Isagoras XBOX 360 game
Isagoras is a 2.5D shoot ’em up game for XBOX 360 and the game has its arts done mostly with free software like GIMP, Inkscape and mainly Blender. The team of 4 people at Red Circle Studio use XNA and an own engine.
Raimon Guarro writes:
Hi Bart,
I write to you because in a few days, I hope, Isagoras will be published in the Indie Games marketplace of the XBOX platform.
Isagoras is a shoot’em up game, in 2.5D, in which a ship travels through 5 levels to win a sort of space invaders that treathens the human race. Nothing so original, but the artistic part is done using only free software tools and mainly Blender, and as the first project of this kind for the entire team (4 people). So I wonder if it could be possible to publish this issue near or right on the launching date.
Whether it is possible or not, soon I will submit the news as used to do in BlenderNation past times, to be published when/if you find right.
Additionally, if everything goes the right way, I will present this project at this coming Blender Conference.
In the meanwhile, I attach for your information some links where you
can see more about the project.Thanks and hope to send you fresh news in a few days.
Regards,
Raimon
Links:
Question? is this game mimic space invader and asteroid? now days every game company borrow some stuff from each other. god speed!
Ok, the game is not yet released, hope this happens in a few days…
@RNS I don’t fully understand your question. We are not looking for originality in this game indeed, but for a first approach to a real game production.
Nothing special in terms of gameplay, but the graphics are novel. A 2D shooter with 3D rendering. The cartoonish look is novel as well.
Oh I love shooters like this! Good one!
Hope it does well!
Cool, reminds me of wings of apocalypse
Hmm, hate to be so negative but I was not impressed by the graphics or design, and there have been (better-looking) 2.5D shooters for almost 10 years. It’s great that they have produced this with mostly free tools, but to be honest it’s not a good advertisement for the tools. I would say the game looks complete on a functional and wholistic level, but the individual art elements lack detail, polish and visual interest. I mean, a lot of the enemies appear to be unadorned spheres. Really?
alexK:
I see your point. Unfortunately I don’t understand why those textures are so low poly :-(
AlexK:
Gotta say I agree, unfortunately… And I also would like to add that I saw quite a bit of doubled geometry in the game, which is definitely something they should fix… Along with some normal issues. If you want to have a smoothed look, finish off and really round the corners! You can have a bevel, then a flat, flush line along the inside of both sides of the bevel, and it will help give it a smooth look to it.
For the first attempt by a four-man team, this looks impressive! I want to see what Red Circle comes up with next!
Thanks for all comments,
to the negative ones I must say that I understand your point too, but keep in mind that this is our first attempt in game creation. For the advertisement issue… well, this art is not the best ever seen, I know, but these are things done, which unfortunatelly doesn’t happen as often as we would like. Personally a like to be able to say “I’ve done this”, instead of having a portfolio populated with wonderful but unfinished pieces of so called art.
The explanation of a so low poly is that I had no idea of the vertices threshold at which geometry begin to slow the gameplay. So it was mainly a matter of working with minimums when possible. Aprox the same goes about texture sizes and so.
Thanks for the crits, for sure we’ll take care of this downsides next time. :)
Raimon
As a big fan of Raiden this looks like a pretty fun game, I especially like the BFG shot- I couldn’t tell from the video, is there a decent variety of weapons?
Wow, this reminds me a lot of some of the Treasure shooters. Radiant Silvergun? Ikaruga?
I love these games, and this one’s looking good.
I agree, the visual aspect could use some more work :(
Boring models, boring textures, flat visual effects, overuse of glow, background is messy at times.
BUT it’s a COMPLETE game. The visual aspect is a fraction of the amount of work involved in making a game, like the tip of the iceberg.
Better to have an average game done, rather than a wonderful nothing.
On the plus side, I like the use of 3D for asteroids and background ships. :)
Raimon –
I hope my comments weren’t too harsh. Believe me when I say my own efforts would not compare favorably to yours if I tried to do the same thing. I definitely respect the effort behind it, and it’s an accomplishment to have finished a whole game, even if it’s not showing off groundbreaking graphics. Don’t get discouraged, good luck with this one in the marketplace, and good luck producing your next one!
Awesome work for your first attempt at making a complete game. I pray that you have much success at this and many more projects to come. Also, it is promising to see that you used only free software to achieve this. Not being able to afford the expensive commercial industry standard software is discouraging enough. But seeing a group of talented game developers use free software to produce a complete game is quite encouraging and instills hope in me being apart of the free software community. Keep on producing guys!
Hi,
thanks again for comments, all positive and/or constructive. @alexK, don’t worry, I’m so critic too with other’s work, so not a problem to say things by its name. The only thing is that me as the responsible of art section I should explain the why of some issues.
@JIMMIE L S keep in mind that free software tools were used only for the art section, not the programming one, because AFAIK XBOX platform is a closed one, any anyway Agusti, director and main developper, isn’t so used to free software tools. But leaving apart some issues (mainly about fbx exporting), tools were “not relevant” in our workflow, in the most positive meaning of “not relevant”.
off the record: Your notes about overuse of glow effect didn’t surprised me… I told the same thing to Agusti for several times, and what you can see is the result of a deal between him and me ;-). Our path in this life is all about deals and balances ;-)
@Hubert indeed the main inspiration for Agusti in the way this game works, and looks too, was Ikaruga, and he told me several times about Treasure games, but because I’m not a gamer guy since many years ago, my background in this area was ranging from poor to inexistent.
Thanks again to all,
Raimon
Hi,
finally Isagoras is at the Indiegames store. Check it out here:
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550660
Regards,
Raimon
Congratulations! ignore the haters, they are just jealous :) You have made a great accomplishment. Return of the Tripods!
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