The last month's poll has finished and so this next NPC will be a thay'valay markswoman. Here is the appearance: Markswoman - A woman with a cloth bodice and leather shorts. Leather tall boots and gloves to match. She's got to have a small hat to go with and what would she be without a weapon? Likely a crossbow of some kind. She'd likely have some kind of backpack as well strapped across her chest. Fairly ordinary of a look with plenty of thighs to show.
The first thay'valay we had was a blueberry and the second was returning from being turned into a goblin so we'll avoid those two for her tf. And we've had a good number of full body blimps. Considering the emphasis on thighs, we could go for a nice bottom heavy expansion, or perhaps a nice hourglass. Maybe even a thick mother to be and swell her belly up good and big!
Anyway, the next couple of polls will be up soon. I am going to add a 'Current NPC TF' option to both polls and if they win on both, then I think what I'll do is I'll have a big long list of all the current NPCs (including just the regular world NPCs) and let 5 and 10 tier decide on which NPC they would like to either add a second TF to or give one of the non-tf NPCs a transformation.
Here are the new elixirs in action! Well except the gem shot since that one is very straightforward.
Also I forgot to mention that I added in some leaves falling from the trees FX and I also added a short area between Aghaidhin mountain and Telumur beach which is both designed to make the map make more sense and also has a simple tutorial on what the healing spell does. I believe I also added in one for the phoenix dash spell too in the forest area and a pickup in a spot you can't miss. Just wanted to make sure.
The Dvari hail from the southern deserts. A hardy folk of miners and traders, they are rather obsessed with gems and jewelry. Although their creation remains the direct cause of a'garian mutation, they are allied with their unfortunate neighbors. As well they maintain a wary relationship with the dragons, often finding themselves butting heads over their mutual love of valuables. The a'garians act quite well as the glue that holds the Emerald Conventions together.
Their relationship with the dolder is closer than that of their relationship to the a'garians. The smaller more subservient race making for ideal assistants to their own work. A complimentary team up that benefits both of them and all parties involved. One which came as a great boon after the war with the dor'em nai left much of their civilization in ruins. The dvari are all too happy to rebuild with the dolder in mind as new friends.
Beyond their endless desire for the greatest gleam, they also partake in many crafting professions and competitions. Whenever there is tournament to be held, there will almost always be a dvari to organize it.
Cordelia is one such dvari with a profession matching the intrigue of shiny things. Her sharp eye for sheen and sturdy swift form has made her perfect for pearl diving. Her history in such a business has brought her into contact with many an individual especially since she lives in the neutral port of Kirizimi. And like others of her kind, she's had dealings with dragons many times before and would have plenty to say about them if she wasn't so busy looking for pearls. Yet she's never gotten used to the filimuri's tricks...
I think it is rather clear that the dvari are pretty closely inspired by dwarves. The biggest difference between them are more about the universe they inhabit. (Dragons being not quite as impressive as they are in typical fantasy lore for example) Though really I'm happy to have them because I can't think of a better race to have for hardy creatures to be in an alliance with the a'garians. So they just fit quite well in that regard.
And now that we've got a dvari girl, we've gotten one of each species as an NPC! I wanted to write more to describe the dvari but I'm quite exhausted at the moment. Either way, I will try to post up the newest NPC poll results and then the next NPC polls, though I may wait until after I've rested as I would like to add a new option to it for people to vote on.
Also I want to say that I'm not sure I did Cordelia justice as I wanted to make her feel stocky, but still cute. I'm hopeful I didn't land in a bad between spot where she doesn't look good to anyone. Regardless, soon she'll have to worry about her air supply coming at her a little too quickly... courtesy of a filimuri of course!
Currently I'm working on the NPC of the month, Cordelia. I have her base sprite and portrait done and I'll post her shortly! Just need to do a little animation of her inflating now and she'll be done...
In regards to regular game development, still just working on Kirizimi Cove. It's been a busy couple of weeks for me with some life events, but everything is ok. I've finished off a new shop with elixirs. I'll have a little gameplay vid showing them all off! But first, here is the shop and it's owner Alyssa.
I'll list them here though as well and show a little visual. And just to clarify on them, you can only have one of them active at a time and buying a new one will overwrite the old one.
Gem shot - Boosts max energy by 30%. Shield elixir - Reduces the physical damage component of one attack to zero every 8 seconds. (Should only trigger from physical attacks. Doesn't block DOT or passive AOE type things like the druid sleep dance. You can see that it's ready to block and attack when the little shield icon appears on the energy bar.)
