...And We're Back!

Game development is a long long process! -  But we've been busy bee's - here's a long overdue update...

Volcano Environment - with bubbling lava!

Game development is a long process especially when it's just a couple of bedroom programming brothers (OK I'm graphic-ing not programming!) plus the much appreciated help of our talented artists, but it took a lot more time than we expected, we are proud of what we have achieved so far, but damn it's been a long haul!


Over this past year we have improved, revamped and rewritten many parts of Organic Panic. We have added a bunch of new features, creating what we hope will be a immersive and deeply satisfying 'fun' game, this was recently confirmed when we had friends over to play-test Organic Panic, everyone had lots of fun, and the feedback was very helpful, in the next post I'll go into more detail about the feedback.

Here are some key improvements we have done since our last post -

• The particle system has been completely revamped, Damon wanted to do this so we could have much more water, now a large part of the game area can be filled with pure physics based water.

Old (sections of Water) vs New (the whole playable level can be filled with water)

•  Levels are now 3Dified! Depth perspective has been added to the playable map, which looks much more like a 3D platform game, it is still a 2D game but with a kind of hybrid feel, the focus will still be on 2D, but all characters are exported in 3D, and all textures have normal maps and lighting is in 3d space!

Levels are now 3D platforms, the perspective changes and bevels are lit and normal mapped

• UI - We now have a new User Interface! instead of the basic UI interface we had previously, we have a more colorful and dynamic UI. Also the underlying structure for the whole game has been reworked, including, level select, level unlock, score sheet, progress, and story development - more on these changes, especially the story part in a following post.

• Backgrounds - Our illustrious freelance artist Silvia has really jumped in and created some beautiful background environments scenes: Volcano, Jungle and Industrial, she is also going to revamp our original Sunny Hills background to more stylistically match the new backgrounds, we plan to add a number of extra backgrounds after the alpha stage including a scary lab setting...We are both excited to see what crazed creations she come's up with next!

The Lab at concept stage, The lab is where poor Fruits and Veg's are experimented on to extract their powers!

• Backgrounds - Damon has made the backgrounds much more dynamic, now the hills bob, the trees and branches bend, the vines swing and smoke rises and expands, he has built a dynamic background editor, that enables control of many background animations, and allows for bending, transforming, and rotating almost all background elements.

Industrial Level, still a work in progress and we hope to pollutify everything more!

• Textures - with the help of our talented freelance graphic artist Patt we have completely revamped our textures, they are now much more stylized. We have also added new grasses, new metals, new spiky materials, and new layers to materials so the texture can be mixed top to bottom, now we can make metal platforms with molten lava tops.

Some examples of new textures - each texture has a normal map, shininess map, cutout map and a light map!

•  Sounds - Thanks to Luca and Ra for their great work creating tons of cool sounds fx. I also put on my multitasking hat and worked  on the sound design, mostly for characters voices. We had to create a whole range of sound reactions for the fruits and Veg's and Meats n Cheese's, from falling, being hit, to grunts and cheers, there was a lot more work involved in this than I expected. Cherry's voice was recorded with the help of Damon's 3 year old son, and was one of the more interesting voice overs.
• Objects - We added many new in game objects including; lazer turrets, mines, portal disruptors, level portals, barrels, sea mines, mushrooms, water generators, levers, pistons, pathing tool, cogs etc - these help us make much more diverse and interesting levels.

Levers, Pistons, Mines, Spikes, and a bamboo rope that doubles as a pole volt

•  Pickups - For characters to use their powers, they must collect magic orbs to refill their reserves. Healing, invincibility shields, speed, star pickups and power crystals are now part of the game dynamic and give level designers much more to play with in level creation.
• Character animations - I have also been busy filling out many more character animations, from climbing, scrabbling, shooting and swimming to dancing. There is more to do, but we have a good base now for alpha. 

 I'm pretty sure this is not everything but it covers the core changes, oh and there was also millions of bugs that needed to be hunted down and mercilessly destroyed but bugs are devious little fellows and have a way of spawning more each time they are killed, so credit to Damon the great bug destroyer.

Here's a Nasty Piece of Work...

Here we introduce Organic Panic's evil antagonists (bad guy enemies!)


As with our protagonists our enemies development was also greatly helped by one of our concept artist Jesse Aclin, he really helped give these characters their creative mean streak, and brought them to life.


Again I will try to render out some of the cool animations for these characters in the following weeks.

The evil antagonists are jealous of our Organic Fruit and Veg's magical powers, they are always seeking to control, dominate and subjugate them through the use of their technological weaponry and aggression.

Cheddar Chunk - Ramboid in style but fighting to suppress freedom!

Cheese Wedge - Cowardly/Sneaky dynamite pusher

Ham Shank - Mean Mafia henchman with a Uzi

Gorgonzola - Riot Police gone really Bad (and Smelly!)

Hot Dog - Evil Tech dog uses a Jetpack and Flamethrower

Meatball - Frantic, Frenzied Kamikaze roller!

T-Bone Steak - Slow Boxing Has-been, and not too bright

Baby Round Cheese - Evil Genius with a Electro-Gun - (currently on hold)

Please please approach with caution, these Meats 'N Cheese's have been known to cause serious health problems.

