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[Zizka]

I don't understand why this wasn't funded. Seriously. Maybe it was a marketing mistake or something because this project has tons of potential.

[JaJ]

Thanks!

Getting anything funded is a lot harder as it used to be is my understanding. Press generally doesn't write about Kickstarters, because there are so many and not every kickstarter that gets funded actually delivers what they promise. Most kickstarters that do get funded already have a following/ community to start out with, and for me, the first goal of kickstarter was to start creating that community. (And I did, I gained a lot from this kickstarter even if it didn't get funded.)

I'm just going to continue working on this as much as possible, it's probably going to take a little longer now, but it'll get done!

[lobstersteve]

oh, it's THAT game.. 
going to follow, looking great. mechanics and story and colors and stuff <3

[Benjamus_Prime]

This looks really nice! Following 

[JaJ]

I took a short break but this is the second week I have been working on the game again since the kickstarter ended.

Last week went pretty well. I’ve mainly worked on a short optional dungeon that will be accessible in the first half of the game and is the resting place of some exciting rewards as well as an artifact that allows you to find hidden pathways and items!

The entrance of the dungeon can only be opened if you collect four mysterious stones that are hidden in the first half of the game.



Once inside you have to solve a series of puzzles that involve moving colored orbs from pillar to pillar to reveal hidden paths and unlock doors. The tricky part: you can only carry one orb at a time.



One of the new weapons you can steal here is the lightning rod that conducts lightning from you to all enemies. It’s the only weapon that can hit multiple targets, but it also hits the user! This is the first of three elemental attacks that can be used in a strong endgame setup focusing on elements. Not happy with the effect yet. The bolts themselves are pretty nice but the impact doesn't quite translate yet and the sparks are horrible.



The boss of this dungeon doesn’t use the traditional charge system, but instead uses a signature attack that summons three items which will then be thrown in a pattern at the three heroes. You have to pay close attention to which three items will be summoned and who they will be thrown at or you will have a really hard time beating this one.



In the dungeon you kan find the tambourine of truth that reveals the unseen. (All puzzle items are instruments, their names are pretty lame but I kind of like that)
Today I did the visual effect for the tambourine, and I'm super happy with how it turned out.



I'm now working towards a beta version of the game that I want to have finished early august.

[Jay Tholen]

I took a short break but this is the second week I have been working on the game again since the kickstarter ended.

Good lord, I was out for months following my failed Kickstarter attempt. Good on you though, this game looks incredibly fun.

The boss of this dungeon doesn’t use the traditional charge system, but instead uses a signature attack that summons three items which will then be thrown in a pattern at the three heroes. You have to pay close attention to which three items will be summoned and who they will be thrown at or you will have a really hard time beating this one.



In the dungeon you kan find the tambourine of truth that reveals the unseen. (All puzzle items are instruments, their names are pretty lame but I kind of like that)
Today I did the visual effect for the tambourine, and I'm super happy with how it turned out.

Love this stuff.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

❤

[Zizka]

The battle system looks wicked cool, not only in concept/gameplay but that parallax effect is keeping things dynamic. Good stuff!

[gimymblert]

❤

[JaJ]

Thanks everybody!

Good lord, I was out for months following my failed Kickstarter attempt. Good on you though, this game looks incredibly fun.

Thanks! Yeah it's not a fun thing to fail at a kickstarter, but the amount of support that I did get makes it easier to get back into the saddle. Also, I can't really afford to slow down now.

[Pixelcomet]

I love the optional dungeon idea, you can tell some serious thought has gone into this! Following for sure, wish I had seen it before your Kickstarter 

How linear were you planning on making the game? Can dungeons be completed in any order or is there more of a path to follow?

[JaJ]

It's pretty linear. I would have preferred it if the game was less linear, but the story doesn't allow for it. Right now there will be two optional dungeons that you can complete at any time from the moment they are accessible, and there is one part in the game where you can do two area's in a different order. There is also some backtracking (which the map system makes pretty easy) where you can revisit previously visited areas when you get new skills and get to parts you couldn't before. That's optional as well. But the dungeons have to be finished in a set order.

[JaJ]

This week I continued playing through the game and making a to do list for the beta version. At the end of last week I tweeted the following:

“Making a to do list is hard. I always immediately want to fix stuff I put on it, so it never becomes a list”

Same this week. This time I got stuck on Nix’ temple. I really didn’t feel like the temple was up to par with the other dungeons in the game, and it became my mission to fix that this week.

Nix’ Temple only had a few mechanics: When you were near a water well, you could use the rain trumpet to create rainclouds. These rainclouds would travel in a straight line over lava that would then turn to stone. This would create paths for you to walk over. Sometimes you had to use the clouds to fill up other wells, from which you could create new clouds. Pillars would block the clouds. These mechanics got old pretty quickly. It certainly didn’t stay interesting for an entire dungeon. So I expanded on the mechanic in several ways.

