religious figure judging prisoners in front of an unruly jury.
1.2
The image i presented @belle with was a very crude compilation of clip art and terrible paint skills. I wish I had kept the image but I did not. Trust me; it was bad. However, it conveyed clearly what type of imagery I had in mind and how I wanted characters arranged. Belle understood my vision and went on to create art while I got going on the script writing.
Step 2 - THE ART & SCRIPT
2.1
I wanted to keep the intro relatively short so wrote what I estimated would end up as 45 seconds or so, while cramming all the information I wanted in. This proved to be too long and so was eventually shortened to about 30 seconds. I knew I wanted the religious figure to be imposing so I made sure to fit in big scary words like "castigated" which sounds intimidating :O. I also knew I wanted some rowdy crowd interaction so I wrote the script with some pauses to fit in some odd shouts like "off with their heads" and "yeah!".
2.2
@belle had been working hard at creating the art for the scene and despite me only asking for a single image, she managed to pump out 3 layered images to give us more to work with. I think it turned out great! Here is what one scene looks like with all the layers being added 1 by 1.
We had grand plans to add rain particle effects behind the wall layer and so on, but that was something we didn't have time for, unfortunately. Still, the final result looks fantastic and really helps set the scene (literally).
Now that the art and writing was in order, we had to start putting it together in code at the same time as recording voice work!
STEP 3 - VOICE AND CODE
@Xand is a genius. A lot of programmers need lots of explanation to get how to portray a scene without sufficient storyboards or whatever. Not @xand. He just seemed to pick up what I was putting down and so, even with crude descriptions and poorly worded explanations, he got to work on putting the scene together.
3.1
I had told @xand that I wanted the religious figure to appear as a white silhouette on a black background as she shouts her first words. This was for 3 main reasons.
The first was to make her stick out and convey to the audience that she was the key character in the scene. It was also to portray her as the supposed light in darkness, which went well with the religious theme. This "light in darkness" thing contrasts with her tone of voice to create a very dominating and intimidating religious figure. The third was to not give the player too much visual information and rather let the thunderous voice work of @DiannaConleyVO give the first impression, making the art all the more powerful as it fades into colour.
The rest of the scene was put together according to how I had written the script. Certain parts of the script went with certain images. On top of all that, @xand found the time to make the background character bob up and down and added some nice movement to the Dianna's character which you can see here:
I think the end result looks awesome!
3.2
While this was being done, I was communication with the voice actors @DiannaConleyVO, @Hankshaw, Zach, Aiko and Dove about their lines (both for the intro and in-game). Dianna was the main character in the scene and we talked on discord and she recorded a lot of her lines live with me in the call so I could give real-time feedback on her work. For Ludum dare, real-time feedback is pretty essential for the bigger roles as it takes a lot more time to receive a file, listen to it for ages and give wait for a new one. The rest of the voice work was done after a quick call with each actor so they could get a feel for their lines.
The intro is made up of 3 main voice pieces.
1. The religious figure. This is the main speaker and she dominates the space.
2. The outbursts. These are audible and clear lines you hear shouted from the back of the jury crowd. These voice lines are tactically mixed in during the pauses in the main speech.
3. The mob grumble. Both the rowdy jury and the begging prisoners have their own crowd sounds which consist of a lot of unintelligible mumbling. This involved all the voice actors and is probably made up of about 15 different audio clips playing together. The grumbling/mumbling is incredibly important to create a soundscape that feels real. Even if you don't notice it that much while watching the intro, I can assure you that you would notice if it wasn't there.
I added some effects like reverb and delay to the appropriate places and tadaa, the voice part was done. However, voice was not the only audio to go with this intro!
STEP 4 - MUSIC
@Danield was given a rough draft of the intro as well as the length of the intro. With that, he created a piece of music that slowly builds over the course of the cinematic and finishes in an epic fashion as it blends directly with the in-game music loop. It is simply put a work of genius and it works so seamlessly with everything else. The brass elements lend their sound of authority and the brooding percussion helps set the dramatic pace of the intro. It's a wonderful work of art.
We put the music at a volume that went well with the rest of the audio and put it together.
Then we had to compile it all into one glorious intro sequence
STEP 5 - FINISHING TOUCHES
With all the pieces, @xand put the music, art and voice together. He also added the visual effects, movement and scene changes as well as adding much needed subtitles to the intro.
What we ended up with was a cinematic that really helps convey to the player why they are doing what they are doing and sets the scene for what we consider one of our best LD entries. We are all very proud and if you should feel inclined to do so, you can find our entry here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/path-of-redemption
Hope you enjoyed this post and I wish you all a good day!
* 
Hello everyone!! This has been a super interesting month for me. It's the 3rd time I try to compete in Ludum Dare, but the first time I actually managed to finish a game. It's an amazing experience, I never thought that the real fun began after finishing the game and entering the rating stage. Getting to play all of your amazing games, and not even reaching 10% of them is overwellming and beautiful at the same time. The amount of feedback and kind words I received has no price, and I apreciate it deeply. I promised to keep working on my game, as many of you suggested. So, I kept my promise, and here it is, the final update. I really took more than I expected but I'm pretty happy with the result. With no further introduction the changelog:
