Glad to hear that
I do hope il be able to clear the time to see it when it come out

So Spark 4.0 reintroduces the Die Guy, but with a new look! You can see some of the concept art uploaded here, as well as a bit of backstory on their purpose in life (basically, to make your life bullet hell!)

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=414118803

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=436234789

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=436239868

Since many of you wonder what it's like creating a character from concept to an actual in game creation, here's a bit of a run down:

We'll spend a good bit of time concepting the character and getting the feel down right. We've had a lot of help in this area working with a number of different artists to come up with unique creations. Our stated direction: Something geometrically simple, with elements of homage to 8-bit old school Nintendo type of characters. Something menacing yet equally quirky and colorful! Concepting usually starts from pen and paper, though some artists like to work directly in a digital medium, using a Wacom Cintiq and Photoshop.

From there you move onto creating t-poses, and picking out your color palette so that your 3D artist can model the character in 3D polygons, and texture it. Our process is relatively quicker here because of how simple the character designs are. Back when some of the team would work on 3D character for console games, it could take up to 3 weeks to create a high end 3D model and texture. We do our 3D modeling in Maya, and our texturing using Photoshop.

The next phase once the character is created in 3D is to rig it. This process applies a skeletal frame to the 3D model so that when you try to animate the character, it moves according to how the skeleton's "bones" allow it. Weight is added to various points so that the 3D model warps and bends in the way we expect it. This part was a bit of a unique challenge for us because our characters aren't your typical humanoid creations. We were trying to get something that animated in slightly off kilter ways. We created about 10 different animations per character including running, walking, shooting, dying, reloading, etc.

We initially tested smoother animations, simulating human movement, but it took away from some of the charm. So to get that over the top, slightly goofy, and even slightly broken look we wanted for these undead like enemies, we created simple animations from the rig using Maya, and then added extra layers of animation via Unity, ie. when the enemy dies it flips violently through the air, various physics-based motion included as well, etc.

So there you go. Just creating one character can easily take a month to do from beginning to end. And this is just the visual aspects of the character. We haven't scratched the surface of defining the enemy AI, stats, attack pattern, interaction with the world, etc. While there are great tools today to make the process easier and faster, at the end of the day, each detail still needs to created. Kudos to the dev team to making it all happen. And thanks to the fans for making it worthwhile!

Hey all!

Giving you a heads up that Spark Early Access 4.0 will be launching in the next day or so!

This update is chalk full of fun stuff! So here's what we got teed up.

ENVIRONMENT
The first thing you'll notice is that the world is much more fleshed out. More trees of different colors, flowers, foliage, clouds and such. And the world generation is much more dynamic, with tall mountains, volcano formations, and small floating islands. It's still rather rough, but you can start to see what's possible.

ENEMIES
We got some new 3D models in for Die Guy Lolo, and for the Z Bat Drone. It's got a slick clean simple geometric design, while having more details overall. Some enemies still are older models and you can see the difference.

NEW WEAPONS
We now introduced new weapons you can swap out. Again, all still very raw, lots of tweaking needed still, but you can at least get a taste of how differently each one works. You got your assault blaster, a short range shotgun, and a AOE charge shot.

We also introduced a new melee type of attack, great for doing close range damage, and also carving out a good chunk of voxel structures to boot.

NEW ABILITIES
You can now drop various objects in the battle to use to your advantage. One object is a simple gray cube designed to help you block enemy fire and also act as a stepping stone. Another is a propulsion cube, which you see scattered around the world. You can now drop your own where ever you like.

The boost is still in the game from before, but quite frankly, it's not very useful. I think we need to redesign it a bit. Something we'll tackle in 5.0.

These abilities will eventually be improved so they have more direct purpose in the game.

NEW EXO-SUITS
You can now collect coins to unlock new exo-suits. Currently there are only a few differences between each suit, but eventually they will play very differently. For now as an example, the Ninja exo-suit can do quad jumps, and moves a bit faster, but has much lower health. We'll soon make them more unique, with other special abilities as well.

NEW OBJECTIVES
Each base now has different objectives to complete, from zone control, destroying consoles, knocking down a protective shield, and a raw concept for a boss fight.


FEEDBACK FEEDBACK FEEDBACK!
With all this new stuff, we want to hear your feedback! What works, what doesn't. As we always said, where the game goes is really based on what the fans are interested in exploring. Even from when we first conceived the game concept much has changed and that sort of evolution has been fun to experience even if it's a bit daunting!

We want to thank everyone for coming along for the ride, and we hope it's been worth your while!