Coral Carafe - When Submerged: reduces all damage taken by 15%, increases damage done by 20%, and reduces the speed penalty. Ceranix Substance - When you are hurt by a direct attack, deal your current weapon damage to the attacker. 6 second cooldown. (Some attacks are indirect so don't damage the enemy. Example being the lightning orb by the filimuri or falling stones by the golem head boss. Also fatty ratty is immune to this due to a limitation of how fatty ratty works (Becomes invincible when hitting the player) In these cases, the stored charge is not expended. You can tell it's ready when the bottom of the energy bar has a gradient purple/blue on it.)
(Also the weapon damage is based on an internal value per weapon. Example being that the blaster and wind blade both do significantly more damage than the charge cards or spread attacks. The Grahstery Lantern has a set value for each power level and is comparable to wind blade and phantom blaster. The damage it does also scales with any damage boosts from items like the wind blade damage boosts from the wind rings. I spent quite a bit of time, probably way too much time, making sure that everything was working together. And I'm sure I missed something...) Candy Concentrate - Immunity to candy stun, 30% increased energy from candy, and damage immunity to hot cocoa specifically. (This one you will need to find an ingredient to unlock) Vim Vial - gain 50% energy when you would perish. Refreshes at checkpoints and on death. (While you have this one, it will protect you from death one time as implied and it refreshes on checkpoint and death. You don't need to rebuy it every time though. You can tell this one is ready when you can see the red cross on the gem of the energy bar. It will vanish after it protects you from death)
In addition to this, you will need to find ingredients to unlock other elixirs later on. Right now only the candy concentrate requires an ingredient. As well, there will be an elixir that unlocks every time you upgrade your Shopia membership. I'm going to lock one of these elixirs behind that when I add the new membership card.
Beyond this, you may notice that Aria's energy bar is purple here and purple energy bars are level 1 only. Well I got the peace aura working so now while you are inside it, your weapon will be downgraded to level 1. You're of course compensated with your energy no longer draining passively or from moving. (Though poison still drains it) Also while you're affected by the peace aura poison won't kill you.
Beyond this, most of the things I got done were either small things shoring things up, or just work on the areas in Kirizimi and NPCs. Speaking of, I'll be working on other NPCs soon for the player to talk to. Still quite a bit of work to do. I plan on doing a blacksmith NPC, the Jeweler NPC, and a several more basic NPCs to just talk to. I also still need to get the basic quests working too.
So yeah. Just going to continue working on things!
Still just working through Kirizimi Cove, the next area. I've finished up quite a lot of the town. One thing I am worried about the town segments is that they might feel a bit empty due to how big each room is and the fact there aren't any enemies or candy in most of the areas. But then again, maybe it will feel nice to not have to rush anywhere. It could be that I'm experiencing some kind of soft burn out. I say this because I'm looking at a couple of the new areas and feeling like they're uninspired even though it's just how towns can look. Rows of similar buildings.
I'd like to come back at some point and edit the buildings a little just to make them at least have a new coat of paint and identify them as being in a different town. I did refit a couple of buildings and will have some new signs to hang outside of some shops. There are a few new tiles here and there, and I've made some pots that I can easily put plants in (And modified some of the flora to fit into the pots) so interiors can look nicer in general. Though the outside is what I am most concerned about.
I finished up the mine area and now it just needs a few enemies. Due to the random spawn chance of gems, I figure for this mine area I will also add a few enemies which have semi-random spawns just to make subsequent visits slightly different. Not like full on procedural generation though or anything. I will also say I only intend to force you to visit the mine area one time as there is a guaranteed spawn of a single Zerkawn near the end every time you go. But you can revisit it as much as you like and there will definitely be reason to do so. But you really don't have to if you don't want. I plan to add at least two more mine areas later in the game. The second one with a decent amount of gems with slightly more dangerous enemy spawns and the a final one which will be dangerous to keep revisiting, but have a lot of gem spawns.
Here's a wide shot of the mine area:
No enemies added yet, but that won't take long. I'm thinking I will add a really simple bat enemy and a few gobbos.
And here is a little closer shot:
You can see the 'gem nodes' and these are really just potential spawn points. I have the most dense amount in the middle there configured manually, but most just follow the default 20% chance to spawn. Though due to the way the dirt is set up, certain weapons actually can't reach those two potential nodes on the bottom there. Charge cards for example don't have a way to do so. Neither does the blaster weapon. I'm ok with charge cards not having a way to reach them, but I think I may add an upgrade for the blaster which increases the dirt clearing AOE range making it taller and wider by 1 block.
