We’d like to tell you that we’ll be holding the raffle for the 5 Full Set Avatars today Sunday.

We have great news too, Online tests are going very smooth on Windows, Linux, and even Pandora! Here’s a video courtesy of PokeParadox (thanks!)

And! We’ll be doing some online beta testing tomorrow! Join us so we can test-load the server, on our online chat:

irc://irc.freenode.net#windandwater

Or, if you don’t have IRC (like me!) click here:

http://www.wind-water.net/chat

The raffle and online testing will begin today Sunday Feb 20th. We’ll be on the channel from 11PM GMT to 5PM GMT, we’ll hold the raffle first and then get ready for some online beta testing!

Just wanted to tell you that Wind and Water now has in-game Mouse Support as of version 1.05, download from our main website!

The video also shows how Full Set Avatars work (in case you don’t know, for $10 or $15 you can be a part of our game and play with your own W&W-styled avatar based on yourself!)

Here’s the video:

If you want to appear on the game, for a limited time you can grab your own avatar and support us! We’re also raffling 5 Custom Avatars at our Forums, participating is easy but you have little time left!

We’re also working on a Linux version which is available for beta test on the forums (the game works 100%) will soon be released.

Wind and Water has been reviewed at TIG Source and was tagged by indie developer Derek Yu as “Highly Recommended”! (Thanks Derek!) This means more players will be able to enjoy W&W, which is now free, and hopefully we’ll have the new online scoreboards and online beta testing running soon!

What do you think about mouse support?

Yuan will be explaining how to clear Stage E05 (which is pretty far ahead on the game in case you hate spoilers!) as well as explaining about the mouse. Basically you use the left and right clicks to rotate the pieces, which we thought wouldn’t work so good but it’s actually quite nice

Comment to let us know what you think about it (and let us know if you’d like to beta-test the mouse version too, we’ll be uploading a private W&W beta around here!)

Wind and Water around the web!

Since our release of W&W less than a week ago, the game has been mentioned on tons of sites around the web!

The game was quickly catched by the original GP2X users, the GP2X Spanish community, Open Pandora, as well as many many Dreamcast sites, DreamAgain (in French — thanks Edd!), was also reviewed as one of the best 5 DC indie games (thanks Barry and cube_b3 from Senile Team!), the Dreamcast Junkyard, and by KingBuzzo from the DC Scene too!

We’ve also hit sites like indiegames.com, retrocollect.com (thanks Cauterize!), RPS, the TIG source forums, sites in languages that we understand — Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian too, some that we don’t have a clue about like Polish!

We’ve even read about someone who is actually in The Final Stage (in French), so we’re expecting people to see the final ending this weekend and keep enjoying the game

Here’s a fan made video edit with custom BGM from the first W&W mini-game, Sunset Driver:

We’re very grateful with everyone sharing the news about W&W, and with our first 2,000 downloads and lots of feedback, we’re closer to making W&W Online Battles a reality!

If you know of websites, own a blog, participate in forums, or know friends, via Facebook or anything that might be interested, please let them know about the game! And don’t forget to participate on the Forums too and win a chance to have a free Full Set Custom Avatar!

We’ll bring you more of Yuan Works in the next few weeks, so keep tuned!

Here’s the trailer:

Visit Wind and Water Puzzle Battles to download the game and for more info!

And if you’d like to support us, you can get a Custom Avatar based on you:

Sprites appear in-game:

Click here for more information on how to get a sprite and support us!

Please let others know about W&W (in forums, in your own website, in game news sites), download the game, comment about it and, if you can, support us! We really need others knowing about the game which will mean that we can keep working on the Online/Net play version of W&W (which we’re hoping to release if W&W gets popular enough) as well as our other projects such as Little Ninja.

Also, we’ll be giving out 5 Full Set sprites for FREE for W&W players, click here for more information on how to win one!

Happy gaming!

Trying to make 3D look unmistakably 2D brought some problems on 3D graphics software. Since properties such as the ones I’m looking for are seldom (if at all) used, even if they are very basic, it was rather tricky.

First of all, it was a pain removing all the light on the characters and the scene. Rendering software uses so ugly default lights which were hard to remove. Since the first part won’t be shaded whatsoever, this was necessary to make 3D indistinguishable from a sprite based game.

