Eric's World and Örvar the Shadow
Today we wanted to give you a better look at Eric's world in Midli, which we have shown some previews of before. Previously you'd seen the amazing art James did for Eric's cutscenes, but today we wanted to show off what we're working on for the actual game levels of that world (rough alpha footage incoming).
We have been playing around with adding more animations to backgrounds, to make them a bit more dynamic and interesting, but it's something that is tough to balance. Sometimes we find we want to add too much movement and life to the world, but less is often more. This is especially the case when we need to take into consideration things like, will players get distracted by too many moving objects etc. At one point we were trying out some very cool effects that gave the scene a look of swaying wavy water, but through internal testing (me staring at it and getting motion sickness, hehe) we decided to drop that. A lot of design is trial and error, and sometimes you may think something will look great but when you implement it and try it out, it ends up on the cutting room floor instead.
One other thing you may have noticed from this clip is that there is a new Forgotten Shadow in this world! We have introduced to Midli new shadow creatures called Örvar. You see their glowing eyes in the darkest areas of Midli, but they only ever reach out with an intrusive and long tendril, while the rest of their form remains hidden. As Heli attempts to collect fragments, the Örvar fiail wildly and lash out to disrupt her.
Finally you might notice something different about this Forgotten Shadow, a change we have actually implemented across all our shadow creatures. Their eyes are no longer red! Instead Forgotten Shadows all have 6 glowing golden-yellow eyes. One reason for this was because the red eyes made them look much more sinister than we originally intended, as Forgotten Shadows aren't really meant to be malicious enemies in Midli.
There is also a lore reason for this change, and you will see throughout Midli that a lot of the storytelling is done through visual cues including color choices. You won't get all the answers to Midli's mysteries just by playing through the story, so if you want to really understand what's going on, you'll need to look at the hints and subtexts hidden throughout! We are actually really excited to see what theories and answers you all come up with after playing the game!
That's it for now! As always thanks for all your feedback, likes and patience!
