The neurons of That Brain have been hard at work for over three weeks now, and artist Ville has passed the baton to writer Alexandra. She will be working on all things story related: main quest line, dialogue, and of course fluff.

Fluffy clouds are fluffy.

You see, quests and dialogue are all well and dandy, but you can’t overestimate the importance of fluff, really.

What exactly is fluff, you ask? Well, if this was an art class the teacher would tell you that fluff is what you find in the space in between things. Ever heard the expression “it’s all in the details”? Fluff is what you find in the details. Fluff is also what you find next to the details. Fluff, in the widest sense of the word, can be used to define almost anything, which is why it’s such a useful term.

Struggling to come up with the right word for something?

Call it fluff.

Already know the right word for something?

Developing your own game can sometimes feel like a momentous task, especially since there are a million different things to deal with. Want to know a secret? Almost all of them are fluff.

Lightning!

For example:

• From which direction do we want the lightning to strike?
• Do we have to reduce the number of cloud layers to improve frame rate?
• … and can we somehow make a reference to Nena’s 99 Luftballons?

And there you have it, a lesson in the art of fluff.This has been an official broadcast from That Brain, thanks for reading. Tune in again tomorrow for more… Uhm, fluff.

We’ve been hard at work making the cities and buildings in 20,000 Above come alive in 3d, and we thought we’d post an update about the workflow and progress!

We wanted the buildings in Pinefiord to have a Gotlandish style, so while Jonatan was there on vacation he photographed a number of houses (see above).

These were later used as inspiration and turned into a concept sheet by Ville, with a lot more bright and colorful buildings than we previously had in the game.

Once Björn got the concepts, he started working on converting them to 3d. The houses are built using small components which are put together inside the game editor. 

Björn developed a system of scripts and shaders allowing every single 3d house to be tweaked and colored uniquely inside the game. The shading technique also includes a unique texture layer that animates the buldings, for stuff like making all windows light up differently each night. This gives us a lot of variety while we can produce new settlements, skyports and entire cities in a rapid pace.

The best part of the setup is that all houses can be rendered together in a single pass. This makes the buildings extremely light-weight, and the cities could potentially be huge, sprawling and colorful even on mobile platforms.

Check out a screenshot of the first houses below and let us know what you think!

Dear brainlings,

My name is Ville Ericsson and I am the concept artist and illustrator at That Brain.

For 20,000 Leagues Above the Clouds we want to convey our characters in the game through 2d portraits, in the spirit of classic RPGs. We also want a wide range of personalities and to break the mold of the types of characters that are usually featured in games.

With 20,000 Above being set in a fantasy world, the characters range from the ordinary to the extraordinary. A lot of the characters will have influences from sea creatures found on earth, to give the world a bit of an undersea feel.

I am happy to show you some of my first portraits for the game here. Let us know what you think, and please don’t hesitate to share with your friends!

Ville Ericsson

We’re proud to announce that Ville Ericsson, a talented artist from Stockholm will be joining us in the creation of 20,000 Leagues Above the Clouds! To celebrate, we’re opening this brand new Tumblr!

Ville has a classical art background and a keen interest in games, and has been diving head-first into everything from oil paintings to digital sculpture. He is already getting seriously busy with the project, where he will be making concepts for the game world and its characters as well as in-game artwork. You can find a few examples of his work here already. Keep your eyes peeled as we’ll be posting more stuff as we go!

If you want to see more of Ville’s personal artwork and other projects, check out his Facebook page. And if you can’t wait for 20,000 Above to come out, make sure you check in on our website and sign up for information about upcoming beta tests!