Hello again readers! This is Ana (the producer) from FluffyLogic. We’re the developer of Eat Them!. We’re here every couple of weeks to chat about the development of the game in our developer diary. If you missed the first part of the diary then click here for part one.

So where are we? Well we have obviously done a fair amount of the game, since we demoed it at E3. Prior to this point we had spent a lot of time getting the basic structures of the game in place. We use Sony’s 3D engine PhyreEngine as the basis – it’s a great engine and it gives us the important nuts and bolts of a game system, which frees us up to focus on making special graphical effects and gameplay. One of these is the cartoon -shader effect which we have spent a fair amount of time developing and refining. We are using it to create the game’s distinctive visual style. This was a time consuming process that involved our main graphics programmer and a couple of artists working together, trying to get the art tools into the PlayStation 3 and looking good. The basic system takes the 3D models of the landscape and the monsters and draws a black line around them, as if they are flat on the page like a comic drawing. What makes it a complex process is that it’s not a flat drawing, it’s a 3D world that moves constantly, so our graphics tools have to draw this look on the fly.

Thankfully, we’ve managed to get this just as we wanted it – it’s got a great comic style, but still keeps a sense of 3D movement, it’s fun looking, but still powerful enough to render out the action we want to happen. We’ve also been busy building editors that allow designers to add and tweak things like monster body-parts and missions. In Eat Them! the player can build their own monster, so each pair of legs, the torso, head, backpack, left arm and right arm are created as separate objects, each with their own stats, graphics and sound effects (if needed). It’s much better from a development point of view if the designers can add and edit this sort of information without needing to get a programmer involved each time. We don’t like to let them out of their cages too much as it’s hard work getting them back in by nightfall.

That, and it also frees up their time to work on other stuff. Here’s what that looks like:

Eat Them! Level Editor

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Hello readers! This is Ana, a producer from FluffyLogic, in Bristol, UK. We’re the developer of the Savage Moon series of games for PlayStation 3 and PSP. We’re here to blog about our new title every two weeks, with a developer diary charting progress of the game from now until you’re sick of hearing from us

You may or may not know that we demoed our new exclusive PlayStation 3 game for the PlayStation Network, ‘Eat Them!’ at E3 in June. In Eat Them! the player gets to create their own giant monster which they then use to smash, crash and munch their way though the city. The monster is people-powered – so eating folk is a prerequisite of keeping it in full-on destruction mode. The game features eye-catching ‘comic-style’ graphics, fully customisable monster creation and lots and lots of smashing things. The player has the option of single-player, split-screen multiplayer, head-to-head and co-operative missions. Eat Them! promises action, mayhem, destruction, humour and, did I mention?… eating people! The game is scheduled for release this winter. Here’s what it looks like:

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With such a deluge of game announcements and new trailers at E3, sometimes excellent games can get overlooked, like a pearl hidden at the bottom of the ocean. That’s why I’ve decided to bring to your attention a few trailers that you may have missed.

God of War: Ghost of Sparta

Go back to Kratos’ roots in his second rampage on PSP and discover what shaped the ancient world’s angriest man.

Kung Fu Rider

Flee from gangsters on an office chair using your PlayStation Move motion controller in this quirky title from Japan.

Heavy Rain Move Edition

Play the hit interactive drama in an entirely new way using the PlayStation Move motion controller to mirror the characters’ movements.

Eat Them

Create your own monster and see how much havoc you can wreak in the city in this PlayStation Network exclusive.

Heroes on the Move

Ratchet, Clank, Jak, Daxter, Sly and Bentley are together at last in this PlayStation Move enabled game.

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