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[Luachra]

Fantastic work! Love the dark colour palette and the sprites you've created so far! Looks like it's shaping up to be a wonderful addition to the 'Vania genre!

[SolarLune]

Thanks, everyone!

In the past week or so I've worked on a couple of things. One of them is a new weapon called the Railgun. It's the first charge-able weapon, and can go straight through multiple enemies. It also strikes almost instantly. However, it takes quite a bit of energy to charge fully, and you can't attack rapidly with it, as it takes some time to charge before it's ready to fire at all. It'll probably be found later in the game - I'll make a GIF of it sometime. Still have to make charging particles for it.

I've also updated my devblog to be respectable again! \o/
I want to keep it up to date - hadn't posted there in months before. Here's a bit of a X-post from it.

===================================



Today I implemented a Camelot RPG-esque choice system into Gearend, as well as save stations. I say "Camelot RPG-esque" because Camelot is a game company that made different games (usually RPGs) for handheld consoles, and they usually expressed choices this way - via emoting heads. I liked the idea, so I thought I'd make a similar system for Gearend.

I felt the need for this because I had no way to allow the player to choose either to save or not when they approach and interact with a save station. Now, it gives you the option with these rather excitable heads.

I also worked on a new arm part, as well as the first boss's graphics. I hope to finish the game quickly. Thanks for reading this tiny update!~

============

That new arm part is actually not the Railgun, but rather the weapon you'll find second or third (?) in the game, which will be the Shield.

[BomberTREE]

I always loved those little faces in golden sun 
Keep going man!

[SolarLune]

^ Thanks!



So today I added some basic cruddy particles to the Railgun, and added a Shield. Both should be nice items to get in-game (especially the Shield). I also added the basic functionality that was missing to have different animations for the different use states of the item (i.e. the shield has an "idle" state and a "use" state). Using the shield will drain your energy, which obviously is a bad situation to be in. Now that I think about it, perhaps I should add a penalty for dropping to minimal energy - currently, it just serves as a kind of self-replenishing ammo for most offensive actions. Maybe I'll add a "fatigued" state or something.

As of currently, the shield doesn't block melee attacks, though I think that might be a good idea, though it might also be a bit over-powered as well. Need to mull it over a bit more, I think.

I also drew up this dude as the first boss (the new one's on the left):



Not sure how I'm gonna animate him, but I like him, I think.

[BomberTREE]

What if shield + melee equaled knockback?
That could lead to some fun level design with lava pits everywhere.

I feel like you can break that knight down into limbs and animate it with Spriter to match the player
(Atleast the rotating sprites part)
That could definitely save you some time.

[Gueib]

Everything is coming out great! 

Also, I love that you are using Python. Did you notice any performance issues so far?
It is mostly my number one language when I want something done quickly, but I never really thought of developing a game with it.

[Photon]

Everything is coming out great! 

Also, I love that you are using Python. Did you notice any performance issues so far?
It is mostly my number one language when I want something done quickly, but I never really thought of developing a game with it.

Are you using Python solely or is it only the scripting language? That does make a difference.

If it is mostly Python, I'd be interested to know as well. I'm a big fan of the language and have wanted to write a full-fledged game in it.

[SolarLune]

Thanks, you guys.

@Kitheif - That's an interesting idea - do you mean equipping a melee weapon and having a shield gives you extra knockback, or...?

And thanks for that idea! I did split up this dude into pieces and animate him with Blender.

@Gaeb / Photon - I'm using the BGE, which is written (like Blender) in C or C++, and Python is the scripting language on top.

@Josiah - Thanks; Abuse looks really similar to the play-style, yeah! :O

Animations~



Starting to animate this big guy. I think he might be a bit difficult, so perhaps he'll be the second or third boss; the first one will probably be something a bit more your size, which should give me a good chance to test out a Bipedal enemy (an enemy that can equip two items, like you).

I got some really awesome feedback from ndee over at the BlenderArtists forums saying that I should vary my darkness levels on my sprite, which I pretty much whole-heartedly agree with; his edit shows some great improvement over my base sprite. Maybe I'll be able to work it in effectively.

Also, I've been listening to

song from the fighting game Under Night In-Birth because it's awesome and I need some rockin' boss music. Gotta step it up on my music, too!

I've implemented another enemy that just sits there and shoots and aims at you; nothing really impressive, so no GIF of that. Just some simple stuff here and there.

[BomberTREE]

Wow this month flew by, I haven't seen tig for a while so sorry for not replying sooner!
What I meant by the knockback comment was that if you wanted to make your shield blocking less overpowered, you could have enemy attacks that collide with the shield push the player back, forcing him to be more cautious in areas with dangerous surroundings

[mirrorfish]

This is looking great dude! Glad to see you're making progress. And yes, cut back for the win. I think it will make your design more focused too, generally it's good to kick the tires on everything and see if it REALLY needs to be there.

