Joyce Zhou over at IGG has completed the second entry to her ongoing Developer Journal series that she's writing exclusively for Allakhazam. In this installment, Joyce talks about the struggles that the team had during development on The Lost Atlantis. Aside from the initial challenges, he writes about the design process that was eventually adopted and of course, the end result.

We have introduced some details about how we designed the scenery for Blue Sea in the last development journal. In fact, after we decided the game direction and the overall graphics style for the new expansion, we began to design the new scenes while also recruiting new staff. Today, we are continuing with the introduction about how we’ve designed the Shining Coast.

Generally speaking, developing a game includes creating a game proposal, preparation for the preliminary stage of design, large scale designs, tests and element combination, and public tests. It is a complicated project to develop a game and it requires a detailed plan before the formal designs are ever conceived. That’s why we needed a proposal which set up the game type and style, game graphics, development process, and technical support. The game proposal sets the general principles of the whole game. At the very beginning, we decided that the Lost Atlantis should be cute and full of oceanic elements because Angels Online has always prided itself on its cute graphics, game scenery, modern robots and classical buildings.

Shining Coast is the second scene that we’ve designed. As an end-to-end place between the ocean maps and the main city of the new expansion, it is very important and it should convey the romanticism of the ocean and the relaxing tropical feeling of the land at the same time.

As for the colors, we prefer the warm, dazzling golden yellows of the sun on sand. The golden beach and the blue sea lure players into a fantastically tropical world. What’s more, the various whelks and the remains of the shipwrecks scattered on the beach give players a bittersweet feeling of melancholy. The silver-grey steps far away imply that this place is very ancient. Even the remaining statues of the Whelk Mages offer players a glimpse of the former grandeur.

Here, we offer all players the unique and imposing Whelk Mages and Giant Crabs. At the entrance of the map, there are even some pirates and pirate BOSSes which possess high attack abilities to remind players that this is not a place of beauty, but a dangerous oasis among the relaxing tropical scenery.

Even now, we still make every effort to adjust and perfect game details and improve the game content. It is our responsibility to make sure Angels Online is the best game we can produce. We are also confident that the new expansion will continue to grow in popularity with players.

Joyce Zhou
AO Product Assistant