Rayman: Revenge of the Dark

[Spacergirl003]

Amazing! I wish there was a way for me to be involve with this project! It would have been fun! And I'd do it for free!

[Shrooblord]

I'm pretty sure Addy is absolutely fine with suggestions, fan art, concept art, stories, poems, songs or interpretive dance.

[Plejadenwolf]

Btw, I have another question. I remember there was, before I left for two months, some ideas about Dark Rayman falling in love with Raven and turning from the villain to the tragic hero.

I haven't actually really thought about it since then. I don't want 'love' to show its face in any literal form, however the idea of her being close to both Rayman and Dark Rayman could create some wonderful tension, which I now want to think about! It could fill in a few gaps to make Raven's character more apparently interesting.

Well, the idea was definitely not the general fell-in-love-thing. It's more complex than that. In some kinds you may compare it to the Joel-Ellie-relationship in the second half of the Last of Us. Nonetheless, it's not fully congruent with that. The general idea was that Dark Rayman gets captured, deprived of his powers by a magical spell from Ly and thrown into a cell in the secret headquarter of Ly's Resistance Force high above in some mountain terrain with a beautiful scenic view on Rayman's world, where they discuss what to do with him. Because of the overall structure of this resistance fortress, Rayman and his friends always come along to the cell to watch for the now powerless villain. However, Raven gets some kind off compassion for him. Talking in terms of characterization and looking through the visual and textual concepts of her I would definitely say that she is more an introverted character. For me she is a little bit reserved in her overall appearance, has a calming voice and character, a sense for little details and nature, is always ready to help and to listen and finally she's free of prejudices and has a beautiful strong attitude in general. As such she "cares" for Dark Rayman (and all the others around) inherently, maybe even without noticing it in the first place. By just looking at him for a moment, slightly touching the grids of the cell door, just watching what he's doing alone in there, then silently disappearing in an elegant strolling way, almost fading away, she cares, maybe reflecting her own loneliness before meeting Rayman and his friends. I think the term "sense" with all it's meanings (substantival and verbal) describes her approach and what Raven feels very good.
"And what about Dark Rayman?" you may ask. "Isn't he the badass guy who destroyed everything, enslaved and probably even killed many of the inhabitants of the Glade, including many Rayman, Ly and the others knew in the past? So what about him? How can this guy be turned around even slightly?" Of course he's badass. But such as Rayman Dark Rayman is a complex character with many traits and some of them can only be revealed by external events. Besides that, he has a curse on himself which he can't get rid of by himself and maybe not even knowing about it. I mentioned that in an older post and as lazy as I am I just quote some major aspects for the overall coherence:

In this child form state his mind is reduced to his drive to destroy Rayman as Mr. Dark originally wanted, like a light which keeps him alive. If this light expires he is "redeemed" but he is not aware that this will annihilate him, too. He may later learn that there are other ways to be redeemed and other ways of expiring this inner death thrive. With his beginning thrives of personality it's similar to that scene in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy here. In this state, just born from a spell, he isn't aware of himself and can't differ between outer movement and inner motivations, he does not understand what he does but he knows that he has to do just that because it's there.

Especially for Dark Rayman you could say that he's undergoing an evolution of mind. At the beginning he's born from a spell of Mr Dark, his mind is reduced to his drive to destroy Rayman, but later he learns to differentiate between more characteristic traits. It's similar to the evolution of eyes: At first primordial cells could only differ between light and dark and nowadays eyes can differ between colors, depth and all that kind of stuff.
As we all know Dark Rayman is the manifestation of Rayman's darkest feelings and as such very much connected to him. Raven may fulfill the role of freeing him from this bonds, giving him the opportunity to make own decisions, like transforming the Darklands to a better place together with Raven. At the same time this doesn't have to mean that Rayman and his counterpart become best friends, it could also become a more competitive relationship like between Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehog or he just vanishes anyway.
By all means, those are just random ideas and I don't know if they are helpful in any way.

So is that gonna happen? Will Dark Rayman die as a villain or live long enough to see himself become a hero?

Lel. Well I can't say unfortunately!

As for me who can accept many things, I couldn't and I won't ever accept the death of such a fantastic and just badass character like Dark Rayman. I just can't. He's too epic.

[Shrooblord]

Within three sentences you gave me the inspiration back to write on with my own script. THANK YOU

[saerleiya]

I always enjoy reading youe ideas, Plejaden. You are very inventive .

[MisterDark'sFanClub]

That really does answer my questons! Real creative, too! Thanks, Plejaden!

[Plejadenwolf]

Within three sentences you gave me the inspiration back to write on with my own script. THANK YOU

That's great to hear!

I always enjoy reading youe ideas, Plejaden. You are very inventive .

That means a lot for me, thanks.

[Adsolution]

Amazing! I wish there was a way for me to be involve with this project! It would have been fun! And I'd do it for free!

