>First entry, thinking in what is the "right way" to start it so I'm just going to do it by telling you the not-so-long story of Nina Wake Up! and how time have helped me to put the pieces on the right place.

First of all, forgive my broken English, I will do my best.
Nina Wake Up! It's a project that started in 2017 in Mexico, when I was working at Alucina Studio (thanks to Rodrigo Garrido, Ivan Garcia and the whole team). I was directing the whole project and it was great for a while, but unfortunately things didn't work out so I had to leave the studio but I kept the project. When I was unemployed, I had to solve my financial situation first, it was difficult at the time, but when some doors close in your face, you have to get out of your comfort space and open others. This forced me to talk a lot more than I used to, but it also helped me meet new people, work on new projects, and solve my financial problems. Since then, I've been working on a couple of big board game projects and found a good day job that allows me to work remotely, have time for my family, restart the project, and think again about Nina, Maya and their world.

THE ALPHA VERSION OF NOTHINGNESS

I made all the mistakes an indie developer could possibly make and maybe more, but still, the experience I had on Hallucinate and then off was great, full of learning and excitement. Now, many years later and with a little more experience, I can accept and acknowledge those mistakes and use them as a foundation to build a new, stronger structure. Possibly the biggest mistake was just not knowing what the hell I wanted to do (realistically), finding a vision to stick with, and not getting swept up in a river of trends, technologies, and uncertainties.

At first, NWU! it was a third person adventure game, with a 3D camera, bosses and all the jazz, also full of unviable ideas that wanted to be like BOTW but with almost no budget and 3X the size of the map. Anyway, here is a video with some footage from that time:

A move in the right direction was the new camera system that worked with volumes where the character stepped and adjusted the camera to a specific angle, position, and tracking. This new system worked quite well and was less of a hassle than the standard free 3D camera. This approach to the cameras was definitive in deciding the new course of the game. Another important point was optimization and performance. At that time, I was starting to realize my limits as a developer, and that I can't realistically address them in a optimally (perhaps not even suboptimally) way with the time and skills I have. All of these things began to accumulate becoming a monolith that I simply could't ignore.

Around 2019 I was fortunate enough to be involved in a couple of board game projects that leave me with this insight:

>Limits makes you more creative.

For example, in Alba I had to use only black and white and only 3 brushes to make a set of 35 illustrations. This constrains pushed me to find ways to visually create a post-apocaliptic world without the use of layers, layer effects or any other fancy tool.

I decided to apply the same insight to NWU!, returning to what I can really and want to do, recognizing my strenghs (illustration, narrative and simple game systems) and weak sides, transforming them into a viable product.

THE PROTOTYPE OF A MAYBE

This re-start of the project means a lot to me because it means to re-create almost everything from scratch. Currenly I'm using only the control and character animations from the original Alpha version (plus control tweaking and new habilities), but with completely new 3D models, assets, systems and code in a fresh new UE5 project file.
Right now I'm working on:

• Designing a new fixed camera system based on pre-rendered (hand painted) backgrounds (think classic RE or the Boku No Natsuyasumi series)
• Blocking enviroenments
• Giving the main character, Nina, a new fresh look
• Writing the first beats of the story/gameplay
• Control is usable and decent atm but still need some work

Code is working on:

• Fixed camera system
• 360 camera system
• New adaptable camera-switch control
• Bug fixes

The first milestone is to finish a vertical slice good enough to attract some grants that could fund part of the development (at the moment I'm paying from my own pocket a great freelance programmer who is in charge of all the heavy-lifting code).

I will write new entries as soon as I have some interesting stuff to show as way to interact with people and contribute to the community by giving design advices, sharing our pipelines and code insights about making a game with hand-painted backgrounds in Unreal Engine 5 and maybe some downloads. Devlogs will be divided in code (written by Rick, programmer) and art, design and narrative devlogs (written by me).

For now, I leave here a bunch of early art I made some years ago,  hope you like it! and don't hesitate to share your comments with us as we are looking to start our own little community!

Greetings from Mexico! 

ninawakeup.com / Discord / Guilded / Facebook

You can see more artworks in my porfolio here.