January 2018 Update

Hello all, sorry for such a long delay between posts. The holidays were quite busy and we just didn't get a spare minute to put a nice update together.

The past few months of concept work has focused on NPCs. The art we've done so far for environments feels pretty good and we have enough of a handle on it now that we feel comfortable modeling finished environments (which we're working on for the beginning of the game). Now we need to populate those spaces with the Overlord's varied minions.



Conceptually, we are going for an enemy design that looks strange and surreal. Because the story of Grappledrome will take place as the Overlord is slowly going insane we want the enemy design to reflect that. The enemies you encounter will have a certain form and design to them but there should always be something strange and slightly off about them. The Grappledrome in its more perfect days was a finely tuned torture chamber for human minds...but now things are starting to come apart ever so slightly. The Overlord isn't quite what it used to be and you can see that in the NPCs that populate the space.

In our artwork so far this idea manifests itself in strange body plans that arrange familiar features in strange ways.



The two pieces included in this post show this with the asymmetry in the legs and eye placement especially. Though other shapes in the body plan work toward this end too I suppose.

We're excited about this direction and we want to push it even further. The world of Grappledrome will have as many NPC varieties as we can manage. It's definitely a point of emphasis. We don't think it will be a satisfying campaign if you only fight 4 or 5 enemy types. We want way more than that. It will take some time but will hopefully be worth it in the end.

As we've mentioned before we are developing this game on the side. Some of you might be interested in our other work. I'm currently working on a documentary series called "The Lost Tapes" for the Smithsonian Channel. I will do a mini-update when an episode I worked on is airing. You can check out some of Brian's handiwork on The Amazing Race airing right now on CBS. He has also done some UI design for Way Forward games.

Thanks for your continued interest in Grappledrome. You can expect the regular monthly update now that the holidays are over.

As for an actual ship-able milestone...I'm hoping we can have a slice of the beginning of the singleplayer game ready to play in the not-too-distant future. I know that's frustratingly vague but I don't want to give a time estimate that I will inevitably blow right past.

Thanks for hanging with us...happy gaming!

Th Devs