A Tale of Shadows
What is A Tale of Shadows
A Tale of Shadows is a third-person Action Adventure game focusing on the main character and his shadow. The main character’s shadow will be a core component of the game. You will delve into the shadows to get around quickly and take down enemies utilizing your shadow by manifesting it into weapons such as swords, spears, and hammers. Movement is also one of the main focuses, making it feel rewarding to travel through the shadows to gain height and move to areas faster than just walking. The combat will be a mix of using the shadows to take down enemies and hacking and slashing with combos.
Who is working on A Tale of Shadows
I am currently working on this by myself. My plan is to prototype a gameplay loop to test and see how fun the game can be. Once I have that done, I will try my best to either find a team to help solidify the concepts and polish them up or outsource to find the people to work on specific areas.
Current Progress
January - February:
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Update:
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The project officially started in January. The idea was already there, I just needed to sit down and start working on bringing the idea to life. I sat down and planned for 2 months, and I split it into 4 sprints. I made a video describing each sprint as follows:
Sprint 1: I Didn’t get a lot done. I had a project created and added two starter assets to act as the two characters in the game. I had started working on the character switch mechanic, but I was having issues figuring out how to get them to spawn on top of each other when switching.
​Sprint 2: For this sprint, I continued working on the previous tasks and completed the character switch mechanic. I also added another character controller for the shadow lurk mechanic, the teleport mechanic after following a YouTube tutorial, and a health mechanic.
​Sprint 3: I wanted a couple of things to happen this sprint; I wanted to add methods for the player to take damage without having to press a button to test the functionality, and I also wanted to fix some bugs that developed from the previous mechanics. First, I added spikes that come out of the ground and damage the player when they run through them. Then I worked on fixing the character switch mechanic so you can only switch to shadow on certain surfaces. I also wanted to change the way the player shoots so that a shadow blob hovers next to Cole when he’s shooting, and Shadow shoots energy out of his hands. I created basic enemies that can patrol, attack, and take damage. I also created a kind of turret mechanic that shoots projectiles with the ability to move side to side, up and down, and rotate around. I created this so I can make an easy bullet pattern. To finish the sprint off, I was having trouble with getting the camera to stay in the same position when switching characters, it took a while but I managed to fix it.​
Sprint 4: I created a sprint goal for this one, but it was too vague. The tasks were pretty vague too. I thought I was going to start creating a level and creating the events that happen in the game. I don’t even have the story fully laid out yet and I didn’t have a plan. What I ended up doing was creating a terrain and kind of randomly placing structures to block in an area. I got an idea to have the beginning of the game start in a shrine. Then I got the idea that it would be a family shrine, and the whole area would belong to Cole and his Family. Since I didn’t have any assets, I just blocked out the shrine building and, in the distance, placed a cube for a giant mansion. With these ideas in mind, I started envisioning how I wanted the game to start off and decided to try making a cutscene to help visualize it. Basically, this whole sprint was a “Figure it out as I go” kind of thing. Really happy with the results, though. It motivated me to start writing the story and scenarios for my game.
March - April
Update:
After realizing I didn't have a coherent story, I decided to try fleshing it out a bit more. I figured I'd have a lot more done by the end of March, but I didn't have a lot. I was still writing the story during April, and I believe it's enough for the introduction of my game.
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Story Introduction Summary:
The story begins with Shadow waking up with a fragmented memory. He knows who he is but doesn't know where he is, why he's there, or what is happening. Cole is also there but is so scared that he's shaking and shivering. They're both 8 years old at this point. Enemies appear, and Shadow has to defend himself and Cole. After defeating all of the enemies, a new enemy appears behind Cole and drags him away along a stone path. Shadow discovers new abilities and chases after Cole, eventually reaching a mansion that lies up in the mountains. There he encounters more obstacles, and upon avoiding them, he catches up to Cole. While staying out of sight, Shadow sees a man Cloaked in black mist holding a long katana, announcing he's going to kill Cole. Before this can happen, Shadow unlocks the power to teleport Cole to his location. After Shadow teleports Cole this initiates the first boss fight of the game.
May
Update:
I've still been writing the story of events after the introduction of the game, but I feel like I'm not making enough progress, so I decided to leave it for now, and I'm thinking about jumping back into the project to start laying out the story that I created for the intro.
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I went on Fiverr and decided to pay for a character concept gig, so Cole and Shadow should come to life pretty soon. The Fiverr person said they were really busy, so they wouldn't be able to work on the order until the third week of May, so we'll just have to wait and see. I'm excited to see that. My plan is to also look for a 3D modeler to model them so I can drop them into the project.