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[and]

Hello!

Jon, regarding your points/questions:

1 - Good point, I've uploaded it to Kickstarter and she's basically a red/green smudge on the bottom of the image. I'll see if changing the pose helps at all but otherwise I'm going to have to go even more detailed aren't I? If it results in me getting £43,922 with 21 days to go though I guess it's worth the effort...

2 - With the sword, I think that it could work well in a falling pose as Conor suggested above. That way there's more room for it to feature prominently and I could make it stand out with a bit of a glow (and be bigger)

3 - I'll try it.

With the Kickstarter page I'll definitely be sharing it. Currently most of it says "Write something about this..." and a heading, but I've got most of that scribbled out now so I'll update it in the next week and share what I have.

[Zorg]

In my opinion, you should not show her face.

[and]

In my opinion, you should not show her face.

Do you mean just like this:

Or do you mean maybe with her back turned?

[Zorg]

Yes.



Sorry, i have to go.

[and]

Yes.

Zorg, that looks awesome! Thank you

I'll have a crack at drawing that - I owe you several of these: 

[oldblood]

Absolutely love zorg's suggestion... Definitely take that approach... It solves a lot of the thumbnail issues in one swoop.

[Canned Turkey]

Speaking of thumbnail issues, if it's not too late I'd suggest making the logo larger.

[Zorg]

Hey, i'm glad you like it. My impression is that you should not show her face because the main character remains more mysterious. It was pure chance that the light situation turned out this way. You could try if some subtle rimlights at the left sides of the trees would work.

I like the new font, by the way. But i would suggest brighter outlines. The red outline (MABLE) could be brighter and maybe a bit more desaturated and the outline of AND THE WOOD could be blue.

Good luck with the KS!

[chriswearly]

I actually don't like the font. It's not… clean enough? Or I guess, it could use a bit of polishing. It almost looks like you took a text-box font and just anti-aliased it. I love pixel fonts though, so if it's alright could I tweak the letters? (I'll probably do it anyway for my own practice, but I'm wondering if you're ok with me posting here with my changes.)

Other than that, yeah the "facing away" pose works much better. I also think that fireflies or something could help allude to the magicalness [sic] a bit

[io3 creations]

160128

I also like this idea.

Just a question: what is "WOOO" in "MABLE AND THE WOOO"?     (see more below)

That was my first impression when I look at that or the other similar images.  It probably doesn't help that the image has a number of things competing for your (at least my) attention.  The yellow Mable is great because that pops out immediately.  However, the rest of the title "AND THE WOOD" is almost hidden by the green vines around Mable and makes that part of the image very busy.   Much like when 3-4 people try to talk to you at the same time.  I've seen similar things work  e.g. fade the green colors more and/or make the vines much smaller. Or, some of them might even wrap around the letters below.  Either way, I think a bolder font for "AND THE WOOD" would work better.  Especially, when you look at oldblood's Kickstarter mockup (even if KS does a better image compression)

To end on a postive note, the game gifs looks great and I haven't noticed any similar visual "distraction" issue.

[and]

Speaking of thumbnail issues, if it's not too late I'd suggest making the logo larger.

It's never too late!

I actually don't like the font. It's not… clean enough? Or I guess, it could use a bit of polishing. It almost looks like you took a text-box font and just anti-aliased it. I love pixel fonts though, so if it's alright could I tweak the letters? (I'll probably do it anyway for my own practice, but I'm wondering if you're ok with me posting here with my changes.)

By all means, tweak away! I don't really know what I'm doing so I just mess around until I think 'Yeah that looks decent' so I'd be very grateful of the help

Hey, i'm glad you like it. My impression is that you should not show her face because the main character remains more mysterious. It was pure chance that the light situation turned out this way. You could try if some subtle rimlights at the left sides of the trees would work.

I like the new font, by the way. But i would suggest brighter outlines. The red outline (MABLE) could be brighter and maybe a bit more desaturated and the outline of AND THE WOOD could be blue.

Good luck with the KS!

Some more good points there zorg, I'll definitely try out the rim lighting etc, and io3...

Just a question: what is "WOOO" in "MABLE AND THE WOOO"?     

Now I can't unsee this. Thank you for the feedback, I feel like you can't put too much effort into the project image as it's the first thing most people will see.

So glad oldblood suggested not waiting until 2 weeks before to do this...