Also rather quirky to set up was a completely orthographic camera (pseudo perspective used in blueprints and the like, which has no depth). I had to highjack one of the available ones that are supposed to be for scene control only. Needless to say, this is the closest to true 2D. Now I’m only missing a pixel perfect way to render things, and I will TRULY have 2D in a 3D environment.

What I’m particularly proud of are the lightning-fast rendering times. Usually, one single frame can take anywhere between 5 to 20 minutes, or even more, depending on the software settings and the complexity the computer has to calculate. At 1024 resolution, production quality (read that as ultra souped-up), any one frame from my scene renders in 2 to 3 SECONDS!!!!! YES, SECONDS. Other lighting tests like final gather work nice and fast, but I can have a similar effect with far less resources.

I also started to work on the animation. The 2D character already has a lot of animation done, including a super fluid walk cycle at 30fps, which I almost NEVER use, except for action based animations. Well, come to think of it, many Wind and Water animations were 30fps, so I take that back. Look at all those frames for just a walk cycle! The 3D character has to be “rigged” which basically means equipped with a virtual skeleton that allows it to move. It sounds like a pain, and yes, it actually is.

There are only two characters, one is 2D pixel art (of course), and the other one is in THREE (yes, three) dimensions!

The character design for the pixel character (code name “Square”) is my traditional work, so nothing too deviated from the norm:

However, for the second, less traditional character, I used a more traditional approach, sketching various poses and trying different designs (a step now unnecessary to me for pixel art).

Also, I had fun using color pencils and watercolor, media I seldom have a chance to use now =3

Then came the fun part… translating the character to 3D… It was kinda hard to keep all the weird “anime” angles visible on the model, which will be kinda low poly for that nostalgic PS1 look we all love…

Lastly here’s a turn table on the preliminary model for the 3D character, code name Polly. Polygon, Polly. Get it? Yeah, I’ll shut it now:

(Youtube version if you would like to share it)

A W&W Demo for the WIZ is available here and you can Order W&W here for $16 (~10 Euro) the normal version and $24  (~16 Euro) with the custom sprite and support independent games!

We would like to thank everyone who supported us from the older GP2X version: If you purchased the GP2X version, you can download the WIZ version for free, just visit the Members area to download the game.

Hope you enjoy the game!

Basically its 3D constructed with classic 16-bit game rules! The same basics as the “rule of eight”, color reduction, repetition, and so forth apply in this project. The only new rule is that the new axis also has to obey the rules!

Above is the whole tileset used as textures, and game-like perspectiveless (orthogonal) views of the scene, perfect to create game maps!

I’m gonna experiment on this some more, as the possibilities are enormous!

See you around!

We have good news! Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles for the Dreamcast was featured on gamesTM magazine, one of UK’s and Europe’s most renown magazines. Also, W&W has been restocked by Play Asia, more on this below.

gamesTM also reviewed the game, praising the fact that so much content “was only made by two people”:

“The first thing you’ll notice about W&W is that it has an impressive amount of content for a game that was made by just two people. The puzzle game itself can be played in story mode — a meaty adventure featuring multiple routes, RPG-like progression, animated cut-scenes, text dialogue, even mini-games. It’s basically everything you would expect from a pluzzler’s story mode and more. [...] There’s more here than you’ll find in any of the other genre realeses that appeared during Dreamcast’s lifetime and it’s all top quality too. You never get the feeling that Yuan Works rushed or cut corners throughout production. [...] The core element of Wind and Water is actually a very playable and original concept. [...] The core gameplay has just the right kind of addictive quality to keep you playing for hours [...] In short, if you’re still actively buying Dreamcast games and you’re looking for something different than the usual crop of shooters then this is essential“

Also, we have other good news: Wind and Water had been out of stock for months on Play Asia, but last week Play Asia restocked the game for those who were not able to purchase the game.

The magazine features a full interview regarding the development of Wind and Water, development from Dreamcast, and our view as Independent Game creators (special thanks to Kim Wild for the interview). Remember that supporting Independent Games helps us continue doing games for our favorite consoles which are not supported by manufacturers. Here’s the trailer of Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles in case you haven’t seen it:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here’s the Gagaman’s review of the game.

We’d like to announce the new Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles video review by Gagaman (thanks!) from the Dreamcast Junkyard:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The review looks great and explains much of the many complex modes and details inside the game.

Also, redspotgames has announced a huge price reduction on shipping costs to Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, head to the resdpotgames website for more information about purchasing the game and supporting independent games!