KickStarter Hibernaculum - sci-fi survival horror dungeon crawler from Wormwood Studios' Victor Pflug

[Victor Pflug]

For reference here's another of my references. Using an old masters oil painting for a skull shape as a detail reference isn't stealing (bottom right). Human skulls are just thin on the ground, or I'd use a real one.

Opinions may differ.

 

[Victor Pflug]

It depends on the context.


This, on the other hand, is more concerning. Could someone point out the « ripped throat effect » so I can compare what was « borrowed »?

You can compare all you like - I'm getting back to work. I don't need a lecture on art - I've probably done more paintings than you've had hot meals.

EDIT) If you like tracking down references or collage elements and stuff like that Zizka you're better off spending your time examining the works of Max Ernst, I think specifically his collage work "Une Semaine de Bonte" (a VERY big influence on my work for Strangeland, incidentally). He's a real artist with actual ideas you could learn from, not just a working painter like me making little games.

Also look he STOLE A BIRB! :D

 

[agentorange]

steal away in my opinion (not to say that you are). any artist worth a shit does it. so long as it results in an interesting final work that has your own touch to it, which your work clearly does (unlike the boring crap that zizka posted on the previous page). highly referential artwork usually has more depth to it anyway. reading into where a work was drawing influence from, finding connections, and being able to see a work process behind the work is half the fun.

i was going to mention before that i think your work process is interesting since it has a collage like mixed media quality to it with using and modifying photo references, so its neat that you are in fact influenced by collage artists. dunno if you know harry o morris who does some work in the vein of max ernst.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

This, on the other hand, is more concerning. Could someone point out the « ripped throat effect » so I can compare what was « borrowed »?

Well, there are several such effects in Elvira, and the only one I can find an image of is this. Though its clearly just a clever reference in this case.

 

[Michael Faragher]

Zizka is explaining a stance but, more importantly, brings up a good risk. Regardless of the truth of the industry, perception can be negative and it did torpedo a Kickstarter.

The discussion of filters is also interesting, as taking a photo and running it through a filter is very low effort. The overexposed "cartoons" in the tavern in Lord of the Rings (the Bashki version) are a great parallel. Versus rotoscoping, which has been used to great effect by animators for film and games. A live positional reference is very obvious, as it seems "too smooth" compared to static references. Think Prince of Persia or Lamplight City.

Having seen his process, I lump this more in with rotoscoping. Similarly, outside of some shader effects (like the CRT minimap and mob scaling) it's all unfiltered integer scaling. (I hear about it every time I mess that up, believe me. )

 

[MRY]

I'm not involved with Hibernaculum, but Vic is a friend, so I figured I'd weigh in.

I find this line of criticism of his work is unconvincing. On the moral side, he's not stealing assets and he's not secretly assimilating the work of lesser-known developers or something. On the practical side, Vic's art always composes a seamless stylistic whole that all but guarantees that he must transform his source materials in the process of folding them into his work. Finally, as to the criticisms about overpainting or borrowing inspiration, to me a lot depends on the vision that goes into selection -- that is, setting aside the moral and practical points just addressed, the quality question to me is whether the artist/writer/designer/composer is drawing from tired, commonplace sources or whether the selection reflects a roving mind and a sharp eye. It is just far more likely that a work will be novel and additive if it is drawing from (say) Waxworks, Bitmap Brothers, and Golden Age scifi than if it is drawing from Games Workshop, Blizzard, and George R. R. Martin. The resurrectionist who brings back something glorious, beautiful, and almost forgotten from the past does something really different from someone who puts trendy clothes on a familiar model.

Finally, while intellectual sparring on forums is great, and does sharpen a developer's craft, this strikes me as less likely to provide Vic useful advice and more likely to risk disheartening a successful artist and derailing his popular project, which is in nobody's interest at all.

Anyway, I'll leave the thread again to those whose project this is, but wanted to say my bit.

 

[Zizka]

I think I should clarify.

True, but I've never stolen from another artist. I joke about stealing quotes or ideas but this is strictly inspiration. I don't do "fan art" for just this very reason - I like to come up with my own ideas.

I did not say, or think that you stole anything from anyone. I was talking about this:

Victor Pflug fuck the purists, hack that shit together any way that makes you happy. they aren't paying your bills, you got a game to make!

Having to pay bills doesn’t justify everything (the end doesn’t always justify the means). I am talking about the above quote here.

You can compare all you like - I'm getting back to work. I don't need a lecture on art - I've probably done more paintings than you've had hot meals.

I’m sure you have, I don’t paint at all. This being said, I don’t see how it’s related?

I find this line of criticism of his work is unconvincing. On the moral side, he's not stealing assets and he's not secretly assimilating the work of lesser-known developers or something.

I’m confused. What line of criticism exactly? To sum up:

A member said something was « borrowed » from somewhere else.
I asked to know what was borrowed to compare.
The end.

So if people want to get upset about something, that’s fine provided it’s about something I’ve actually said.

Finally, while intellectual sparring on forums is great, and does sharpen a developer's craft, this strikes me as less likely to provide Vic useful advice and more likely to risk disheartening a successful artist and derailing his popular project, which is in nobody's interest at all.

Ok, that’s fair. It wouldn’t be right to derail the thread about it and so I won’t. There’s clearly a misconception of what plagiarism is and isn’t anyway. Let’s leave it at that.

 

[Michael Faragher]

I’m confused. What line of criticism exactly? To sum up:

A member said something was « borrowed » from somewhere else.
I asked to know what was borrowed to compare.
The end.