I do worry about making this kind of upgrade though because it does mean I have to limit level design. If, for example, there is a level I make which has a ledge made of dirt and an enemy on the dirt, then this would cause the player to destroy the ledge when trying to defeat the enemy for example. And not everyone may want that. I could also just enforce it and make it baseline, but I don't want that exactly. Though I could also make it toggle-able in some way, but that's also more work. I could also make the upgrade have the AOE radius on the explosion significantly increased and then add another upgrade that lets you detonate the blast early, but that still kind of limits level design a little is all.
Well maybe not limiting level design exactly. More like makes the weapon less desirable for some areas potentially. Just things to think about is all.
Moving on though, here's some shots of what the town looks like. They're not the best since the parrallax doesn't function when I just take screenshots in the room editor, but I figure better to just show how things are coming along. This isn't everything of course, but should just give some idea of how it's coming along.
Dock area:
The boat arrives from the left and stops. I want to add another boat here and also add a bit more detail. Something that may not be obvious, or maybe it is, is that there are tiles placed on a layer which represent that blue/black gradient and they get a little bit in the way due to the layer I have to place them on. The amount of required layers and how many I have had to retroactively add kills me since I started with so few and just slowly keep adding more to keep adding complexity to the environments and it never seems like I add enough! (But more layers is good and I haven't found any info online that suggests Game Maker performance is affected by adding more. I may just break down and spend an evening adding a bunch more layers to all the rooms in the game currently, but that would just be very tedious work. I really should've just seen this coming after I made the forest area and had to add a bunch even back then!)
Wide shot of the area near the mine entrance:
Just something I want to say about the entrance to the mine but I realized I had NPCs that spawn and also updated the NPC code so now they sort of 'scan' the elevation to spawn. The non-chat npcs that walk around also have better code so they can walk up and down platforms and stairs too.
Blacksmith building close up:
There will be a blacksmith NPC girl here, though I am not 100% on how I will implement her function. Whether she will just offer the player all currently found weapons at a jacked up price or something more significant, I don't know until I actually get around to programming her.
Town center:
There's a shop here, a gatehouse sort of overhang into the background, the Inn, and an entrance into the foreground between the yellow and red tree on the right. The exit of the town is just off screen to the right.
Park area:
This shot doesn't look great due to how the town background looks, but that darkened parrallax in the sky is actually ground level in game because of a parrallax handler.
With that said, I may actually just add a stone or dirt background here since I am thinking that I will have a 'shrine on a hill' area that you can go to. This will be one of the few shrines in the game that you will have to do almost nothing to unlock. (Aside from pay the goddess symbols toll) If the shrine isn't on the hill here, it will be past the gatehouse in the previous picture.
The blue floating half gem here is a kind of 'peace' emitter. I'll come back to it later, but this is what prevents your energy from draining. (In Aria's lore) It'll also be the subject of why you can't leave. It's actually animated and spins slowly. I'm not happy with how the 'base' looks and might change it. I think it just looks bad. Also don't stare at the animation too long since it makes the claws look like they bend all weird-like.
I don't know why I made the 'docked' sprite of it since I don't have a plan to make it do so. I guess just to make sense of it since I did so before animating it. Also the top and bottom segment are separate in the game. I will likely make the top hover up and down just slightly too, but right now it's just in the game as an asset which has no code.
As far as getting the energy drain to stop, that is done. Fairly easy to get working thanks to earlier efforts to centralized damage sources. Also made it so you cannot die of poison in these 'peace' zones. Instead you'll just be drained as close as possible to 0. So you'll be able to run back to a shop to get healed. I think it will be fun and help to make the poison a little more threatening by making it so you don't have a guaranteed chance of finding candy since these new areas will barely have any.
On that subject, I am thinking I will make it so that your power level is forced to 0 while under the effects of the peace gem. I'll try it out in testing first to see how the gameplay actually is. Some of the level 0 upgrades should feel a little more worthwhile as a result and since you don't lose energy, you also don't have to worry about the time it takes to beat enemies. Though to be completely honest, I am mostly motivated to do this because if you perish, you lose all your power. By doing this, perishing will make it so you're sort of unaffected by it. Until I test it though, the 'fun' level of it is still up in the air.
