Hello everyone! Time for a neeeeeeeeew update!

What is this mysterious thing flying above the Lush forest?! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an Ikea furniture of which the instruction manual’s been lost!

All I can say for now, is that this artifact is full of the mystical power of the Hymn Mio. But what does he do? Who is he? What does he want? Well, if you want to find out my friends, you’ll have to play Pankapu!

Helloooo everyone, we hope you're all okay! Oh good heavens, look at the time! Time for an u-u-u-u-u-pdate!

In video games, boss fights are very important. When there is a boss, the player knows that this is the last test, that he/she must give everything to beat him for they can't finish the level if they don't beat the boss. And bosses help the player to realize he/she has passed a milestone, and is now stronger than before, and ready to go through a new level!

Moreover, bosses are the evil beings, that can cause some beautiful rage quits, and this lovely sound can be heard if you listen carefully : "THIS IS THE CONTROLLER'S FAULT!!"

I can't really spoil anything here (my bosses are showing me a "NDA" paper I don't remember signing...), I won't tell you the story of this terrible character, but I can at least tell you that the fight that will conclude the first chapter can be summed up in one word : "Epic". Brace yourselves, for Tyracine, the black-hearted shadow, is coming, mouhahaha!

Animation research

Smoke research

Color research:

Final version in Unity:

Well, this concludes our little walk in the Land of Dreams... What do you mean "I haven't told you everything ?" "What's with this appearing hand?"... Well, don't you worry, this will be the subject of our next update, which should come up before the end of the month (yes, you've read that right, we never stop working at Too Kind Studio!)

In the meantime, I'll leave you this small video to keep you waiting :

Stay tuned and see you soon in the world of dreams.

We love you all!

All the Too Kind Studio Team.

Let me introduce you a new character from the Land of Dreams: Ohiti.

At the very beginning of your adventure, Iketomi will ask you to find the trace of Ohiti, a small being from Peppu in danger...

Will Pankapu be able to have Ohiti find his Bravery back ?

Color Research

Sad Ohiti

FX Research

Ohiti In Spine

Final In-Game Version

Good news everyone!

Given the fact that the game's release is coming soon, we've decided to close the PayPal campaign.

The question which is certainly on your minds now : was this campaign a success ?

Well... We're bringing you today an excellent news : Thanks to you, Pankapu will be released on Nintendo home console! Pankapu The Dreamkeeper will well and truly be released on WiiU on 2017! (Or NX, who knows ?!)

It's such a great honor to think that our own small game has got bigger and will be associated to those that brought us so much fun memories when we were kids! This then means that whatever your console/PC, you'll be able to play Pankapu!

Thank you so much everyone for supporting us during this campaign!

One last important thing : Now that the PayPal is closed, we are going to send you the surveys for the backers. Please check out your emails during the next weeks!

Bonus: Back from Evry Games city 2

On April 16th-17th 2016, in Evry (near Paris, France), the city organized the Evry Games City2. This year, French independent studios had the place of honor! About 40 indie game studios were present! And, of course, so were your humble servants from Too Kind Studio ! During the week-end, many people came to see us! Little ones and grown-ups tried the demo of Pankapu:The Dreamkeeper.

Your positive feedbacks pleased us, and we're now back in our office in Lille, more determined than ever, and with many memories in our heads!

We love you!!

All the Too Kind Studio team

Helloooooo we're back ! And this time, we have news abouuut ENVIRONMENTS! Today, we're going to present you two new environments that will conclude the first chapter of Pankapu : The Dreamkeeper.

The Mudjin Pound:

Deep down inside the fast Lush Forest you can find the Mudjin Pound; Settled in a copse, where the Anima flows wanders through the forest small inhabitants' homes. Formerly peaceful and full of live, a feeling of fear dominates this place of quietness after the nightmares' invasion, forcing the Mudjins to escape their home.

For this area's creation, I'm going to let GG, our art director, present you his committed position.

1. The method

First of all, let's talk about the technical aspects. I essentially work on Saï, a painting software that I've fallen in love with, coupled with my brand new Cintiq 13HD, which has replaced my good old Intuos Wacom (no mercy! Given the time that I save on illustrations).

