Devlog No.063 (Patreon)

Lost track of the days for a bit there and almost forgot to do this devlog. Really just working away at the next update adding more to levels, some new decor sprites, a couple new unlockables and trying to finish Yoyo's animation.

Yoyo's pretty close to done. I managed to shore up her dance and she has three total loops. One front and two back. I also completed the actual expansion, both butt and booba, so now just need to adapt the non-expanded dances into the expanded ones and she'll be done. I'll string them together in a simple fashion just for display sake and then I'll post it. Hopefully won't be more than a couple more days time, unless I decide to randomly work on something else.

New decor sprites. Really they are just some extra mushrooms for the background and a couple small decor pieces for the next area. Here's a quick .gif of the big mushrooms. (I plan to make it so you can jump on the red ones) I did kind of want to make it so that the mushrooms could dynamically bend over as you were standing on them, though I'm not sure how much effort that would require so I might not. The brown fairy cushion also might get literally used as a cushion for some thaery npcs.

As far as new areas go, I'm still just laying things out and prepping levels so I don't really have anything to show there. Honestly I probably won't until after I finish the bell priest and get to test her so I can figure out how the level layouts should go. I don't want to make a level, then design the enemies, then have there be some major issue with how the levels are laid out to where they are either too easy or too hard to fight for example. So a lot of what I have been doing with them is just drawing a general sihlouette or 'plan' for them to work with the ideas I have for them. As an example I would like to have a foggy kind of cemetary esq section where ghosties constantly spawn, but I wanna wait until I'm done the bell priest just to know if I want that area to be completely flat or have more hilly terrain or what.

For the new unlockables, one will be an elixir ingredient you can find. It will unlock a new elixir of course, though I'm still debating on exactly what I want that elixir to do. Here's the associated sprites.

In addition to that, I have a couple more that are for the Shiver Bow. Which I think it's finally functionally and aesthetically complete. The only other thing to fix is the lock on indicator needs a dynamic adjustment to it since it's blocking certain larger enemies from being properly seen, but that shouldn't take long. I even went to the trouble of figuring out the quiver system so it inserts arrows into it when regenerating them, and it can generate non-standard arrows or add them. Related, here's those two items...

The Frost Quiver simply allows the quiver to hold 2 more arrows in it, up to 5 from 3 baseline. It also changes the max power level graphics to be slightly more intensely blue, but that's it. Though I may make it so that it also causes arrows to regenerate more quickly while airborne. (In case you aren't aware, you can shoot the bow infinitely while on the ground as it recharges arrows instantly, but in the air, it takes more than a second to regen an arrow currently) This also affects you while you're in the wingmilk form.

The Symbol makes it so when you generate an arrow, there is a small chance it will be a black ice arrow. A black ice arrow does more damage overall, can stagger an enemy on impact, and also can transform a normal combine into a supercombine. Which, power level 1 and 2 cannot do supercombines so if you are in a peace zone, a black ice arrow will convert a normal combine into a supercombine. It might sound confusing, but it'll make more sense once you can actually use the weapon. The short of it is that it boosts your damage when you fire one of these arrows.

In regards to the whole quiver thing, the way I've configured it has also opened it up to the system I spoke of before. I don't have the unlock item prepped just yet, but there will be one which makes it so when you cast a spell, it will add an arrow to your quiver, or override another arrow, based on the spell that was cast. For wind force, this will be an arrow that causes the target to act as if they were hit by the windforce spell. For phoenix dash, this will be a fire arrow that spreads phoenix flame over a small area. The other spells I'm still thinking on, but I'll come up with something when the time comes. It's not super important right this instant since I don't plan on putting that unlock item in the new, or any of the old, areas. So I'm mostly just mentioning it.

As far as everything else goes, it's just slow progress right now. I did lose a few days dealing with personal business and tax season. I'm still not used to filing as a business just yet so I took a few days just making sure I was doing it right. But now that's done and out of the way too. I'm thinking that I've gotten most things resolved and everything else I need to keep up with is much more on the less important side of things. Right now I just wanna finish Yoyo up so I can start on the next NPC since I actually have an idea for her appearance already, but I don't want to just set an NPC aside and say "I'll do them when I get around to it." . I much prefer retaining a disciplined approach to my work and it's gotten the job done so far even if sometimes that feels slower.

The only other thing I can think of that consumed my time over the past couple weeks was that I spotted a couple more audio bundles and went ahead and picked them up. Then I spent a day sorting everything. It takes time to do this kind of thing, but in the long run it's been very helpful knowing where everything is. Plus having a large library of sounds is incredibly useful.

The march toward the next update continues.