Well, I'm only really actively developing with Spanex and Earth Gwee at the moment, so my team is very small and localised (not geographically, lol). In the future I'll be recruiting more developers (programmers and modellers/texturers mostly), so it would likely be better to check back then.

Shrooblord's suggestion was ace for now!

Well, the idea was definitely not the general fell-in-love-thing. It's more complex than that. In some kinds you may compare it to the Joel-Ellie-relationship in the second half of the Last of Us. Nonetheless, it's not fully congruent with that. The general idea was that Dark Rayman gets captured, deprived of his powers by a magical spell from Ly and thrown into a cell in the secret headquarter of Ly's Resistance Force high above in some mountain terrain with a beautiful scenic view on Rayman's world, where they discuss what to do with him. Because of the overall structure of this resistance fortress, Rayman and his friends always come along to the cell to watch for the now powerless villain. However, Raven gets some kind off compassion for him. Talking in terms of characterization and looking through the visual and textual concepts of her I would definitely say that she is more an introverted character. For me she is a little bit reserved in her overall appearance, has a calming voice and character, a sense for little details and nature, is always ready to help and to listen and finally she's free of prejudices and has a beautiful strong attitude in general. As such she "cares" for Dark Rayman (and all the others around) inherently, maybe even without noticing it in the first place. By just looking at him for a moment, slightly touching the grids of the cell door, just watching what he's doing alone in there, then silently disappearing in an elegant strolling way, almost fading away, she cares, maybe reflecting her own loneliness before meeting Rayman and his friends. I think the term "sense" with all it's meanings (substantival and verbal) describes her approach and what Raven feels very good.

This capturing idea intrigues me as a great way to push character development, but at the same time, I feel it could remove a lot of the suspense and mystery surrounding Dark Rayman. Of course, I hadn't planned on shrouding his character entirely, I want to develop it a lot, but it would have an identifiable build-up to the final fight and not climax early.

I think I'm going to PM you to discuss the game's story structure and flow. I'm very fond of a lot of your ideas, moreso than a lot of mine, but I'm having trouble finding a good place for them, even though there are some empty areas in mine. Maybe if I can talk to you in private to discuss the story in its entirety, we can make the whole story a collaboration! I need to get you more involved, I can't not do that.

[Shrooblord]

More secret dev meetings yay
Remember: my credits entry says I was a Storyboner

[saerleiya]

Storyboner

I don't know why, but I saw Storybooner :p...

[Plejadenwolf]

Well, the idea was definitely not the general fell-in-love-thing. It's more complex than that. In some kinds you may compare it to the Joel-Ellie-relationship in the second half of the Last of Us. Nonetheless, it's not fully congruent with that. The general idea was that Dark Rayman gets captured, deprived of his powers by a magical spell from Ly and thrown into a cell in the secret headquarter of Ly's Resistance Force high above in some mountain terrain with a beautiful scenic view on Rayman's world, where they discuss what to do with him. Because of the overall structure of this resistance fortress, Rayman and his friends always come along to the cell to watch for the now powerless villain. However, Raven gets some kind off compassion for him. Talking in terms of characterization and looking through the visual and textual concepts of her I would definitely say that she is more an introverted character. For me she is a little bit reserved in her overall appearance, has a calming voice and character, a sense for little details and nature, is always ready to help and to listen and finally she's free of prejudices and has a beautiful strong attitude in general. As such she "cares" for Dark Rayman (and all the others around) inherently, maybe even without noticing it in the first place. By just looking at him for a moment, slightly touching the grids of the cell door, just watching what he's doing alone in there, then silently disappearing in an elegant strolling way, almost fading away, she cares, maybe reflecting her own loneliness before meeting Rayman and his friends. I think the term "sense" with all it's meanings (substantival and verbal) describes her approach and what Raven feels very good.

This capturing idea intrigues me as a great way to push character development, but at the same time, I feel it could remove a lot of the suspense and mystery surrounding Dark Rayman. Of course, I hadn't planned on shrouding his character entirely, I want to develop it a lot, but it would have an identifiable build-up to the final fight and not climax early.

The mystery part you mentioned is a very important one, I agree. It was more or less included in the originally plan of the idea, serving the function of being like an epilogue of the battle where the mentioned character development occurs.
Raven and Dark Rayman may vanish at the end, to heal the world from it's massive wounds. Whatsoever, there are other possibilities. This would make clear, why Raven is never again seen in any of the Rayman continuations. The reappearance of Dark Rayman in Legends is just a tricky spell from the Magician, it's not really him as I described in an older post.