Update on new version - Where we're at?

Just a quick update to say we are finally building levels, testing for bugs (lots of bugs) and starting basic game testing, in the coming weeks we hope too...

1. Build a preliminary set of levels to play test
2. Bring in friends and children of friends to game test and get feedback
3. Refine the level editor so its even easier to use
4. Build out the UI and level progression story
5. Put the sounds back and add new ones for the bad guys, objects and pickups.
6. Create more Background environments, at present we have one (Sunny Hills) and we want to build at least another 7 or so for the alpha

From there we will create a new video demo taking the next steps forward by going public, marketing and then looking for financial support to take the game to completion.

An early comic cut-scene where Carrot runs for his life before discovering his elemental powers!

Shortly I will be posting on our mean intentioned antagonists (the bad guys) Meats n Cheese's.

Our Second Demo Video

Below is our second video created later in 2009, here we can see lava, molten rock and fire effecting ice. Also some more enemy characters have been implemented, plus there is a further demonstration of the level editor.

This was created nearly 2 years ago, it was a lot of fun to play, and it seemed like kids (10 year old's) picked it up and took to it more easily than adults.

Since then the game has evolved and changed much! we have added and improved in all areas from the characters, to material types and look, to implementing special object types. in the next weeks/months we shall create a new demo video showing off many of the new features, hopefully leading up to a alpha version of the title.

Oh What a bunch of Characters...

Here's our lead player characters, rendered in 3d (which is how all the characters are animated) they are our Organic protagonists each with their own magical ability.

Our Character development was greatly helped by the superb talents of our concept artist Jesse Aclin, who really helped us give the characters their personalities. 

Below you will find some of the work already finished from concept to 3d - when I get some time I will render out some of their animations so you can see their expressions and motions more clearly.

Cherry is small and fast, perky, she fires the material she is standing on as a projectile

Coconut is a Big, strong but a little shy, his magical ability allows him to manipulate gravity

Kiwi is our Australian quack! super athletic, kiwi can swim, climb and jump like no other, he shoots water as his magical ability

Carrot is more anarchical he's a good climber and shoots fire as his magical ability

Pineapple is not bright but he is strong and can manipulate any material he is standing on (currently on hold for the alpha)



Banana can raise up a storm of wind as his magical ability (currently on hold for the alpha)

We also have some future plans for more fun fruity (or Veggie) protagonists, some current ideas are a Broccoli Granny and a Asparagus Aristocrat, but please feel free to add any ideas for characters you would like to see!

Our First Demo Video

Organic Panic is a wacked out fun mix of side scrolling puzzle solving, real physics (including Water, wind and fire) and freeform level building and sharing.

Your protagonists are magically endowed Organic fruit - Kiwi, Coconut, Banana, Cherry, etc fighting against technology touting (guns and rocket launchers) Meats n Cheeses, you use your skills and magical abilities to traverse levels, solve puzzles and defeat the nasty Meats n Cheeses.

 Below was our first video created about 2 years ago, at this stage the characters are in their basic form and were not developed out yet...

This give you a idea of where we started, as you can see the characters and texturing was very basic, towards the end you can see some early concepts for the background art and characters, in the next video you can see some improvements to the overall quality of the game, including some of the new characters.

Organic Panic Begins - Introduction

Hi! - welcome our blog, my name is Anatole Branch, and together with my brother Damon, we will journal the development of our pride and joy Organic Panic.

Organic Panic has been in development for over 3 years, and has been through quite a involved process already. We are now aiming for alpha in the coming months, in which we will be level building, game-play testing and refining and bug hunting and fixing. depending on how this process goes we hope to release first on the Xbox live platform then across multiple platforms from PC to Wii and also to the iphone and android platforms. First we will try to release on the Xbox live platform as that is where it's code roots lie.

Organic Panic was originally conceived by Damon about 4 years ago, he is the programming wiz behind all of the technological work in the game. I came on board in '08 and function as the Art Director we have been developing this together since. Later in the blog I will tell you more about our history together in game development.

 Funding

We will also be looking for funding, as this game has been built with zero financial backing and is really a project from the hearts of everybody who has helped bring it this far. I have to say especially this for Damon who has really sacrificed everything to make this game work, he has lived and breathed this game with no income for about 2 years now. We now think as we are closer that we can possibly get across the finish line on our own or possibly with minimal funding. We will also be looking at some online funding models like Kickstarter and see how viable these are.

What is Organic Panic?

A Screen capture from our demo in the summer of '09

Organic (as we tend to abbreviate it) mixes a platform, cutzy action puzzle solver, based in a completely physically realistic environment, everything in this environment is transmutable, meaning nearly all physically properties apply, water can freeze, rubber melts and creates smoke, acid burns through metal but not glass, wood floats on water, materials can be solid, liquid and gaseous.


The levels can be easily created, players can draw (with many simple tools), build traps/obstacles with pistons, engines etc add liquids, fire, objects and opponents.

Pineapple ducks as Hotdog blasts his flamethrower

 Later we plan on creating a completely user created, shared and rated league for players to challenge each other and complete in recorded time.


Next I will post our first video created 2 years ago, which will give you a much better idea of where we are going.