 

[SolarLune]

Thanks, you guys.

@Kithief - Sounds like a good idea, and something that could help me to make more interesting level designs. Thanks for the tip!
@mirrorfish - Yeah, simplifying the design of stuff probably is a good idea.

So, work continues on my projects. For Gearend, I decided to make the first boss a bipedal robot like the player character, which should make it easier to design and work with. I'll introduce him a little bit when I get him into the game, but he's going to be kind of an interesting character, I think.



Today I implemented Energy and Health Upgrades - they're RAM chips and Hard Disks in-game. When you pick them up, they give you a little message about what was on them from a time when humans were prevalent, like "You can see a small puppy sniffing the video camera.", or "It's a video of a middle-aged man returning home to his wife and kids."

(Yeah, I know RAM chips can't store data when they're unplugged, but whatever, I'm trying to make them interesting.)

Just something to make it interesting to pick up the upgrades, kinda like Earthbound's flavor text after you go to the different points of interest or whatever.

Also, I did some room design today, and fixed up some of the music to be more pleasing, though I might remake the village theme altogether because it kinda sucks as it is. :1

Gonna keep chugging away on this!~

[Moth]

Super cute characters! The glow effect is beautiful. Can't wait to play!

[lionfish]

Nice Job on those RAM and Hard Drive animations.  Are they 3d pixelated objects, or 2d pixels that you hand drew?

-Bryan

[BomberTREE]

I'm getting a high quality n64/psx vibe when I see the lighting mixing with the pixels and 3d..
Now that's a special feeling 

[08--n7.r6-79.84]

Cool! As always, SolarLune. Also, I like that 3D items, more 3D please!

[Conker534]

I love the 3d items!

[SolarLune]

Thanks, everyone!

@lionfish - Yeap, they're 3D objects that have a pixelated sprite applied and are shaped like their sprite.

Today I spent a pretty fair amount of time in development, but unfortunately didn't get much done. I was trying to get a specific animation effect to work for an enemy, but it didn't work out, and I ended up changing what the enemy looked like to account for the lack of ability to sprite it. That enemy is this one, a self-destructing rolling canister.



I also started spriting a few more enemies, which turned out far creepier than anything else I've done so far, which can be interesting once I get into it. I'll see about animating them and putting them into the game. So far I've got four enemies, which is a nice number for the beginning of the game.

I changed a few of the colors I'd put down so far in an attempt to add some spice and pep to the different tiles, and while I'm not so much of a fan of the new colors, I do like the effect it brings, so it's fine the way it is.

I've gotta really become determined to work on this reliably and consistently if I want to be a dev for a living, so that's something I need to and am working on. It's easy to get distracted when you don't have any need to get up and focus on anything, haha!

So about the whole "re-making of the enemy because I couldn't get the animation to look right" thing - I think I wasted my time there, not because the enemy was so cool the way it was originally (it was just a cube), but rather because in the end, it doesn't really matter too much what individual elements or pieces of my project I might have to sacrifice or alter.

Circumstances change, and something that I might have planned for awhile may not pan out - that's just the way it can be sometimes. However, it's better to make the game and come back later to tweak, update, and fix, than to never release it because you get stuck trying to tweak elements to perfection. My motivation relies on making progress, I think - if I don't, then it's hard to make myself pick up the project. It's something to remember for myself, for sure.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

[lionfish]

Circumstances change, and something that I might have planned for awhile may not pan out - that's just the way it can be sometimes. However, it's better to make the game and come back later to tweak, update, and fix, than to never release it because you get stuck trying to tweak elements to perfection. My motivation relies on making progress, I think - if I don't, then it's hard to make myself pick up the project. It's something to remember for myself, for sure.

I definitely can relate to that feeling.  Looks great!

[SolarLune]

Thanks!

Programmed and animated this little dude today; he can't be hurt, but is a very, very light danger. I wanted to add more general, "soft" enemies that don't immediately attack you and aren't all adversarial; this dude is one of those enemies. You can push him back, though, which is helpful.

[somn]

Wow I love how this game looks/plays it seems really smooth. I'm a huge metroidvania fan so I'm excited to see how this game develops.

The big armored enemy looks awesome. I'd love to see what you plan on doing for your bosses.

Also I'm interested in seeing how your shield system plays out. For the game I'm currently working on we used to have a shield exactly like that(it could be aimed directional) Ultimately we scrapped the directional shield idea but I think it works well with your game.