As for the part of the mystery I think the term "singularity" is a very important one. As singularities I understand beings like Rayman, who are exceptional in relation to the universe they exist in. Even if Rayman is born from Betilla the Younger, he is definitely not a pure creation of Polokus and as such not fully related or absolutely dependent to his power and rules. Hypothetical spoken, he could have been born on a whole other planet somewhere in the universe from the "materials" of another god. However, everything in Raymans universe has to do with energy which shows up as "Lums", which are the or one of the main cosmic pillars of reality and existence. Even gods as Polokus couldn't exist (or wouldn't show up in creation) without them, because gods need lums to interfere with, to create and to annihilate as pleased. They are custodians of lums (and possible other energies) and as such more specified pillars of existence.
Singularities are, metaphorically spoken, comparable to sponges. They have a deeper relation to magic and energies as other lifeforms and can incorporate the energies in their very own, transforming them into powers, manipulating existing lifeforms or even create new. Without lums (or energy in general) they are like Rayman in the beginning of Rayman 2: weak and powerless. This leads to the conclusion, that singularities are very much dependent on external factor (lums, magic), but being able to culminate those energies to a much more degree than other lifeforms could do that. Like other living beings, those abilities are deeply connected to their inner self, but singularities are much more versatile to adapt different forms of powers from given energies. Where other lifeforms are a medium (for example: Ly is a medium of magic), singularities are a medium, but they are also connectors between different powers. You may compare that to the spectrum of light dispersed in a prism. Some lifeforms can only "have" one color, others are able to "use" a lot more and maybe some of them are able to "use" all of them. I also thought about lifeforms who contain some sort of lotus effect, so that they can't absorb specific energies, but that's another topic.
Negatively spoken, singularities are a violation of cosmic laws. Positively spoken, singularities may be responsible for the balance between cosmic events, which could get out of balance without them.
Relating to gods, singularities are neither half-gods nor their servants. They are more or less traveling in between those circumstances, like mediating between gods and cosmic events. They stand outside of both, but they're in between. You could say: They are unique cosmic events themselves, which can't be foreseen by the knowledge of the ones who may have caused this event. For example: Rayman is befriended with Polokus and helps him defeating his nightmares or Razorbeards' army later on. However, he could just have ignored it.
As we all know he was created from Betilla the Younger with the goal of stemming Jano's influence (or to maintain equilibrium in general). Because of such a great power like Jano's, she had to trigger such a unique cosmic event to cope with his powers. This may be important for Dark Rayman as well, so that he may aberrate from his original plans. Whatsoever, this is a very analytic point of view. It doesn't include the fact, that Betilla cares for Rayman and that he isn't only a thingamagical product to reach a goal.
It think it's a very complex and interesting topic after all with many possible interpretations and possibilities, all surrounding the mysteries of Rayman's universe.

I think I'm going to PM you to discuss the game's story structure and flow. I'm very fond of a lot of your ideas, moreso than a lot of mine, but I'm having trouble finding a good place for them, even though there are some empty areas in mine. Maybe if I can talk to you in private to discuss the story in its entirety, we can make the whole story a collaboration! I need to get you more involved, I can't not do that.

That would be great, thanks a lot. I'm very much with the idea of collaboration and it's great to see that we can discuss different ideas from different people in such a positive and productive way.

[Shrooblord]

I'm sad to be seeing these posts go when you guys go all hush hush PMey about it. But yes. Development secrecy is definitely a thing and I completely understand.

[Adsolution]

Just so other people are aware that I didn't ignore him, I responded to Plejadenwolf via PM.


Anyway, Spanex has just recently finished modelling the last of the 37 rock models, something she's spent the last month and a half on. Following that, over the course of three days I brought them all into the engine/gave them normal maps/tessellated them, and then just last night/this morning, this wallpaper was composited!


(4030 x 2000)

[Rayfist]

God damn, that lighting is gorgeous. I like the ROTD logo there in the corner but you should make it a tad more visible. Otherwise really awesome picture, and I can't get over that new Rayman model- it's so fruity looking. :p

[Imco]

Holy Crap, that's gorgeous! Good job guys!

[Jewish Candy]

This has come so, so far since I was last around. Wow. I just love the new Rayman model...

[saerleiya]

Wut the hell?

*makes googly eyes before the mindblowing picture*

That's awesome! The moonlight and the rocks work incredibly well together, not to mention all the signs we can see here and there on them. Cheers for Spanex, she did an amazing job once again.
The grass is impressively detailed. But we had already seen it on the last pictures.

The angle of the light, however, seems a bit odd to me: if it's the moon in the top right hand corner, Rayman and Ly's bodies shouldn't be as much enlightened as they are, to my mind. The lighting of the rocks is fine though. I don't know, it's bugging me :/.

I also had the same feeling as Rayfist about the title. Maybe a more blu-ish purple could do the trick. But I guess you tried to make a good overall effect by using the colours of the background to incldue it in the picture. It could be fine, but considering how the light is distributed here, it looks way darker than what it should be.

[deton24]

Wonderful wallpaper. Thank you!
ROTD logo looks good on that picture, but generally it's not so great in my opinion.
Rayman and Ly are looking a little younger...

[Shrooblord]

Goodbye Daft Punk RAM album desktop background, hello ROTD desktop background.

[saerleiya]

Goodbye Daft Punk RAM album desktop background, hello ROTD desktop background.

That's too easy mate!