I'm not sure how much it will be liked though so it's definitely something I'll need feedback on. Dying during normal gameplay is usually remedied by having symbols pretty freely sprinkled about, but if I do that in the town, the player can just go in and out of areas to have the symbols refresh and get infinite symbols basically. I don't really want that as it removes all challenge from building up your power.
East Side:
A raised area near the beach. It's not visible here, but in the bottom of that little cave area leads out to...
Seaside:
Something I've debated a lot with myself in these town sections is 'how to angle things'. Like the background I mean. What should I show exactly? For the park area, technically Aria turns 'to her right' and heads 'east'. (By default Aria is heading north throughout the whole game btw) When she turns right, the background can either show 'south' or 'north'. (I chose to show north) But what about while she's facing north? Then I should show 'west' right? That's how I have always been showing the background.
But I've been debating having it so sometimes you turn into an area and 'go west' and then the background would show 'south'. Thinking about it on a 3D plane might be really confusing especially if you go into the background and suddenly you are going 'right to left' instead of 'left to right', but in order for it to make sense, if I show 'to the north' whenever the player is going into the background, they would have to go 'right to left'. But if I always just go 'left to right' then you will see 'south'.
Really I am likely just overthinking it and I doubt anyone will notice. Maybe I will intentionally just have some areas that go from right to left just to mix things up though. It might help with the way the player feels if I do so. Going into the background, you go from 'right to left', but going into the foreground the player goes 'left to right'. (The thing that made me think of this most is actually when you are in the Inn at the start of the game. It has windows... but if you look at how the inn actually looks, the windows don't make sense where they are positioned. But I don't think anyone cares. Maybe I will change the position of the exit on that inn lmao)
And Kirizimi I might actually change the position of it's door too since I feel like I should add windows to it. The design of Kirizimi's internal looks much more fitting to the actual shape of the inn too. I think I might go do that now actually. (And come up with a name for the inn)
I think that's all to really talk about just this instant. I am still just working away steadily. Making rooms doesn't seem at all hard to do even when I am doing it, but then I realize several hours later that I messed something up and come back over and over again. The bridge in the park area I put on the BG layer for example. Just small mess ups that consume time.
I also have a shop music track being made and I'll upload that when it's done too.
But yep, that's it for now! I'll likely stop working on Kirizimi to start on our pearl diver too. I also have a buncha NPCs to design too so there's quite a lot left to do surprisingly.
Not a lot to say this time around. I finished polishing up the map system, got all the map data entered, and even added a few sfx for it. I've basically just gone back to making tiles, objects, and areas. I believe I had said it before, but this next area will be a port town and the player's energy won't drain passively here. It will be a small hub area with the front gate blocked. You'll need to solve a problem to get the gates to open and then you can be on your merry way.
Though there will be a few other things to do than just that one objective. As well that main objective actually won't take long to do. Instead this is more of a small hub area with a few little side quests to do and several NPCs to talk to. I would like to have a few new shops, though I am not 100% sure yet which ones I will put in. I am thinking that I will have one that has an upgrade item or two in it and one which sells the NPC tf catalyst. Then I think I will have a gem exchange vendor who you can buy/sell gems at a loss, but not 100% on that. And I may have someone who sells information.
As far as quests go, I'm going to start simple on those. You'll likely have a fetch quest, a kill quest, a gather quest, and one where you have to find the hidden item. Stuff that likely won't stand out too much, but we'll get to see how it works out. I'll try to give out some kind of satisfying reward for doing them too. An example idea that I have is the gem exchange vendor giving you a quest to get them a type of gem from the local mine. You go and get it and come back. Then they will give you a 'prospecting lens' which will make it so anytime you break dirt/stone that doesn't have gems, there is a very small chance you will get a gem from it. Not really necessary to play the game, but it will make life easier if you need to get more gems and also make it so you might just get them randomly while playing as normal.
The main quest to unlock the front gate though will likely be the kill quest. Just go to X area and defeat a special enemy type. And once that is done, you can leave if you like. I'll have to have a warning though that once you leave out the front gates, you can't come back in until you get to another checkpoint.
