Goin’ has been a bit slow these past few weeks, which totally sucks honestly. I can’t really remember what I’ve gotten done even though I spend at least 8 hours a day working on this game. I did catch a cold, which hindered things a bit but I’m over it now. Just been fiddling with enemy AI and Boss ideas. Not much else to report!
Only one month left. Gotta push!

So I’ve finally gotten back to working on the enemies. Admittedly, It’s something I’ve always shied away from because it’s really unfamiliar territory for me. But… all of the articles I’ve read on it say it’s an iterative process (what isn’t?!) so I’ll just keep chugging away at it until I get some really fun enemies to fight.
I’ve had lots of feedback on what it needs and I’m addressing those things as well. Things like idle enemies needing to seem more threatening and the “enemy corral”, as I’ve been calling it, which is just how to organize enemies and enemy groups to maximize fun and aesthetics. Also working at making enemy approaches and tells more interesting.
Here’s a quick vid showing some new camera stuff.

Maybe “finishing” is the wrong word, but basically only a few more steps before I get the editor to where I’ll start playtesting levels. But I need to finish up enemy AI first and I will expand the editor so that many game types are possible.
An arcade experience is what I’m initially after, but I hope to use this engine to create an adventure mode as well.
The 3rd indiePub (formerly 2bee games) independent games competition begins on July 31st.
Stay Tuned!

Just finished up with the character editor and boy is it awesome!
I mean… Its just animations, but it makes working so much faster and has allowed me to do palette swaps (of a non-indexed color sorts) too!
That happened a few days ago and since then I’ve been redoing the animations, which only took a day, plus I animated all the new stuff I’ve drawn over the past few months, which is great time IMO.

Today I finished up implementing it into the main game and got rid of all the old animation data and sprites which reduced my runtime memory by a TON.
It has also taught me a lot about managing memory better and the overall speed of the game has improved. I mean… it was always at 60fps, but you’d get some slowdown in rare occasions as well as some mysterious random frame dropping.
Now I’m working on the event editor and have decided to bulk up the map editor just a bit more so that end user editing will be much easier.

Character assets are about 90% done… well maybe 80% is a better number? I dunno. It’s just that in the past I’ve done TOO MUCH with my animations. Now I’m equipped with better animation techniques as well as sprite production techniques. So while there’s sorta a lot to do, it’ll be done faster. Either way it’s only a tiny fraction of the animations I’ve already done. Just a couple more bosses to be specific… and kinda general too.
From there, I just have to finish up map assets, then…

ACTUALLY START DESIGNING A GAME! (hopefully in time for these new contests!)

Hey hey! I’ve been working on the animation editor over the past few days and it’s almost done! I’ve got the indieCade and indiePub (formerly 2bee Games) competitions coming up so hopefully I’ll have some sweet stuff now that my editors are complete.

Recently I’ve just been chugging away at some animations for a bunch of new enemy types. They’re also almost done! Just a couple more each. Plus the final two bosses and nearly all the character assets will be complete.

The first new type of enemy is called Highway Star.
He’s a ninja with sneakers who can run faster than a jet. He sets the ground on fire while he does this and can also throw bombs all over the place.

Dead Leaves is the next type. They’re a group of ninja ladies who walk around slowly until you get close, then it’s mad crazy sword slashes up the yin yang. They can also throw an umbrella and disappear while the umbrella attacks.

There’re a bunch of other new ones, but I’ll save them for another time.

While I finish up the characters, I’m going to be making a character editor, which is something I should have done in the beginning. I thought hard coding the animations was ok at first, but it’s becoming more and more of a hassle.

Finally, there’s the 2Bee Games competition coming up again. This time they’re waving around a hundred thousand dollars!
So I better get my rear in gear if I wanna get in on that!

I think the editor is about done. I implemented scripting which basically means you can to anything you want now, once all the scripting commands are made.
Also finally got back to work with animating, which I should have been doing every day, but… YOU KNOW!

Just working some more on the editor. After completing the breakable environments and enemy spawning, I need to implement some event scripting to make it all work together nicely! Once that’s done, I’ll probably work on enemy AI some more like I always say I will.

Woooo! After a week or so, I have the destructible environments fully implemented. Just gotta polish up a few more things, but even now, it’s super great!

In the editor you simply flag it as a destructible object and the different flags will give you different types. It doesn’t matter what graphics you give it, so you can smash cars, walls, trees, lampposts, dumpsters, ANYTHING, SO GO WILD!

Just spent the night adding enemy spawn locations for the editor. It’s not exactly the easiest to understand for someone unfamiliar, but it’s super fast and I’m pumped! Now just gotta implement exits/entrances that are quick too.