Development Diary 15: How to Cheat at Character Modelling

4th August 2015

Hi everyone! Welcome to this Tuesday update; for the next few weeks, our Monday updates will be happening a day later on Tuesdays, so watch this space. This week we've been hard at work generating new characters. This is usually a very time consuming process, but we've come up with a shortcut which should make things a little faster. Check out the video below for more.

Development Diary 14: Making Faces

27th July 2015

Welcome back to Filly the Kid HQ! This week, we're looking at character models; more specifically, using blendshapes to create facial expressions. And what better guinea pig to test this on than Filly herself. Check out the video below for a glimpse of our main (mane?) girl and her many expressions (well, four expressions anyway).

Development Diary 13: Filly the Kid at Develop

20th July 2015

Hi everyone! Welcome to our 13th dev diary installment - the format is a little different this week as instead of a video diary, I'd like to tell you a little about the exciting week we've had out of the studio.

This week saw Filly the Kid exhibited at Develop, Brighton, the first time our little game has been introduced to the big, wide, public world. We're currently at Alpha stage, which means the game is unpolished but playable, so it was a great opportunity for some all important play-testing.

All set up and ready to catch some bandits

Because I spend so much of my time working on Filly, I become really accustomed to how everything works, where to go, which buttons to press, so it can be difficult to understand objectively how it feels to play. Play-testing is so important because it brings a fresh pair of eyes and a fresh brain to the game's interface, so I can start to understand which parts are working and which parts need improvement.

Play-testing is also great for catching bugs; I now know of several which I hadn't seen before, including one where Filly's eyes sometimes float out of her head when changing between biped and quadruped mode (you know, the sort of thing which would be quite difficult to pass off as a stylistic choice).

For now, we're back to the studio, so check back next week for the latest update and a new video.

Development Diary 12: Welcome Back to Paydirt

7th July 2015

First off, apologies for the delay in this week's update, but hopefully it will have been worth the wait. This week, we're revisiting the town of Paydirt, which has had a makeover since we last saw it, as our artists have been hard at work with designing and texturing. Check out the video below to see the new, improved, many-horse town.

Development Diary 11: Whiteboxing

29th June 2015

Hi all! This week we'll be taking a look at whiteboxing. This is the process by which we roughly block out a level in order to test the mechanics we've been working on in an in-game setting. This is important for gauging things like user experience i.e. how fun/challenging/engaging the game is to play, and also for getting a sense of the geography of our game world. Check out the video below for a sneak peek at our first whiteboxed level.