Thanks everyone - this is all super helpful

[Canned Turkey]

A simple way to fix the WOOO is add a nice curly serif on the D like the one on the A.

[and]

A simple way to fix the WOOO is add a nice curly serif on the D like the one on the A.

Yeah that's a good idea actually. I'll see what magic Zorg comes up with before I start tweaking though as he's a much more accomplished fonter (is that a real term?) than I am, so I may not need to tweak it any further.

Instead of the logo I've been working on bits of polish for the trailer so that I can have a rough video ready for next week. Basically just little graphical touches here and there.

For example, here's a new death animation to replace the splat of blood (you may also notice that Mable now changes pose when she falls):

I want to have a rough draft of the video by Monday so I'll keep you posted.

[Zorg]

I think you mean chriswearly, i'm not working on the font (and do not have any problem with the D).
But i'm curious how the result will look like.

I like his firefly suggestion, too.

[and]

I think you mean chriswearly, i'm not working on the font (and do not have any problem with the D).
But i'm curious how the result will look like.

I like his firefly suggestion, too.

You would be correct there. Sorry Chris :|

I definitely need to buy you all a beer (or drink of your choice) for all the help I'm getting. Let's hope the campaign goes well enough that I can afford to

[and]

A less gory kill (and a lot quicker to implement for different enemies because it just uses a shader whoop)

[and]

I owe you a proper update, but I don't have time right now so this is a quick look at what the swamp area is looking like at the minute:

I think that'll probably be enough areas for the video because the others are very early drafts and will probably put people off.

[and]

DEVLOG 008

Welcome to my latest update, in which I will be announcing that the launch of the Kickstarter is going to be delayed.

Are you crazy? You've still got 3 weeks to go!

I may well be, but I'm not going to let that get in my way. Here are some of the reasons that I've decided to delay the Kickstarter:

• I haven't even started on the trailer yet, which has to be good because it's the first impression most people will have
• I want to make sure I give press at least a month to delete my emails until I chase them enough to actually read it
• The demo will not be ready for launch - I want the demo to be more of a small prologue for the game so that, as well as giving people a taste of what is to come, it will also stand as something of value on its own
• I want time for all of your input, which I'm not really going to have if I launch in 3 weeks - you've all helped so much that it's been totally awesome. Thanks to every one of you :D
• I've been stubbornly refusing to put the date back. When I stubbornly refuse to do something that usually means that it is actually the best course of action to take
• Peter of SUPER MEGA BEST CAT ADVENTURES asked me why I didn't delay it and I don't really have a good answer (which is why you don't have a reply, I was trying to come up with a good excuse)

I don't know how long to delay it. I can afford to push it back to the 28th March I think (although I may be losing the office and therefore computer before then) but is that a good time to launch? I should do some research but a lot of what I can find seems to be contradictory.

So, I'll confirm the date later.

I apologise to all of you that I've not been able to get it all done in time. It's just like another small failure chipping away at my soul (slight exaggeration perhaps) - hopefully this gives me the best chance to actually run a somewhat succeesful campaign.


Ok, so what now?

First things first I'm going to focus on things for the trailer, which means finishing off some of the half finished areas (swamps, mountain ascent, temple and castle/tower exterior) and add a few of the one off pieces I wanted to create for the levels that were going to hint at the narrative. Also I need to animate one of the bosses as that'd be a nice way to end the trailer I think.

I need to have a cut off for when I say enough is enough though because otherwise I'll keep thinking that I don't have enough to show in the trailer. I wonder, how many environments would I show? Many a night have I laid awake and pondered what else I can draw to go in the trailer or on the Kickstarter page.

Anyway, once I've done that I will share what I can come up with for the trailer and start preparing the stuff I need for press (nice screenshots, gifs etc all packaged up nicely into a presskit).

Then it's onto the Kickstarter page and the demo I guess.

Actually, the first thing I need to do is work out everything I need to do and when I can do it and then see what date that gives me to launch the campaign. So I'll start on that now.

In the meantime, the following things are extremely welcome:

• Words of encouragement (sincere or otherwise)
• Any kind of advice
• Sleep
• Ooh ooh pictures of cute animals!

Thanks everyone - talk to you soon!

[MereMonkey]

I feel you're making the right decision here Andrew!

Ooh ooh pictures of cute animals!

Email me and I will supply...

[Crabby]

(insert word of encouragement here of your choosing)

Keep it up though. Polish is everything in a game. Don't want to rush that.