Yog Progress and Spritework | Patreon Weekly #39

Hey Patrons!

This week I’ve been progressing well on the Yog-Dzewa fight. I’ve made a few tweaks to the level layout since last weekly and have much closer to final designs done for the various fists. I've also finally started on some proper spritework for the new enemies. I’m going to try and get beta-5.0 out early next week, with the Yog improvement and new sprites for dwarven ghouls, ripper demons, and demon spawners.

Once all of that is sorted out and beta-5.0 is released, I plan to focus on the remaining spritework, DM-201s, and various other small cleanups before finally pushing toward a full release!

Read on if you'd like more details... 

Progress on Yog-Dzewa

I’ve now got Yog’s arena into a state that’s solid enough to showcase!

Due to the game’s art style, drawing good-looking stairs from multiple angles is tricky. Due to this, I’ve moved the centerpiece up, cheated the perspective a bit on the two side stairs, and removed the back stairs entirely. While losing those back stairs is unfortunate, I have thought of something really neat that I can do with that new wall. I’ve also opted for skull piles scattered around the arena instead of walls, which increases visibility and fits better thematically.

I’ve also made progress on the designs for Yog’s fists! Currently I’m leaning towards having three sets of two fists, and during a given Yog fight one fist from each set will be encountered. By limiting the randomness a bit I’m able to make the difficulty of the fight more consistent. Here are the two fists I’m mostly final on, both of which feature environment manipulation and cooldown-based ranged attacks:

Just as before, the Burning Fist will set the area around it ablaze, but can now also spread flames with its ranged attack! Standing in water seems like the obvious solution, but the fist will evaporate water wherever it moves or attacks. This forces the player to keep moving, as water is safe, but only temporarily.

The Earthen Fist contrasts the burning one by being focused more on creating terrain than destroying it. It constantly spreads short and furrowed grass as it moves, and also briefly entangles the hero in it with its ranged attack. The fist will gain strength the longer it is around grass, so keeping it moving is essential.

New Ghoul Spritework

I’ve got sprites in progress for Ghouls, Rippers, and Demon Spawners. Of those three ghouls are the closest to finished, and I saved some progress pictures to show you how their sprite was made:

1. Starting from another dwarf sprite is a given, as I want to be visually consistent with other dwarves. The monks have a stance that would be too aggressive for ghouls, so I chose warlocks as a starting point.

2. First I made a few obvious changes to make the shape more unique. I removed the helmet and tightened the robe into a pair of pants.

3. Next I ditched the warlock colors. I took the skin tone from monks, but gave the pants and beard new more muted colors.

4. I decided the skin was too bright and similar to monks, so I darkened and desaturated it slightly to make ghouls appear more sickly.

5. Lastly, I added some tattiness to the beard and pants. Now the ghouls fit their description nicely and have a shape that’s distinct, but not inconsistent with the other dwarves!