#gendesign

[lowpolypeople]

Ico + Yorda from Ico

[icology]

:D

[selene-lunette]

ICO sketch dump. Can't wait to draw more from Fumito Ueda

[0162-tuu]

Old Yorda WIP

[the-faxx-macheen]

"If you draw" my brains saids "you can have a page of Yorda as a treat"

[wistfulmistful]

[miloscat]

[Review] The Last Guardian (PS4)

Ico 2 & the Colossus.

The Last Guardian (bad name) had a messy development, with Team Ico working on the game since 2007. Struggles with the PS3 prolonged its gestation, and Team Ico disbanding and leaving Sony can't have helped. But Director Fumito Ueda formed a new studio, GenDesign, with many of the former staff, and they decided to continue collaborating with internal Sony studios to finally get the game finished in 2016.

I feel like knowing this game was in development hell for almost a decade helps me understand some things about the final product. The movement and mechanics have the same kind of clumsy jank that Ico and Shadow of the Colossus do, but somehow it doesn't hang together as well. The big new gameplay ideas end up in player frustration way too often. The overall story is full of enticing mystery but leaves off with too many lingering questions.

Describing the game as Ico 2 fits it well, I think. You're a little boy (unfortunately nameless this time) clambering around an old mysterious ruined castle solving puzzles to proceed through the environment, and avoiding capture by . This time instead of an enigmatic girl as your companion (or a horse, in SotC's case) you have a gryphon-like creature named Trico. A more apt comparison might be the Anzû of Mesopotamian mythology, as there's other inspirations from that culture in the looks and plot (thanks to my friend Gibbon for pointing this out). Sidenote, Trico is usually referred to with male pronouns, which breaks the pattern of male protagonist and female companion in the previous games. And yes, I feel like constant comparisons are warranted with this series since there's a fairly distinct throughline.

Anyway. The Ico continuity is clear, while Trico represents a kind of friendly Colossus, as you often have to climb on them... and try to manipulate their wilful behaviour the way you had to in some Colossus fights. A key technical goal and talking point of the game is Trico’s realistic animal behaviour… well and good but having a character you rely upon be consistently recalcitrant and obtuse did not make for a consistently enjoyable gameplay experience for me. You soon learn to issue commands to Trico and while it can be thrilling to ride them around and fight alongside them, the delays and misinterpretations really added up to frustration for me more often than I’d like. Add to this that it’s not always clear what you have to do next, and that progress sometimes looks like failure in this linear story-driven game, the result can be confusion.

The dynamic between the two is the heart and soul of the game, so when it breaks down you can feel helpless. But when it works it’s incredible, this big feathery kitty coming to trust you and helping you solve puzzles, while you work to heal Trico’s hurts and traumas. This is a really strong concept that the whole game is built around, it’s only let down by some clumsiness in the execution.

As you venture around these crumbling chambers and towers, there are a few optional things to find. Trico is fed via glowing barrel; they attract glowing butterflies of the same colour so I figured that’s what they contain but the truth may be more sinister. Finding out-of-the-way rooms with barrels adds up to costume unlocks… a limited form of cosmetic customisation that sadly is only enabled for subsequent playthroughs. Unless you’re planning on multiple runs, you’ll have to settle for finding them being its own reward. Especially when you can’t get Trico to eat the damn things, or your discovery of them gets reset when you die on a platforming section.

The Last Guardian (still a bad name) is an uncut gem, it could have been so brilliant if not for the roughness that pervades the experience. As with its two predecessors it has strong art direction, the ancient land you find yourself in the perfect place for an adventure full of mystery. But with as many cool and interesting ingredients as there are, there's aspects that are clearly not ready for primetime even after so long in the oven (to mix a metaphor). Even things like Trico's appearance I feel are representative of the game as a whole: they worked hard to give each feather individual rendering and physics, but look at it as a whole and it's a big flapping mess. Eight years on, TLG doesn't seem to have had the impact and staying power as Team Ico's other games have, and that's a shame... but I understand why.

[spacefarer]

Happy birthday, Trico!

[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

Finding information about how Trico from The Last Guardian works behind the scenes has been surprisingly difficult.

A huge thank you to the one curious person in r/thelastguardian subreddit who managed to get responses with both developer slides and speedrunner insights - you’ve made my life a lot easier!

[psx-euro-demo]

ICO - Japanese Promotional Poster

[iridescentdesolation]

[popcornmind]

Fumito Ueda: Team Ico to genDesign

There is only so much I can say about Japanese independent games developer genDesign in a short time frame. Originally known as Team Ico from the early 2000s, a name formed around their current project of the time: Ico, genDesign has had quite the journey as a company. However, that journey has been covered quite extensively ad nauseum. So, today I'm giving you some of my insight into what I've personally recognized in some of the media distributed for their-yet-to-released 4th game for myself, where I see the influences stemming from and what could be in store for us. Check it out:

In the above image there is a faint depiction of a robot in profile standing on the left just as the image dips inwards and fades; it also has two arms with the hands visible just below the hips. Quite subtle, but it's either the same model robot as the one we've seen in released concept art snippets, indicating many machines like this or this robot is the one we interact with in-game before it loses its arm. This is probably the most recent design as it's anatomy and arms match the artwork that has been shown to us over the more recent years. The head seems more streamlined like Team Asobi's Astro Bot at this point. Closer inspection reveals a transparent dome-shaped head that holds the "eyes" of the robot. But, it can always change, especially considering that they're hiring more artists right now.

Whoever composed this teaser image did a great job; there are quite a few nuggets in there. Also, the darker parts of the image in the background seem to be a blurry screen of a version of the actual game. It's a bit unclear as to what is occurring in the image apart from what seems to be illuminated "cracks" or "fissures" on a figure of some sort. If it's not the robot we've already been seeing, then it could be a potential giant enemy in the game; creature or machine-based. It's still rather difficult to tell the robot's anatomy from the protagonist or anything else until we see clearer imagery.

Really excited for more on this one as I'm loving the concepts they've alluded to. I have seen in the previous concept artwork hints at giant "creatures" in this game as well, similar to suidae. So, the whole "Ultraman versus giant monster" vibe some fans are claiming might be something...

Oh, and is that the protagonist at the very top of the robot in the concept art? If so, it clearly shows just how massive the robot is. We saw the robot's forearm size alone was about the same length as Trico in another piece of Ueda's infamous holiday sketches. I'm also getting major Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind vibes. The God Warriors from that film... I feel like the premise of the new game might involve the protagonist discovering something similar. There is a sketch of a military transport-like vehicle that could be an allusion to the larger world surround the main characters or potentially a "transformation" for the main robot we interact with. It is well-known that Fumito Ueda is a fan of Hayao Miyazaki's work and the topics of both AI and robotics, which is evident in nearly each of the games he has worked on over the past 20 years. It's good to know that Epic Games Publishing can provide the support this great team deserves as they move further into the indie game space. It's an exciting time to be a fan of genDesign and their outstanding work.

[icology]

no caption because the facts are right here 🫶

[selene-lunette]

Working on an edit but I liked the way these two sketches mirror each other

[maidmusic]

No-no, I swear, I'm working...🎵🎮🎵

[the-faxx-macheen]

Oh right, guess fukckin what babes