Zabu is dead, long live Zabu!

Hey guys. We’re in November, and this is the first post of the year. What a lively blog!

Is Zabuyaki dead? Right now, yes, it is. But fear not, it’s not the end. Zabu will rise again, like the phoenix.

Let’s have a look back at this whole mess. In my experience, the beginning of a project is always the most productive point in the life of the project, then it gradually slows down… just like the rate of our blog posts. It might slow down so much that progress ends up becoming extremely slow and tedious, which is what happened here. I tried to reflect on what went wrong. First, we simply suck at this, there’s no denying it. We didn’t have enough experience, and were not organized well enough. Then, the project was most likely too ambitious for us. We decided to cut unnecessary features (good bye, zoom system and 3-player mode), and although I believe this was necessary, that didn’t really help much to make more progress. I came to the conclusion that we need a fresh start, we need to start over, and learn our lessons from the past 5 years. Who knows, maybe we’ll do it right this time.

At this point, you might wonder… What’s the point of starting over? Isn’t it just simpler to just continue? That is not wrong, but the problem is that the project, as it is now, does not motivate us enough to keep going. Also, the game is way too far from completion to just bear with it a bit more until it’s done.

So, what’s wrong with Zabuyaki? Firstly, I do not like my old art anymore, because I’ve made progress and can now clearly see all the flaws in what I’ve drawn up to now (and I’ve drawn 600+ character frames…). Secondly, I kept thinking that it would have been much cooler if Zabuyaki had been a Sega Mega Drive (aka Sega Genesis) game from the start, not only because it’s the best console ever, but also because its limitations will force us to keep things simple and not lose our way with unnecessary features. So, the plan is clear: redraw and recode everything from scratch!

But that doesn’t solve another problem I mentioned before: even if we try to cut unnecessary features, Zabuyaki is still too ambitious for our weak-ass team. Also, we have no experience developing for the Mega Drive. How do we solve that? By first making a smaller, less ambitious project. This will take a while, but I believe it is necessary and will actually save us time in the end. I don’t want to talk about that smaller game here yet, so let’s keep talking about Zabuyaki.

As I said, I was no longer happy with the old Zabuyaki graphics that I have crafted over the last few years. I have decided to redesign the characters, and naturally used fewer colors this time around, in order to comply with Mega Drive limitations.

Let’s review the hero redesigns! Left is old, and right is new.

Rick. I thought he’d look cooler with his hood on. He couldn’t keep the unshaven look due to the color limitations, but that’s okay.

Chai. He’s got a better stance and more urban clothes, to make him fit better.

Kisa. Just a cleaned up design for better readability.

Yar. More fur texture, more bear like.

And now let’s have a look at a few of the bosses.

Beatnik. Different angle, same hardbass.

Sveta. She was a regular enemy before, now she’s a badass boss.

Volker. His old stance was awkward (“Wait, did I leave the oven on?”).

Satoff. Arms down because he does not see you as a threat anymore.

I’ve drawn more, but I can’t just spoil everything, right?

Now, how do we know that I won’t want to start over again in a few years? My plan is to animate those characters as late as possible. We’ll try to rely on temporary frames or placeholders for as long as possible, so that I won’t feel the urge to reanimate them before finishing the game.

So, yeah, a lot of work ahead… That’s it for now! Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter if you’d like to get more frequent news about our progress.