Also on that subject, I believe there is demand for the ability to backtrack. While there are some spots that it would be quite hard to do that at, I will likely add the ability to do so later in the game. There will also be more traversal abilities, but I am trying to keep cautious about this because I don't want the pace of the game to become too fast or mobile. I would like to have some extra things though that make it fun, but I will almost always limit mobility increases such as double jumps. (Though there will be a 'method' to double jump at some point in the future, but it will be limited to a spell)
I should note that if it's not obvious, I want to keep the speed of the game to a medium speed. A nice steady pace. Not too fast, not too slow. I don't want the game to be a precision platformer. Not that I have anything wrong with them mind you! It's just that I prefer less emphasis on the precision part of it is all!
And that's all I really have to report now. I'm just working on things and programming the quests will take me a while to do. Once I release this next build I would like to get feedback on the quests and this hub design. I would like to know how everyone feels about it. Here is a quick little preview of one of the shop interiors that I'm working on.
So this month I tried experimenting with offering to add a second tf to the last NPC we did which was the witch NPC. Though I had the condition that both appearance and species would have to match otherwise it would default to the runner up for either. In this case the appearance poll came out different than the species so it will have to default to the second place. This means we'll be having a new NPC, a Dvari pearl diver.
In this case I'd say it would fit since Dvari are fond of shiny things in general. Dvari tend to live in hot areas and they sure do love gems and jewelry. So naturally being a pearl diver would make sense. Dvari are sort of meant to be short and stocky like you'd expect from a typical fantasy dwarf with their most major exceptions being that they live in the desert and have a more middle eastern aesthetic. Curved swords, lighter armor types, clothes meant to protect from the heat, and a fascination with jewelry, spices and, of course, folklore involving magic lamps. Though I have planned on also giving them touches of east asian tastes too, but hadn't gotten around to really developing them too much.
But to put it a be a little more straightforward, you can expect something of a short-stack for this month's NPC. As for her TF animation, I was kind of thinking about doing something involving booba and belly or full body blimping from too much magic air or maybe finding a necklace that makes her grow in size and become big. Though, as always, I'm open to ideas. Perhaps after I've actually created her I'll have a clearer image then.
Speaking of, since she's a pearl diver she's definitely going to have a bikini of some kind to wear! So likely be some kind of shorstack in a bikini!
A quick reminder, but if you want to see a second TF with Gema then she'll need both categories, appearance and species to win for her and right now only the species category has her selected. Though if you want a new NPC then just select a category that isn't her. Just wanted to be triple clear on it is all! Now that I have said that... here's the flavor for Gema.
"Too young to be out here alone?" The young witch giggles. "Surely you don't mean little old me..."
Illusion spells are fairly common, but those that actually affect shape are less so. Druids are the ones most expected to be shapeshifting, but taking on the appearance of a young woman falls more in line with a witch. Though the true form of witch isn't always disappointing. And it can be, perhaps, understood why one might have a smaller intermediary form to reduce bulk.
Some nobles are known to employ the services of witches to hide the monstrous transformations of candy mutants who have escaped the allure of candy islands. Though frequently this requires multiple doses to overcome. And in Gema's case, she is one such friendly, if not business focused, witch who knows how to create transformative vials and velums. Though her spells tend toward making the subject appear younger than they actually are.
Here's Gema's transformation animation! I might spice it up just a bit from this, but this is the general idea. I didn't intend it to take this long to get around to, but I had gotten sidetracked for a time. I also really cleaned up the map system and been at work on the levels again. It will still be some time though as I would like this next area to have several more NPCs as I have discussed.
When I was a kid, I remember buying a pack of space marines. The plastic kind you assemble. And I went through a great deal of trouble with assembling and painting them. First using the wrong glue, then using the wrong paint. In the end, I figured out the correct glue and right paint and I assembled all of them. But it was only after I'd put them together that I realized I had put on their shoulderpads wrong.
It seems whenever I learn something new I always mess something up and have to take it apart and put it back together again. Usually only once though!
So these past couple weeks I focused on working on two things mostly. The first was a new currency that ties into NPC tfs and the second is the map. I also fixed up the in game menu a bit and now there is a new inventory option. For now it just shows the new currency, gems, and also lets you access your map.
In the next build you'll be able to find gems within nodes with gems inside them. If the node has rainbow colored stones in it, then it'll be random what you get. If it's a solid color then you're guaranteed that specific color. The amount you get from each node will vary of course. I can control all of this on a per node basis. By default, when I set a node down it has a random chance of being a gem node when you load the room it's in. Otherwise it'll just be dirt. But I'll be modifying these spawn chances a bit on a per node basis. So sometimes you'll find gems more often in a specific spot than others.
Also there will be a small chance of finding a node or two in earlier segments of the game. So even if you are new, you might find some before you reach this coming up area.
