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[Cakeprediction]

Have to agree with tiles having a little something off, I think it's the contrast. (it feels agressive?) or maybe it's the background meshing too well. Still looking great though!

if you wan't to get more in specifi (Although I'm pretty sure what you're currently doing makes a much more exiting devlog   )

How are you doing the laser beams, is it final?
seems like a rectangle+circle and it looks pretty cool and alive.
but if my assumption is correct and it's meant to be colored, how would that work?

How do you the white trail behind your character (and attacks)? Different sprite or special sauce?

What's with the white bar on the health bar?

You can answer these if you want, but do keep posting cool gifs  

Once again, I agree with the tiles, which is why we've changed it :D.

For the other questions, thanks for the suggestions ^^. I'll be sure to do them when I have nothing to post for a while(which was today, but then I had something to post).

Whoa this got some serious style since last time I came. Awesome keep it up

This is looking super awesome. Nice job guys

Thanks :D
Update 25:

Welp, almost all the art is done, and I've been working hard to implement it all.
as you can see in this gif, I've added:
-Hud elements
-Tweaked background
-Orphanage tiles
-Miscellaneous props

We've decided to split up the map into two separate parts, both of them having only one parallax layer to make it less busy, and because of that I'm also tweaking the map geometry to make it all look more polished. Here's a gif of the other part:

[Cakeprediction]

Update 26:
So now that the core's p much done I'm going back to old systems to fix them, or just change stuff I wasn't happy with. One of the big things I didn't like was the boss battle, so I completely redid it, with this as result:

I'm very happy with it, as it feels more polished and has more defined attack patterns.
The next few things I'm probably going back to are monster AI, flock AI and the npc for the orphanage, because that one is currently pretty boring.


Also, I have a question about music, what would you expect/want to hear in, for example, such a fight?:

[The Armorman]

I also liked cave story!

[ITTA]

Also, I have a question about music, what would you expect/want to hear in, for example, such a fight?:

Looking at that gif, I can definitely hear something Vangelis-esque with maybe a little more intensity.

[sbeast]

Hey, the game looks pretty cool so far! Will you be needing any music for it? If so I would love to help out, you can check out my portfolio here www.sbeastmusic.com/portfolio

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

I kind of find hard to notice the boss attacks because of how heavy textured some background (ground) is.
Had to watch the gif twice to see the small sword attacks.
Seems like a common problem that your artist had with Poncho, it's beautiful but hard to read.

[Cakeprediction]

I also liked cave story!

It's an awesome game, yeh :D

Looking at that gif, I can definitely hear something Vangelis-esque with maybe a little more intensity.

Listened to it, sounds cool and I have it noted down!

Hey, the game looks pretty cool so far! Will you be needing any music for it? If so I would love to help out, you can check out my portfolio here www.sbeastmusic.com/portfolio

Thanks man I already have a composer/sound designer, so sorry :p

I kind of find hard to notice the boss attacks because of how heavy textured some background (ground) is.
Had to watch the gif twice to see the small sword attacks.
Seems like a common problem that your artist had with Poncho, it's beautiful but hard to read.

Hmm, that's indeed a good point you have there. I feared the same thing, but hoped the differently coloured blade handles would fix the problem. I'll try to figure out a way to either make it more obvious or I'll just remove the small swords.
Update 27:
Alright, I've now redone two other parts I didn't like, the flock system and the enemy AI.

The flock system, apart from being a bit more streamlined-code wise also specifies certain flock "quirks"(enemies can be stronger and bigger, but less enemies in a flock etc.), enemies don't get spawned all at once and weaker flocks(calculated by all the flock's stats) flee from stronger flocks, and flocks can engage in battle.
The battle part brings me to the, what I think is the most exciting thing I've added: Monsters of different flocks will now fight each other:

Definitely a thing inspired by Rain World(not as complex though, far from it), but I think in this game it could add some really interesting situations, like encountering two flocks fighting each other, or purposefully leading one flock to another, letting them do the fighting.

I'm almost done with reworking everything I didn't like about the game, so after that I'll get to control reconfiguration, more polishing and then the demo is pretty much done :D

[Cakeprediction]

Looking for playtesters!

Right, so as I’m nearing in on the demo deadline, and considering everything except for the audio is demo-ready, I started preparing for the playtesting phase right before the demo release.

So yeah, if you’re interested, please hit me up with a message or comment on this(preferably including your e-mail, but if you’re not comfortable with that, just be sure to check up on this often the coming week) if you want to playtest.

You can also send a mail to cakeprediction[at]gmail[dot]com!

[jamesprimate]

cooling pretttttty cool mang 

[maruki]

Also, I have a question about music, what would you expect/want to hear in, for example, such a fight?:

When I look at these most recent gifs, I can't help but think of Touhou songs.
This game is looking great!

[Cakeprediction]

cooling pretttttty cool mang 

 

When I look at these most recent gifs, I can't help but think of Touhou songs.
This game is looking great!

Hmm, that's a good one, I'll check some more of those songs out :D
also, ty ^^
Update 28:
Got a lose of useful feedback from playtesters, also fixed most of the bugs. It was a great but scary thing to show that many people what you've been working on the past year, but it was definitely for the best.

Besides doing that, I've also changed the dialogue system to make it look a bit prettier and fitting for this game, and to make it support dialogue trees :D

Until I have all the sounds, I'll probably redo a few more larger systems to fix the things I liked least about the game, and maybe add proper control reconfiguration :'D

[Rarykos]

hey that's pretty good! I'd love to see how it ends up!


Contrast is a bit off.
The element that's most OUT THERE and drawing attention is the shop roof, followed by the ground, followed by the building... the player is quite difficult to spot.
I'd suggest turning that image black-white and see what's most visible now, and what should be changed.
I think there's not enough dark areas and when everything is saturated, nothing stands out.
It just looks like there's too much contrast/detail/saturation in the background and it attracts attention more than foreground elements.


This gif looks really chaotic because of the colours, and maybe that's exactly what you want, but I'd say the orange buildings don't need to have every brick outlined and coloured differently because it draws attention away from more important elements.

I hate to nitpick, but I thought I'd just say what I think. I'm sorry if that seems harsh, I like the art but I think it could be improved upon.
Good job so far!

[Cakeprediction]

~ snipsnipsnip~

Hey there, thank you for the in-depth critique! I personally definitely don't see it as harsh, the more honest critique is, the better it is for the game

Those are some good points you have and I agree with most of them, yeah! However, we probably won't change anything right now, at least not before the demo.

Basically, to continue working on this project we're gonna need some funding, so we're planning to pitch to a publisher with the demo build to try and get the additional funding which allows me to pay both the composer and Matwek, otherwise them continuing to work on this project isn't really viable anymore financially, since until now this project has had 0 budget.
Music+audio are currently being made, and the moment those are done and implemented, I'll throw the official public demo online, hoping to get some more feedback and hopefully a small following as well. Main point of the demo right now is still using it to boost the pitch though.

If anybody has some experience with publishers and some super important tips or helpful articles(already looked up a few), I'd love to hear it ^^

[CleanShirt21]

Can't believe it's been so long without an update! Was really enjoying this devlog. I think the game was looking great, even with the abstract art at the beginning, I think it could really have worked with something based off that as well. Hoping development is still on going, looking forward to see more.

[foofter]

I love the colors and style, but I agree it's a bit on the busy side with all the lines and colors of equal saturation and weight. Any luck finding a publisher? Good luck!