First of all, I made the pillars that blocked the clouds pushable. Now you can push the pillars out of the way so the clouds can pass. You can even use the pillars themselves to trigger switches.

Secondly, I introduced a new kind of surface. “Darkness.” Darkness is nothingness that can be changed into anything. It fits the theme of the temple very well. Nix, goddess of night, used to live in the void that would one day become the world of Amytah.

In order to fill up this darkness, I created two critters. The fire critter and the water critter.

When the fire critter is hit by the flame of your fire bongos, it will start to spit lava from its mouth, changing the darkness into a lava field. Several puzzles in the dungeon revolve around reaching this critter in order to create lava.

The water critter fills the darkness with water when hit by a raincloud. The water can then be used to create new rainclouds.

Obviously, I had to redo all the puzzles in the temple, but all these changes really improved the experience. Not only is the temple more varied and interesting now, but it also has a stronger theme and requires less backtracking to get through. It did, however, take up most of my week.

So I still didn’t finish that to do list…

[Pixelcomet]

It's pretty linear. I would have preferred it if the game was less linear, but the story doesn't allow for it.

That's awesome, I think linearity can be a great thing when there's a proper narrative in place!

[maruki]

So happy to find this have a devlog here! The tileset timelapse brought me here! :DD

[thestrangers]

Beautiful color palette. Best to you and your game.

[JaJ]

Thanks!

By the way, next Saturday I will be working on a new tileset during a live stream at twitch.tv/jajaben7 
7PM CEST/1PM EDT/10AM PDT. Forgot to mention that last post.

[JaJ]

I forgot to post an update last week, so this is a double one!

18th-24th of July
This week wasn’t all that exciting. I finished the to do list, and the rest of the week I was busy with checking things off of the list. It was very warm this week, so I decided to do the less interesting tasks first since it was hard to be productive anyway.

This week I worked on naming basic enemies and giving them descriptions. I improved some tilesets and fixed tiling problems in some dungeons. I also made sure all enemies had the right death animations, and did many other small things.

Things got more fun on Saturday, though! During a 2.5 hour live stream on https://www.twitch.tv/jajaben7 (watched by two people) I worked on a tileset for an optional dungeon at the end of the game.



Timelapse:




The area will be a mountain climbing area, and it will probably use the reveal mechanic a lot. While climbing, you use reveal to see which walls will hold your weight, and which won’t. It will also reveal hidden enemies that are hiding on the walls. Additionally, I want to add 4 mechanics that make use of each of your 4 other powers, but I havn’t thought those out yet.

25th-31st of July
This was a very productive week. The first half of the week was dedicated to adding gamepad support to Nadia Was Here. I need to test a bit more, but the entire game should be playable with a gamepad now! I also added a tab to the menu for key items, which makes keeping track of the items you have on you a lot easier.

Another thing I worked on this week was the redesigning the lake area of the game with a lot of cool water and reflection effects. Since I haven’t fully finished this task yet, I can’t show this off yet, but I’m sure the before and after pictures will be the focal point of next week’s update.

I also did another live stream last Saturday. (One person watched, need to find a better time to stream) Last week I worked on a mountain, and this week I worked on the house on top of that mountain. Even though I struggled with the design at first, I’m very happy with the end result. Watch the timelapse and see for yourself!



Timelapse:




So that's it for now! Next week I hope to be starting playthrough after I finished the lake area.

EDIT: also, I put the wrong date in a video AGAIN. 13th instead of 30th. Well, at least it fits the the theme of the tileset.

[JaJ]

Early this week I finished retouching the lake area, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. The water is reflective now. The waves actually hit the islands, and there are sparkles that appear all over the lake. The islands are now visible under the water, and I also added in some animated flower platforms. All these changes make the lake feel more animated and real. I still haven’t found the right music for this area, though. I have three contenders but none of them feel quite right.

before

after


The lake was the final item on my list of things I needed to do before starting a new playthrough of the game. I started that new playthrough last week and I immediately started fixing things while playing through. The biggest thing that needed fixing this time around was adding tutorials for gamepad. I added gamepad support recently, but I hadn’t yet remade the tutorials for when you’re playing with gamepad. Fixing this took a good chunk of time, but I’m happy to say all the tutorials have been made now. The rest of the week was dedicated to fixing some smaller things, which I will be continuing next week. Hopefully I’ll be able to play through the entire game next week! We’ll see. There is still a lot of work to be done.

[JaJ]

This is a slow news week, so I decided to share the music I mentioned in the previous update. As I said there are three songs I have in mind for the lake area, and this is the one I’m leaning towards the most right now.

https://soundcloud.com/joep-aben/lake-1

Here is another one that I actually like the composition of, but it doesn't really work as well in chiptune and it is kind of distracting while playing through the game.

https://soundcloud.com/joep-aben/lake-2

This week I played through the game again and got a long way in crossing everything off my to do list. At the same time I added plenty of new points to the list as well. Next week I will work on fixing those points and doing another playthrough. I feel the game gets better with every playthrough, so that does make me excited.