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[paste]

I really like the look of this. I had to go back and look through the thread to make sure I hadn't already said so, since I found it hard to believe I would've passed up the opportunity. I hope you stick with it!

[happymonster]

Unfortunately Kevin's last post was in February, so I expect this isn't being continued.. 

[Dugan]

Hope he keeps going with it at some point

[paste]

Unfortunately Kevin's last post was in February, so I expect this isn't being continued.. 

shitballs. i guess the nature of his last post made me think he still was. maybe if we just keep the thread on the first page, he'll remember to keep working on it (if he isn't doing so silently at the moment).

[Kevin]

NOOOooo... It's Killer Sex Robots all over again.
>Broken Sobbing

NOOOO! No! My friends, I am not dead!

I've been working through some shit in life, and took an unannounced hiatus, but I've been back to working on this in earnest over the last few days.

I'd honestly lost interest in this just before taking a break. Actually, it was more that I hit a brick wall and got discouraged. I came back to it about a week ago and decided to shrink the screen size, leading to smaller rooms which in turn made it easier to fill each room up and lessened the vibe of emptiness I was getting from each area. The game, as it stands, will likely be very short (maybe 10-15 minutes per play through), but the branching paths and hidden items will hopefully be conducive to repeat play-throughs which should extend its shelf life a little bit.

Anyway, more updates soon. Love and apologies to everyone who was looking forward to this and was disappointed by its disappearance! ♥

[happymonster]

That's great news Kevin!

I hope you are feeling better now and life is more manageable. Take it easy. 

[DrDerekDoctors]

Yup, hope things are all peachy now and look forward to seeing more of the game. Smaller and more focussed is always cool.

[Kevin]

Thanks guys. Things are good right now, and progress is pretty steady so this should be in a playable state relatively soon.

Here's a rundown of what I've done/changed:

Rooms, as I said, are now smaller, and since traversal is quicker, checkpoints are limited to rooms directly following path branches. Path choices are permanent for a given play-through: the way back is closed as soon as you choose a course.

The game will contain a total of 8 possible pathways and will be structured something like this:



'S' indicates the starting room. Each branch leads to either a health or weapon upgrade (in the diagram, 'H' and 'P' respectively). The end-boss ('B') will be the same regardless of the path you select, though each path will contain a unique sub-boss (and the end boss' stats might vary depending on the power-ups you've collected; I haven't decided yet). The collection of power-ups is optional, as each will be held in an difficult to reach areas.

As far as actual progress goes, I've mostly finished the layout for a dozen or so rooms, and have one of the sub bosses pretty well designed and implemented (and another mostly conceptualized). I've also been tightening up the game engine overall, and working on art as the need arises.

I'll be updating semi-irregularly, but will definitely keep you informed when any major changes or progress is made. Thanks again for the support, guys! You're all awesome.

[HarrisonJK]

Good Good Good! This devlog is a roller coaster of emotions.

[paste]

YAY!

[baconman]

WOOT!!

[Kevin]

I've added this image to the initial post as well, but basically it's showing the new player sprite (significantly larger and different design), and the new screen resolution. Smaller rooms + larger sprites should help with the sense of emptiness that was bugging me earlier.

I've also started re-coding the game from scratch to hopefully address some of the bugs and tighten up game play overall. Things are progressing pretty smoothly, if slowly (which has more to do with my own laziness/attention span than anything else).

[DrDerekDoctors]

Always nice to see it's ticking over. Good luck with it.

[SolarLune]

Great to see, indeed. I liked the original character design before, where he had the helmet. But now he looks more like a normal guy, which may be what you're going for. In which case, nice! Still liking the graphics and that chunky GUI's sweet, even if I've seen it before (I don't think I have, but maybe I have).

[Kevin]

Thanks for the support as always, guys. It helps keep me motivated. A lot.

@SolarLune: Yeah, I think this is more the direction I want to go with the player sprite. I feel the new one is more readable, and I've come up with a loose story that this design will mesh with more easily.

On that note, I've been doing a lot of work on the sprites in general, lately, and I'm pretty pleased with the way things are going. The larger format has allowed me to get a bit more creative with enemy designs. Take the new lobber, for example:

or this cute little guy:


The clock in both shots is purely for testing purposes, but it will play a semi significant role in the final game (albeit from behind the scenes).

Enemy behaviours have been improved, generally, and player control feels a lot tighter than it did. I've noticed in the past that certain problems seem to crop up when working with incredibly small sprites, attempting to convey interesting designs being only the most superficial. The artistic change in direction has been good, is what I'm saying.

Things are still very much in, like, a pre-alpha state. Everything needs a ton of work, many features haven't been re-implemented since my decision to start from scratch, and much of the stuff I intend to put in still only exists as half formed ideas. That said, I'll try to post some new content/videos/whatever soon.