Speaking of, Kirizimi will have a gem mine in it that you can explore. It'll be pretty small and the number of gems you can find will be fairly low, but it should act as a nice introduction to them. One of the quests will involve you going in and grabbing a specific type of gem. I'll make it so that specific gem type is guaranteed to spawn so you won't have to keep going in and out and hoping you get it.
As far as what kinds of gems there are, right now there are six types. Eneralds, Silfires, Raspers, Zerkawns, Torazes, and Kyrakysts. (I'm sure if you use your imagination you can figure out what they're supposed to actually be)
As for what purpose they serve, partially as a way to buy a few unique items, but also mainly used as a catalyst for tfing NPCs. You'll also need to buy a special tf item from a vendor.
I may add more gem types later on, but for now, these should cover things.
And as for the map. Well it was much harder to implement than I thought.
I said I was just going to keep it simple, but when I got an idea in my head for it, I couldn't get it out and so naturally I went to the trouble of making things harder on myself than I should. I didn't want the map to be overly simple to the point you would look at it and go 'I forget what is actually there'. So naturally I included a little thumbnail of the area appearance and have some text at the top which tells you 'what' you're looking at. You can also move through the map very easily.
Right now it's just a bit rigid and only detects direct paths so it won't go up right, down right, etc if a node isn't directly next to it. I'm going to fix that up and smooth it out. Also I would kind of like it so when you switch nodes that it doesn't just 'snap' to the next node and instead the screen drifts rapidly over. Should be less disorienting.
I'll post a video showing off both the map and gems after this.
Making the map was really time consuming actually. Though that's really just cause I have to add entries. But now that I have most of the entries in there, it should be easy enough to just update it as I go every time I add a new area.
It's also worth noting, but I had quite a bit of trouble with saving the map. I was getting some errors as I had been trying to store the map data in with the rest of the data. (Stack overflow stuff. I believe this has to do with using base64 encode in GML. I am actually a bit worried it might come back if I keep trying to add more save data, but I will avoid using that encoding for everything else since the only extra stuff would be just a bestiary.)
I managed to get it to work by just adding a new save file for your map data. So now you'll have a save file for your normal save and also a map data save file inside the save folder. Nothing to really worry about at all. I had to save it as plaintext though and I am a bit worried someone might stumble onto it and mess it up, but ehn. If you're going into save files and modifying them then it's an assumed risk.
I'm actually not at all opposed to anyone seeing/modifying their raw save file info and such, I just worry that accidents might happen is all.
Either way, I started out with a map array which was just way too big anyway and I think that was probably the cause. I shrunk it down significantly. Though even with doing that the game lags a bit when saving and loading. Which I honestly wondered if my game would ever get to the point that I needed a 'loading' 'saving' screen. I'm hoping to avoid that if I can.
If after the next update anyone is having saving/loading delays which are significant, please let me know so I can figure something out. As of right now it's just a small delay, but you never know. It will also take a bit when you first load your save because the game will be making a new file for the map data. So no need to worry if it only happens the first time you load your game. Though I do always recommend making a backup of your previous save of course.
The one problem with the new map system is that it's not dynamic. When you load your save game, you will have to revisit all the areas to unlock them in the map. Unfortunately I didn't have the foresight to implement any mapping points in rooms. I honestly didn't even think the game would get this big really.
If everyone would like though I can add a trigger to the game in the next debug build to allow you to touch it and it will unlock all the main path nodes. (I assume people don't want me to spoil them by unlocking all the hidden paths for them)
And I think that's really it for now! Check out the video and give me feedback on how you feel about it! I'm willing to modify it more if it's not great.
Going to delay the devlog one more day. I basically finished the map system functionality and all that's left is data entry, but I am exhausted. I'll have a devlog ready tomorrow and show the map system off.
As the poll promised, a mostly standard witch named Gema de Bleu! And in this case, the witch is quite a cute one. She looks young and adorable! But don't always be fooled for witches rarely show off their true forms right? And Gema is certainly no child. But fortunately, the smile is at least genuine! Most witches might be out to turn you into a frog, but in this case she just likes her privacy. Bring her the right ingredient and maybe you'll get to see her turn back into her true form...
Like I said, she'll have an hourglass sort of transformation, but I think I'll be leaning more towards growing her size and maturity too. So she'll end up more of a womanly witch afterward than this cutesy form.
