The God of Craft

Shwmae pawb

I just wanted to start the week off with a small introduction to the main character for the game: Gofannon.

Gofannon is an initiated member of the Tylwyth Teg family – the greater family of beings within the setting, with the gods of the realm at their core. The Tylwyth Teg, or Fairfolk are similar too the fairies of European folklore, with a few key differences. Gofannon is son to Dôn, a matriarch of the race, which makes him royalty in his own right. However, he leads a solitary life, only interacting with others to uphold his familial duty.

He is as you might expect a master craftsman, particularly a blacksmith of legendary, magical proportions. Although the game is going to contain a majority dose of running around and smiting things there’ll hopefully be some time to make stuff along the way.

Here’s an early look at Gofannon’s model:

I especially had fun painting the woad, and making his moustache. But don’t worry, I have no misconceptions about my skill as an artist.

Hope you liked this sneak peek though!, next post will probably be displaying my first attempt at greyboxing a level since that’s what’s got my attention at the minute.

Til then hwyl fawr!

Introduction to Gresynu

Welcome/Croeso!

So I’ve just started this site up, and the driving force behind that was having somewhere to post updates on a little indie game I’m developing.

So here goes! First I’ll take some time to give a brief intro to the game.

Gresynu means to regret in Welsh. The game follows Gofannon, a secondary figure from the Welsh Mythological prose Y Mabinogi. Gofannon is believed to have been a smith-god of the Celtic Welsh, but made it over into the Christianised tales as a magical smith mentioned in brief only twice.

Perhaps the most significant reference is when it is said that Dylan Ail Don, a miraculous child born from Arianrhod, grew to be a fine young man, who was at home with the sea and waves, but was tragically struck down by his uncle Gofannon. All that is known about this is that it seems Gofannon didn’t recognise Dylan at the time.

That then, is where the story of the game will fill in the blanks. Through the game I will attempt to tell my own imagination of what might have gone on leading up to, and following this kinslaying between two Celtic gods.

That’s all for now anyway. I’ll be back soon with a post showing some of the early development milestones, although I’m just starting out with Unreal Engine so progress might be a bit slow to begin with.

Hwyl fawr and see you then.

Beginnings

Hello all and welcome to my personal site and the beginning of updates on my personal projects.

I’m going to use this site to post updates in blog-form, mainly concerning my personal projects. At the minute I have two things I can post about:

• Gresynu: Gofannon’s Tale – A 3D retro-platformer with some new elements that I’m developing in UE4. I wanted to finally commit to a full game, and lately I’ve been swelling with excitement for all things Mabinogi to the point of bursting, so I’ve smashed them together.
• Mab-y-coed – In my spare time I like to carve wood. Recently I’ve dedicated a lot more time to building up my online professional presence so it’s suffered a bit. For now the link to the instagram is in the header, and hopefully I’ll have more updates soon.

I’m going to follow this up straight away with a post specifically about Gresynu, so see you there!