Milestone 1 (Week 2)

On March 11th, we officially started pre-production of High Moon. Our first task was deciding what parts of the project everyone would work on and from there we moved onto figuring out the overall direction of our game, and then onto writing, concepting, whiteboxing and some of the traversal mechanics we would be needing. The main pillars of the game are story that is told through dialogue, environment and collectables, platforming by utilizing various climbing mechanics, and third-person shooter style combat.

In week 1, we kept the focus mainly on developing the story and the layout of the levels, as well as setting up some of the base mechanics in engine. On week 2, we finalized the level layouts and whiteboxing, as well as getting some of our first assets modeled. During both of these weeks we also spent a lot of time concepting the characters and environments so that we could jump into modeling as soon as pre-production ended.

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Story & Characters

The star of High Moon is Mira Otero, a 19-year-old girl who lives with her younger brother in a small American ranching village during the 1890s. One day, she comes home to find the entirety of her town fast asleep, as if under some mysterious spell. As she wanders the streets in confusion, she finds her brother slumped over the well and a strange cat sitting next to him. To her surprise, the animal begins talking and tells her of an evil plot involving the village that a wicked hag has been brewing. As the only hope left, she follows the cat's advice and jumps through the magical portal in the well. She arrives outside the town, at the edge of an abandoned village full of the withered husks of villagers that have had their life force drained by the hag. After defeating them, she must journey up the mountain, engaging in more combat with the hag's loyal followers and trying not to lose her footing as she scales the rock faces. Finally, she will face off at the top of the mountain against the hag, under the full moon. If she is successful, her brother and the rest of the town will be freed from their slumber and can return home as their savior.

Once we finalized the story, we were ready to start concepting the characters! Here's Mira and her brother, Santino:

Character designs by Jakub Hajek (top) and Rori Page (bottom)

For the sleeping villagers, we decided to keep their designers fairly simple, with two variations each for the men and women. As they would be static for the entirety of the game, we didn't have to worry about the long dresses getting in the way of movement.

Character designs by Nighean Umbach

Since the fallen enemies are former villagers, we opted to use re-textured villagers. As these NPCs will be mobile we did run into some issues with the long dresses on the women and are still working to resolve that!

Character designs by Nighean Umbach

For the hag's design we went with something more complex and creature-like:

Character design by Harun Altınışık

Lastly, we have the design for our guide character, Sombra. After playing around with a few different looks, we went with a more rounded and cute appearance in order to have them appear friendly and sympathetic to the player.

Character design by Jakub Hajek

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Levels & Environments

Aside from characters, a lot of time was spent figuring out the levels. Firstly, we discussed the overall direction of the level, sketched out a rough plan and then after some feedback and more consideration drew up a more refined layout. Once we had this, we began whiteboxing in engine while constantly testing it out to see what worked and what didn't.

Once whiteboxing was completed, our environment concept artist was able to bring our layouts to life, starting with the town where the player begins their journey.

Concept art by Reilly Reid

Following their exit from the town, the player arrives at the cultist's location at the base of the mountain. As they journey up the mountain, it becomes nighttime so that the final boss fight takes place under the full moon - hence the title of the game.

Concept art by Reilly Reid

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Assets

Our programming team also worked hard to get some of the mechanics working right from the beginning which enabled us to use various traversal abilities while testing out the whitebox. Though we don't yet have enemies to destroy, the shooting mechanics are also well on their way to being fully set up and the gun models are all finished and ready to be rigged and animated.

Models by Kat Rice

In addition to the weapons, we also have a handful of props modeled, including the health item pickups which will take the form of tonics.

Models by Kat Rice

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That's all for our first milestone! If you're interested in following the journey of High Moon, our blog will be updated every two weeks. Thank you for your interest in our project!