Dev log

Books, comic and music pages

This site now covers the whole of LIVEWIRE, not just the game: the prelude novels, the webcomic, the album and its music videos, plus a lot more detail on the moves, the weapons and the city.

Chapter 1 of Book 1 and Episode 1 of the comic are free to read here. The rest stays back until release.

Abajo music video, fourth pass

Socket's song got a lot more detail: rusty scrap in nine shapes, tunnel arches with rivets, bricks, pipes and junction boxes rolling past, furnished bays and proper doors. The video is built in code, so every beat, camera whip and lyric is timed to the track.

Abajo, versions one to three

It started as a lyric video with a flat 2D Socket in his tunnels. He came out again in version two so the lyrics could carry it, and version three added a camera that whips round every two bars, beat bursts, swinging bulbs, embers and smoke.

Backstory for The Static

A long pass on how The Static came together in the years before the game: who found who, what each of them was doing on Day 0, and why they stayed. Most of it will surface in the comic and in conversations at Basecamp.

The album is on Spotify

Livewire: one weird ass album is on Spotify as an extended edition with 31 tracks, including songs that weren't on the first SoundCloud release.

Probably Fine, painted

A full-song painted music video for Mike's track: Mike on the rooftops in the rain, a Jolted, The Wick, and a lot of brushwork. It's 2D and hand-rigged, and deliberately rough at the edges.

Design decisions

A batch of things are settled. The districts are seamless with gated interiors, so you can ride from the pier to the Spire without a loading screen. The game is 3D only; the sidescroller idea is dropped. PC on Steam comes first, consoles afterwards. Jolted hordes gather at random across the city, and how many varies by district.

One weird ass franchise

The full title is settled: LIVEWIRE: One Weird Ass Video Game, to match the books and the album. The plan is music and books first, then the game. The books go to Kindle under the narrator's own name, Mike Aracter, and the prelude comic will run free and weekly.

The design brief is now 406 pages, after 41 new concept sheets went in across the bosses, locations, the Static crew and their key items.

First playable greybox

The tutorial is blocked out in Unreal and can be played in the editor with stand-in characters. It needs rebuilding properly before it can go in a build, but it's the first time any of this has been walkable. Also this week: posed stills of Mike in his apartment for the opening scene.

A deck for collaborators

A short slide deck for musicians and artists who might want to get involved. The asks: audio of all kinds and, right now, graffiti tags for the city's walls. Collaboration is unpaid by design, contributors keep their rights, and deals get revisited if the game earns past a level agreed up front.

one weird ass album

Thirteen tracks of skate punk, pop punk and some stranger corners, out on SoundCloud. Socket and Mike both have songs on it.

Mike in Unreal

Mike is in the engine at game resolution: dressed in five garments, rigged, with a sprint cycle. Still to come: the cel look in real time, his hair moving, and cloth.

Ten moves, one test level

A traversal test level with all ten moves strung together in one 33-second run, from the Slide through to the Wired burst. It plays back as a sequence rather than under your thumbs, but it proved the moves read on screen. The Chrome Deck went in the same week, with ollie, grind and luge animations.

The Jolted

The base Jolted is modelled and cel-shaded from its concept sheet, then rigged and animated in Unreal with nine animations. A chrome-plated heavy got a 122-part rig with five attacks the same week.

Logo and key art

The jagged pink wordmark and the key art banner of Mike riding a power cable over the city are signed off.

Weapons in 3D, and this site

The Tag Gun was the first weapon built in 3D and set the method for the rest. Within a week there were ten: the Regurgitator, Colonic Cleanse, Synergy Beam, Multiball and Flame Spray finished, with Burn the Disc, the Skipper, the D.I.C.K. and the Van der Groove part done. This site went up the same week.