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[Destral]

Wow, that's some incredible animation work. It makes me weep bitter tears for my puny efforts...

I'm keeping my eye on this! 

[Lazycow]

"Oh look, his first steps..." Of course, this type of animation has never been done before with the construction kit, and I had to redesign the animation handling and fix the usual bugs, etc.

It seems to have some troubles when changing the walking direction, doesn't it? Also, maybe I should use legs build of 2 parts? Meh, I don't know.

@supershigi: I think there won't be a DanFessler-textured dragon, simply because my pixel skills are not good enough, but maybe there will be an AlexMay-shaded dragon   

[Destral]

I think the problem is that he changes direction when his weight is on the wrong foot. If you think about humans walking, we tend to pivot on the leg that is on the inside of the curve.

I find the slightly-wobbly walk cycle you have no adorable, however. I could see some giant baby waddling around like that.   

[Zulli]

Is this game really being programmed or are you just torturing us? D:

[LazyWaffle]

Good to see an update

Can't wait, this looks amazing.

[Landshark RAWR]

i wanna see the whole dragon

[Lazycow]

A new walking test with legs, neck and tail. If you observe the animation closely, you may spot some overlapping spheres from time to time. I tried to fix them with a rubberbanding algorithm, but it's not gone entirely. (seems like I have to tweak the parameters a bit more)

But you can already see where this is going to.

@Destral: Hmm... I think you're right. Fortunately, this is not really visible in this 4-leg walking test. Maybe the 2 additional legs do some magic. It even doesn't look that baby-like anymore, does it?

@Landshark: Guess so... stand by, head and wings coming soon.

@Zulli: Yes, I am really programming this. However... No, just kidding.   (Ok, you made my day)

[Oddball]

To me it feels like his front and back legs are too close together. I'd expect a lumbering dragon to have a longer body. Looks good in the main though.

[Alex May]

Looks good, but I liked the flying one anyway

Like oddball says, maybe try having two of the two-legged body bits?

[AaronG]

I swear I can hear stomping when I watch the latest dragon animation test. Very nicely done.

[Lazycow]

Yes, I forgot to set the animation delay here. But somehow, I had the feeling that you want to see this anyway.    In the 2nd animation you see a test with the new feet. Is the distance between the feet large enough now? (It does not look very appealing when I use a body with two big segments. I could make the body bigger, though. But our hero that has to fight him is only 16x16 pixels...)

Ah, yes... You get a change to see the new head of the dragon! Will it be finished soon, or is this going to be a dragon simulator? Well, we are almost there: Head and feed have to be drawn in all 8 directions (oh oh) and then I have to add some wings. (sic)

[RotateMe]

Didn't read the whole seven pages of discussion but I'd prefer a two legged dragon which walks a little upright personally. The technique is amazing anyway!

Edit: BTW: How do you make those amazing gifs?

[Lazycow]

"don't run into sleeping dragons"... Updates: The dragon flashes when hit. The hero loses his inventory when killed.

Some Questions: Let's remember, this will be a multi-user game, so what should happen when a player gets killed? Halve his XP, drop all items and respawn at the start point? (At least, that's my plan right now) Also, what should happen with killed boss-monsters? (i.e. the dragon) Somehow, after its death, the dragon has to be there again for the next adventure-hungry party of heroes. So maybe the corpse gets a countdown... And when it reaches zero, the dragon wakes up again?

@RotateMe: Well, for this 1st milestone, I will stick with that 4-legged dragon. But finally, there could be more dragons, and each of them should be slightly different. PS: The game engine itself can save the gameplay as gif. (nice trick, eh?)

[RotateMe]

I love how the dude dies and his stuff flies around! Get rid of the black outlines of the dust though! Looking very much forward to seeing more of this! Keep it simple and release soon (... is good advice I never follow myself).

[Kren]

oh wow Lazycow, this does look really good 

[Fats_]

Excellent! Awesome art style and brilliant idea!
Want to play it now!

[happymonster]

Keep up the good work!

[Player 3]

Tubular. Follow'ng.

[DanFessler]

I'm kind of disappointed that you got rid of the awesome fluid flying-style control.  Ah well

[Lazycow]

Thanks for the motivating comments!! What about a double-update? 

The dragon got his revamped head and legs (in 8 directions). Also, I could track down the rubberbanding-problems. (Seems like the height of objects from the ground have to be ignored when calculating drawing-priorities)

In the 2nd cameo, you can see the sword-attack. The sword-hit transfers moving power to the victim. And it seems like you can push things around. This does not work anymore when I make the dragon heavier. (which should obviously be the case)

@RotateMe: Ok, I have reworked that dust. (You might see it again, soon) A gameplay demo should be possible this month, but only if I cut some things (wings) for the first demo...

@DanFessler: What do you mean? The 360 degree moving? I have intentionally disabled this, because the player can only move in 4 directions. There's probably no technical reason. So what about the new 8-way-walking of the dragon?