Originally Posted in the Dev Pub
The content presented below was originally brewed in the oak barrels of the Dev Pub forums. After allowing this thread time to properly age, it is now ready for public consumption and has thusly been moved into this forum for all to enjoy. Please note that finely aged Dev Pub threads may contain outdated designs and information. That said, we still encourage you to leave feedback as we'd love to get some new opinions on all this.
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We first began our journey of creating the blacksmith not by considering its cosmetic appearance but, instead, by considering the gameplay elements that would need to take place in this building. It was in some of
these initial designs that
Charlie mapped out how the player would run their blacksmith shop as well as all the various work stations the player would use to create goods.
Charlie's Blacksmith Diagram
From there,
Neal began coding
the basic foundations of these jobs. Once the core bits of code were in place, it was finally time to turn our attention to how the blacksmith building itself should look. It was important that the blacksmith functioned not just as a gameplay element but functioned equally as a believable location in the game's world and lore. So for that we turned to
Sarah, PixelCount's stellar concept artist.
We gave Sarah some basic reference points of what we were looking for; things like making sure there were stone floors (so that the blacksmith wouldn't burn down!), the various work stations that the player would need, places to put items for sale, and other such things. Beyond that, we let Sarah do her thing. The trick is to not overexplain what you're looking for and to instead give the artist room to be creative.
Blacksmith Concept - Draft 1
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This first draft closely followed the layout as seen in Charlie's blacksmith diagram from above. This piece also establishes the exterior look as well. We were very keen to find opportunities to curve things just slightly so as to avoid the game having that squared tileset look so commonly seen in top-down 2D games of this style. You'll also notice an offering bowl which will be placed outside the blacksmith near the front door. Sarah also helps establish the look of various floor textures in the top left of this image.
We liked this concept piece just fine, but we began to feel that there might be way too much we were trying to pack into such a small floorplan. We didn't want the blacksmith to feel too cluttered and we still needed to leave room for customers, the player, and all the work stations. So we talked some more with Sarah and she began work on the next draft.
Blacksmith Concept - Draft 2
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This was starting to feel much better. The blacksmith was roomier and the step-down part of the interior created this nice dividing point between the 'store' section and the 'work' section. Additionally, the actual work section of the blacksmith was now both an interior and an exterior! Plus, the layout of the work stations worked much better in a top-down 2D space (as it's important to remember that only one angle of a room is ever seen).
We were particularly pleased with how this concept turned out so we gave Sarah the go-ahead to polish it up, add some shading, and to finalize the entire piece.
Blacksmith Concept - Final Piece
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This, my friends, is what we ended up with as the finalized concept piece for the blacksmith. It has all the necessary components from Charlie's diagram, it has plenty of room for the customers and player, and part of the building is open to the outside. Sarah also took the liberty of making a few rug designs to be placed on the floor of the store area. Truly a lovely piece.
While Sarah was busy working on these concept pieces, our environment artist
Matthew Weekes began working in tandem putting some of the basic core elements of the blacksmith's tilesets together. Once the initial floorplan was laid out (using Draft 2 of the concept art for reference), he then began working on various elements such as flooring tiles (both wooden and stone), walls, wooden support beams, and other interior essentials.
Around the time that Sarah had finished the second draft of concept art, Matthew now had enough to go off of to start making all the other tilesets. Shortly after, we had our first in-game draft of the blacksmith. For this, I'm going to cut straight to the chase and show you the near-final blacksmith as it will appear in the game. It's honestly one of my favorite things we've made in the game so far and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Behold, Kynseed's blacksmith:
The Finished In-game Blacksmith
There's still a few more things we'd like to do to get it juuuust right, so even now it's still a work-in-progress. For example, we want to reposition some of the floor and column of the lower right so that it better communicates the fact that there's access to the outside from there (as currently it's easy to confuse as a solid wall due to the position of the column). However, little tiny adjustments like that aside, this is more or less the final layout of the blacksmith. So for any of you deciding to take up blacksmithing as a job, this is where you'll be spending much of your time!
We've also begun tentatively animating some of the various components of the interior - particularly the work stations that the player will be interacting with when performing their job. Hit the button below to check out how it's looking at the moment.
The Blacksmith Animated
Lastly, I thought you might all find it interesting to see the
entire process behind the creation of the interior so I made a GIF for you that shows the step-by-step process that the blacksmith interior underwent. It's a bit crazy how a GIF can sum up the hard work of multiple people and the investment of multiple weeks, but that's definitely how it often goes in game development!
Creating the Blacksmith Step-By-Step