It's part of what I'd describe as a running conversation on this forum. Things get conflated. In case you missed it, I do appreciate your warning about Kickstarter. Just something to think about regarding us keeping the discussion about the game, as opposed to a spirited debate on modeling references.

 

[Victor Pflug]

Painting I did, based on a sketch I did, which was in turn based on a photograph I took. I think the the only way I'm getting any more original here is if I create the human being to photograph in the first place. Maybe build the camera. I guess if I'm building the camera might as well build the computer and drawing tablet and monitor.

Then uh... Yeah nah that's the joke. :D

 

[Victor Pflug]

This is the last one I'm gonna do - all the rest of my references WIPs etc all going on my Patreon.

EDIT) Oh, and the meta influence of course

 

[agris]

Victor Pflug the art is great, what's the combat like? TB or RT?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I'm looking forward to this one. I hope the gameplay lives up to the art and the detail there.
I'd love to see the following stuff put into some sort of dev diary or something:

1. Races Selection - You mentioned robot types, cyborgs, artificial humans, humans, etc. I think
2. Background - History of the character up to this point, previous jobs they had, birthing circumstances (clone, genetically pure child, genetically modified embryo, etc.)
   1. Traits - I think some of this stuff should have a positive and negative, and not just straight towards your skills or stats. But something down the line or that effects gameplay, i.e. a random glitching when you're trying to hack, or difficulty attacking someone who has not attacked you (3rd law of robotics type shit), etc.
3. Current Starting class - Soldier, Engineer, Janitor, whatever.
   1. I'd rather this one be just a starting with some specialties available at the start. But you could be able to branch out into other stuff as the game progressed and you level up.
4. Skills - Percentage or ranking based. With each level, you have the option of adding X number of ranks to your skills. And some skills get a small bonus because they're from your original class, while others are hard to start at first, but after you reach the initial rank (educated or whatever) it goes to normal improvement.
5. Perks/Feats - Gotta have these. They shouldn't be a skill buff though, but rather some other benefit you can't gain through leveling and skill investment. Combat and non-combat.
6. Class Abilities - Something that's specific to your starting class that you retain throughout the game. It's only available if you pick that as your current starting class: i.e. breath control for a sniper, etc.
   1. These can improve by ranking with additional abilities via your perks when you level up.
   2. Additionally, you can obtain a very low-level version of a starting class ability with something gained outside of leveling, via trainers and then an investment via skills
7. New Non-Class specific abilities - I.E. something based perhaps on an evolution of a starting race: from human to Cyborg, or cybernetic implants gained, etc.

 

[Michael Faragher]

Wow, I suddenly understand what devs have said to me. :D

It's hard to do something like that at this time. Until we reach minimum viable product we don't know what would or would not be fun. Everything sounds fun and exciting when you pitch it, but there are a lot of miles to go before you can see how they play together. I have to put my useful hours into the engine as well. Without getting into personal discussion, I can never predict how productive I can be.

To give you an idea of the sort of work that occupies my dev time, I was trying to get a run-time import of animations so we could iterate faster without hard coding every single thing. (it could also be used for modding, no promises) Well, Unity apparently is actually incapable of doing that. So today I wrote a custom animation routine (sprites are so easy to animate) but now need to re-implement everything that gets loaded at runtime. It's this kind of insanity that sneaks up on you, and it needs to get out of the way before Vic can add new stuff to the game without using me as a middle man.

Meanwhile, ranting about rolling airfraime missles in the shower leads to some great story elements.

Now, when we get to the point where the game mechanics are all we're thinking about, I'll see if I can do a dev diary about that sort of thing. Until then, it would just be a boring discussion about moving from arrays to dictionaries and disabling texture filtering.

 

[agentorange]

post more stuff

 

[Michael Faragher]

I know it's not what you're asking for, but I put this together a few days ago.

 

[Victor Pflug]

Using a dead bird for reference and colour palette.

 

[Zariusz]

Hmm bird huh, i cant really see it. Well unless the body had its head chopped off.

 

[Victor Pflug]

Hmm bird huh, i cant really see it. Well unless the body had its head chopped off.

Yeah this is all just from my head I only picked colours from the corpse pretty much :D

 

[Alienman]

Corpse color, bit macabre. I like it.

 

[Luka-boy]

Kind sir, may we have some more please?

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

I was trying to play Sinking City again last night and it was just. Unplayable. Such beautiful graphics and environment. Open world Lovecraft. It seemed like nothing could possibly go wrong. Yet the game was just a lost opportunity. All that superb atmosphere and you can't find any gameplay in it.

This game looks so Amigaish and it has fantastic retro blobber graphics. Great genre and already you can see how good it could be. Please consider making it turn-based because if it is real time I just won't be interested in playing and will have so much trouble getting engaged in it. Otherwise it looks like it could be awesome. If it is turn-based I will buy it first day.

 

[fuzz]

Every art posted so far reeks of great atmosphere!
Loving the color palette and the choice of using "in-era" synthesizers.

Spoiler

Random screenshots from mobygames.com:

Can't wait to see this come to fruition. Are the level layouts randomly generated?

 

[hrokgames]

Pixel Dead Space? Sign me up

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

Love the look. However I am not that fond of this jerky "slideshow" like movement. I find it so disorienting.
I know that's how it was "at the time" of "Beholder" and such probably, but still. Didn't like it back then either. A bit of animation added always felt like a sensible improvement.

 

[Jasede]

I love the art style.