Hmm... I wonder if there are any other characters in the game who currently look younger than they actually are...
So just as a small reminder, if both the species and appearance poll vote in favor of the witch option, then I'll give her a second TF. Likely as more of an 'addon' post her normal tf. I could certainly see this cute witch accidentally blimping herself or turning herself into a blueberry for example. Or maybe just having her belly swell up. Who knows? However, if you'd just prefer another NPC then vote for something other than that option. Remember, both polls have to match though!
This was a fast couple of weeks for me. I was quite busy! Between finishing Licorice and getting the next steps going, it was quite a bit of work!
But I have a lot of good news this time. First and foremost is the most obvious stuff, working on the next NPC. Her name is likely to be Gema de Bleu. Though I do have one minor annoyance here.
When I first started working on my game, I was deciding on a style. Originally I followed with Metal slug's style a while back and even poked my head into making a MtF tf game, but due to some circumstances that occurred, I backed out of that game. But I was already looking into making this game even then. And I started by emulating someone else's art style with Illaria. It came out how Illaria currently is and I was pretty happy with it. So I just kept following through with it and so forth until now.
Well there has been a big lingering issue with it that I have kind of avoided addressing. It mostly has to do with my own skill level of making art, but there is part of it having to do with just how the art style works. That's the fact that I don't use outlines.
Well it's worked pretty well so far, but sometimes I just feel like characters or objects can blend in a little too much. And I COULD just apply a shader with a black outline to everything. (Or white), but I don't know why, I just don't want to. I think because the 'cut out' look feels too unreal to me. I know that it looks quite good individually, but I want the world to feel immersive that cut outs really aren't immersive.
They're FUN for sure! But immersive? Not quite. While I do want you to have fun, the art style I would like is generally bent toward trying to pull you in a little more. So trying to be just a bit more than surface deep. Not a lot mind you! Otherwise I'd need way, WAY more skill that I don't have. But I'm working toward it! (Maybe one day!)
Anyway, that's a whole lot of stuff to say for this next part. Here's the sprite for the next NPC.
Or, well, that's how she would look with a black outline. Here is how she actually will look.
As you can see, the black outline is way, way more distinctive! But it also sort of removes her from the world. Not completely, but a bit. I don't really like that. While the sort of cut out art style isn't necessarily fleeting per say, it's not really what I am aiming for is all. (Also try to ignore how lazy I got with the cauldron!)
Either way, applying a shader to all the characters IS possible, but I have intentionally avoided it. I just don't like how it looks and I would prefer to just get better at art to the point that the shader is unnecessary is all. But... well I'm not 100% making this game for myself. I'd be curious what everyone else thinks about it. While I have a vision on making the game, I try to curve a bit more in favor of general consensus. I want you to enjoy the game too!
With that said... I may just add an option. 'outline shaders' to gameplay or graphics.
Speaking of!
Moving into what I have done to progress the game, there's more news now.
To start with, I managed to get the stair code working quite well! It's not perfect, but it should be 'good enough'. I'll have to ask you to test it and give feedback though and see how I can improve it!
But currently, you can now go up and down stairs smoothly! And even if there is a platform, you can go down stairs 'through' the platform! So now I can design levels with platforms instead of gaps and you can hold down to direct yourself to them.
I had previously said though that I was unsure of how the behavior should be. I decided... whatever, I'll give you the option! Well... sort of. By default, you will attempt to 'ascend' any stairs you encounter. Similar to how Terraria works. (Not exactly the same mind you) When you approach stairs, you'll automatically go up them. but if you press DOWN while GOING UP the stairs, then you'll fall off them.
It's important to note 'only while going up them'. Or rather, only while facing the direction of going up them. So if the stairs are going up and right and you go right and hold down, you'll walk through them. I made it this way so you can go 'down' the stairs naturally without just falling through them.
So the game SHOULD feel pretty natural.
Yet, I did say I'd let you choose right?
Well in the gameplay options there will be a new option! Now you can choose between auto ascending stairs or not! If you don't auto ascend, you'll need to hold UP to go up. But you'll still need to hold down to go down. (when you're on a platform) So if you don't like the new auto-ascend system, just turn it off! (Also you shouldn't have to delete your config file this time. I think I got it figured out to the point where I shouldn't need you to delete anything anymore! Very happy about that! BUT PLEASE DO REPORT TO ME IF YOU GET ERRORS!)
And while stairs are good (and we all like common conveniences), what about rideable boats?