Once my assets are over, I put the final result on Photoshop, to carry out the last adjustments and boost up the light/contrast if the finish is too dull or too dark.

As for the parallaxes (background's layer in the game that moves in parallel of the scrolling, well seen, huh ?), I use Krita, an open source painting software, so that I can correctly complete my textures via an extremely practical specific tool (W shortcut to your friends).

Here is a small video of one of our previous live arts to show you Saï (without the Krita wrapping up, unfortunately).

2. Area Concept

Here you can find the first concept that I had realized for the Mudjin Pound:

Its name was Lumen's pond at the time when I didn't have the idea of the village yet. I was then more focused on the concept of anima, bright source of life, that I wanted to be omnipresent in the level. By the way, this idea will be kept and very much improved for an ulterior part of the game.

The second concept we had unveiled to you during the Kickstarter was more focused on the atmosphere and the tints.

The Anima was still present, but the area was much more dense and in a forest fashion. I wanted to go for concepts about the birch, a tree with a light-dispersing and striped bark, covered with purple and orange foliage that looks great in autumn and that seemed to contrast wonderfully with the previous areas to me.

The idea was clearly to bring some heat, and to differ with the earlier blue/green.

However, I wasn't completely happy with the result. Everything was too identical, poor, due to the overabundance of the trees to this "wood" aspect. I was starting to feel that Peppu would be just a forest with a different tint... I found that "boring", to say the least and I let the dough rest.

3. Final version

Here's the third and last concept. All finalized and integrated in Unity.

This one is much closer to the notion of life. It's filled with Mudjins and thus must be abounded by houses created by those cute little beings. So I designed a village at the heart of the pond. A peaceful place where those little troublemakers could live in and play by painting symbols on their homes while bathing in the source of everything. The place holds a milkier and sweeter atmosphere, it could even be seen as downy, to remind the joy of innocence. But the village remains desperately empty, striking a certain anxiety against a backdrop of loneliness...

3.1 Assets

As you can see, the platforms accessible by Pankapu are also houses. I nevertheless embellished them with music instruments to note the musical activities of our dear light bubbles, the [b]Mudjins[/b]. Music is an universal notion that wonderfully supports their jovial nature.

3.2 Parallaxes:

To finish, the backgrounds are made of parallaxes, which are parallel layers moving at the same rhythm as the camera's movements and creating the illusion of depth in a 2D game.

In the Mudjin pound, the environment is similar to a mangrove forest scattered with plantations close to sea anemones. There is a common idea in the whole region of Peppu : trees. And this idea can be found, allowing us to make connections between the levels. Hence, I don't step out of the main idea because of the Mudjin huts and the nature's magic remains omnipresent. ♥

The Lush Forest:

Above, at the edge of the Garden, you will be able to take a glimpse of the Lush forest. Vast Silva, generous and colored, this abundant forest is scattered with vertiginous trees as far as the eyes can see.

That's all for today, we love you all!

Helloooo everyone! Time for a small update, don't you think ? :)

Today, I'm just going to present you the characters of Pankapu : The Dreamkeeper, so... enjoy!

Don't hesitate to tell us what you think of them! :)

Hello everyone!

As you may know,  Pankapu is a 2D action/platformer game. It also has some role play elements in it. This might sound confusing, so we thought : why not talk about the gameplay ?

Pankapu: the Dreamkeeper is mixing platformer, action and role play. The goal of the gameplay is to be dynamic with a clear understanding of the pattern in order to immerse you directly into the action.

As the adventure progresses, you will be able to customize Pankapu, to give him new equipment, outfits and skills that perfectly fit with style and match the situations you will encounter.

During his quest Pankapu will bear different Aegis. Each one acting like a specialization and switchable in real time, fully changing the skills and weapons of our hero.

Every Aegis has a skill tree that can be upgraded to give new powers. These abilities will be unlock as you (re)explore the levels. This system is called Nebula.

See you next time, we love you all !

