Lignum Woods Stage Layouts + Plans (Patreon)

Hey guys! I haven't posted an in-depth update about Shield Cat in a while, so this is what this post is about.

Lignum Woods

The forest finally has a name: The Lignum Woods! Lignum is just a latin wood for “wood,” resulting in the name literally just meaning “Wood woods.” It also sounds like “ligma,” which makes it fit in with the name “Mt. Bophades.” If Shield Cat becomes super popular, and you see people wondering if the names were intentional, you can assure them that yes, the names were intentional.

It feels great to finally have a name for the forest though, rather than just “forest_room_4” or what have you. I am undertaking a new layout methodology (see below) and remaking the intro area to accommodate for this, but this is the last time I'm doing so. Between the SAGE 2020 Demo and the March 2021 Demo, I've learned a ton through feedback about the game, as well as seen what works and what doesn't, and am coming to a culmination of all the different ideas.

New Hubs + Stages

As you may know by now, I've removed Lance's ability to build up speed and go quickly through areas. This allows me to make smaller, more intimate stages with 1-3 screen challenges, rather than wide open areas for Lance to zip through. The general idea is that there will be roughly 6 “hub” areas, which about 2-3 stages per area as well as an associated minigame for that area. Each stage will be roughly the size of what was in the March 2021 Demo, and will take 10-20 minutes to clear. The exception to this will be “dungeon” stages, which will be more focused on puzzles.

You'll find attached sketches for the new Lignum Woods “hub” area, as well as the first stage of the game. Please be aware that these map sketches give away secret areas, so consider this before looking at them!I am just providing them so you can get an idea of where I'm going with this.

In the hub area, you'll find the Lignum Woods Village, as well as routes to the 3 different stages of this area. You'll also find the train station and the river challenge minigame. In order to access the Roo Express and take the train to the next area, you'll have had to had cleared all the stages as well as defeated Parker. You'll also need enough Fish Scales to go to the next area, so you better seek them out!

The first stage takes place in the forest, and focuses on teaching the player about Lance's spin and all the different ways to use it. You'll learn about how to get over pits, fight enemies, and interact with objects. At the end, you'll fight Parker's sister Julie.

The second stage will focus on Lance's shield toss, and different ways to use it. It takes place in the caves, and will see you dealing with the wall arrows from the SAGE demo as well as bumpers that redirect Lance and his abilities. If you played the SAGE demo, expect something like the cave area in that demo, except it's an entire stage based on that. Access to this stage and the third stage are blocked and require a minimum amount of Cat Coins to enter, so keep an eye out for them!

The third stage is Parker's “dungeon” stage, and will see you solving a variety of puzzles to progress through it, combining everything you learned in the first and second stage, as well as some new tricks. At the end of the stage, you'll fight and rescue Parker, and learn more about the plot of the game and what's going on.

Feature Consolidation and the Future

You have probably caught on by now that this game is becoming entirely collectible focused. In order to get to new stages, you'll have to have enough Cat Coins to unlock the gate to that stage. Also, in order to move to the next area you'll need to have collected enough Fish Scales. The game will still maintain a bit of non-linearity, if you get enough Fish Scales and Cat Coins to progress to later stages before completing objectives in earlier stages. However, for the most part the game is becoming a more linear experience, as I decided that having it be too non-linear would be too much for me to manage while working on the game by myself.

This is also why I decided to change how the stages work. Instead of having large stages all in a single Gamemaker “room,” I can branch them out into smaller sections which make it a lot easier for me to work on. I still wanted to have some kind of Metroidvania-like non-linearity where you could get into an earlier part of the stage from a later part, but I decided this wasn't the best way to go about it.

Something else I've been talking about in the chat but haven't mentioned in a Patreon post yet is about how I'll be making it so Lance's Action 1 button can only be assigned to Movement Tech (like the spin) and Action 2 can only be assigned to Thrown Tech (like the shield etc.) I can't imagine any situation in which you'd want to have two thrown abilities or two Movetech abilities, so it just makes sense to limit them this way. It should be a lot easier for players to equip different abilities. To this end, you'll soon be able to swap between the Shield, Magic Cards, Dagger, and other thrown abilities that I add by using the shoulder buttons as it is more likely you'll need to swap between these than the Spin etc.

Another thing I'm doing is removing magic costs for most of Lance's abilities. I already have it where the spin and shield throw are completely free. However, certain things like the Magic Cards will have a certain amount you can use them for before you can't do it anymore and have to wait for the meter to recharge. There will also be “consumable” abilities, like bombs, that you'll have to go to the shop to pick up or find it out in the world. Unfortunately, however, I have no ideas on how to use lamp oil and rope, so I can't make a complete Zelda CDi reference here.

I will be making a lot more changes and removing options in order to make the game more straightforward and easier to understand. The last demo was just me throwing a bunch of ideas out there and seeing what stuck, and now thanks to player feedback as well as my own thoughts on it, I've seen what works and what doesn't. My tentative plans right now are to focus on creating a demo for the Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE) 2022, which should take place sometime in August or September of next year. The next major demo will be able to be released when I have all 3 stages as well as the hub complete.

Upcoming Stickers

If you've read this far in the post, I've got a teaser for something I'm gonna do next month! I'm gonna be opening tiers for $15 US in limited slots, and as long as you're pledging to those tiers, every 3 months you'll receive a set of stickers or other physical goodies. They will all be limited time and exclusive to Patrons, so I hope that you look out for them and are excited for them! I am currently just waiting on Patreon to fix a bug with the sticker submission process, but it will hopefully be resolved by next month.

Thank you guys for your support!