Hello guys! Thank you for the nice comments! :)

You now know quite a lot about the gameplay, and the characters, so I was thinking : maybe I could tell you more about the story ?  ;)

As we spoke before, story is a very important part of the game to us. Indeed, Pankapu is to be told like a tale. And like every tale, we want the player to grow up as he plays it. Thus, the gameplay will support the story in a strong way.

Djaha’Rell is a child whose nights are regularly troubled by nightmares. In order to overcome his fears, his father tells him the story of Pankapu, the Dreamkeeper. The player is then invited to live the adventures of the tiny warrior through the eyes of Djaha'Rell.

Djaha'Rell

The game is a projection of Djaha’Rell’s mind, and it all takes place inside this imaginary world. In this way, most of the characters and situations come from his troubled past, and the player, if he/she is a little bit curious, will find the parallel between these two stories.

This mise en abyme will settle a [b]dual narration[/b]. The young player will then follow the adventures of [b]Pankapu[/b], as he would in a traditional tale, while the more mature ones will read between the lines and discover the tragic story of [b]Djaha’Rell[/b], and how he overcomes his trauma.

Djaha'Rell's story is dark and tragic...

...While Pankapu has a more light-hearted and epic story !

All of this sounds curious, doesn't it ? ;)You'll have to play the game to lift the veil on those mysteries!

See you next time!

The pre-production is almost over, after spending 1 year on it, the bulk of the work is done. 

We have finished to write the whole story of Pankapu and Djaha'reel, and now we just have to focus on the cutscenes (animated comics).

The story is a really important part. Pankapu is based on a strong story telling, like a fable, it's 

why it was essential for us to finish the narration first.

We will not show you here what we have written, it would be ashamed if we spoil you before 

the release, but with the passion we put in it, you will be pleased by the richness of the story 

(at least, we hope :-) ).

But for today let us introduce you the new threat hovering on Omnia.

To infinity and beyond:

This last month we focused on a new enemy, the Upaki .

When we create a new enemy, it has to bring new mechanics too. Indeed this new enemy is a 

flying nightmare, capable of throwing corrupted projectiles on our guardian. It means 

Pankapu will have to fight like he never did before ... in the air...

I will let Nathan, who was in charge of designing this enemy, to talk about his process.

1.Concept art

We needed a flying enemy, capable of throwing projectiles. Because he was one of the first 

enemy of the game, I began my researches while keeping in mind "Make it simple". My first 

idea was a kind of flying Gelatyn, a small ball of nightmare's matter... with wings.

We came up with a design really close to a bat, with simple shape but highly recognizable.

When the final concept is settled, I can start the research for the animation

2.Rough Animations

Even if we are doing animation by interpolation for obvious need of optimisation, I normally 

begin with a quick research frame by frame for every animations. In this way I can find the 

best movement without being limited by the software.

"Idle Rough"

"Attack Rough"

"Death Rough"

When all those researches are done, I can easily know, for exemple. how many shapes of 

wings I will need. So I can paint all the parts and import them into Spine, the animation 

software.

"Sprite sheet Rough"

3.Final animation and colors

I finalize every animation on Spine while keeping all the previous roughs as guides.

Spine is the software we are using to animate. It works by interpolation; we create a skeleton 

with bones (like you can see below) and we move all the different part (the wings in this case) 

like a puppet.

"Upaki in Spine"

After adding all the missing parts of the enemy I can finally paint them.

And here it is! The final animation of the Upaki ! ... Cute, isn't it? =D

4.In Game

Now that we have a flying nightmare, Pankapu have to be prepare against him. Indeed, until 

now, Pankapu didn't have any air attacks, so we had to work on the air combo for all his 

Aegis.

"Bravery air attack"

"Ardor air attack"

Now our dear Pankapu can fight the Upaki on equal footing;

And that's all for this new enemy. We hope you like this update. Feel free to comment and tell 

us what you want to see more for the next update.

And that’s all for this new enemy. We hope you like this update. The Omnia express is 

leaving and will be back next month, so stay tuned and we love you all !!!!

All the Too Kind Team

We did it, our Kickstarter is a success thanks to our 1 1149 Backers that made this dream come true. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tookindstudio/pankapu-the-dreamkeeper/description

Thank you so much!!!!!