Oh sure, I have a big sailboat segment, but that's an illusion! I think I said it, but that big sailboat segment the boat doesn't move at all. Instead the background does. (I was pretty proud of that but...)
Well the real reason I been working on the stairs is because of the boat. XD I had been trying to get this thing to work for a while! But now it does! (Thanks to working on the stairs!) So now you can stand on a boat and it will carry you across the water. It's not like... anything revolutionary or anything but hey... it works! And you can even walk to the edges and go slightly up and down. (But the nose, sorry to say, you can't walk on it. Too much of a hassle!)
Here, have a look!
So this part might be just a small part, but it works pretty good. I mean honestly the whole basic 'boat' would work fine, I just felt insistent on it not being just a 'flat' object and it led to me making the side parts which led to me fixing up the stair system.
Aside from all that, I'm in the middle of constructing the next areas. Things are going well and there isn't really too much else to say about it. I'll definitely have the next NPC up before too long and by the time we hit the next couple of weeks I'll have more to show in regards to the levels.
I think that's all there really is to say at this point. I do kind of wish I had someone to do art who was into this sort of stuff as much as me so I could just keep programming and such, but I think finding someone else now is too late. Plus I have had bad experiences in the past so I think I am just going to solo this whole game out, then worry about trying to expand on getting together a team and whatnot.
Honestly I really appreciate everyone who has stuck with me this long. Thanks everyone! It really warms my heart to know that some of you want this kind of game!
With elf chosen, it'll be off for this month. Returning will be Thaery. I will also be adding an option to see the previous months winner of 'elf witch' to the options if you want to see her get a second tf. However, both polls will need to have her as the most voted for or it will go to the next in line.
Results for February have come in and this month we will have an elf witch! It was fairly close between witch and jester, but witch won out there. And in this case I am going to have to go for a really big hourglass shape this time! Possibly some growth in size to go with. The next poll I am thinking will come back to a nice belly or blueberry. Though I also have an idea for an appearance. Since it seemed like the extra Licorice tf was welcome, I am going to offer to add a second TF to this witch NPC. But I will only do so if both the species/appearance options get picked. (I'll put them on the table) If not, I will pick the next in line for each.
So you may wish to reserve your vote until I show off the witch and decide if you want to see her get another tf next month. I'll force myself to get her out this month though so you have some time to consider what you'd like to see. Of course, there is no requirement for this if you want to just see more and more NPCs!
Edit: I couldn't help myself and added a massive boob inflate to her too as a bonus. That one might be like a secret inflation option for her specifically.
What exactly could cause a snake to become so wide? It may possibly have something to do with her a'garian genes interacting with the candy mutation, or possibly some external mischief. Either way, Licorice clearly can't help it. Be polite to the poor thing and help keep her snek half warm with your body. I'm sure she won't mind how you do that...
Felt a bit of strange burnout on this one. I was actually really happy making her and then for some reason just got stumped when I went to animate her. It wasn't really even too hard doing the back shot (Though I did honestly go over it several times after since I had it more like shorts to start, but changed to more of a skirt as a friend pointed out that snakes don't have legs lmao). I also modified her base form a little, pushing her back slightly as advised and I also reduced the cross hatching to be more like a highlight instead. I think this looks much better especially on her butt.
Added a few stills of her post expansion with large bosom for those who like that. I avoided that as the primary end result as the smaller (still big) chest made the waist look better I think. (Though I am tempted to just make her bosom blimp too hahaha)
Thankfully I managed to get this one done and I am hoping that it is still fun to watch! I wouldn't say it was painful to do this at all and instead it was just this strange yearning my brain pushing me to do programming. At one point I even loaded game maker up and was just working on the stairs code. Which I may ask for some feedback on the best way to do stairs.
Right now I have narrowed it down to making it so that you automatically ascend stairs and pressing down will make you fall through them. Though you will still not be able to fall through platforms. I also want to make it so you can walk down stairs and not just fall down them. And it may seem like a waste of time but the thing that started all this was that I was working on trying to make a dynamic boat you can ride and realized some issues with the shaping. And so hopefully all of this just results in the game being smoother. I'll ask everyone about that when it's ready though.
Still working on Licorice cake. Got pulled away from doing stuff for a bit these last couple weeks. Though what really took up my time was figuring out how to properly file taxes since I've never actually been self employed before. Thankfully I had some help and so that is all almost completely out of the way.
In terms of things I have been doing, aside from what I did with Towra, I also have been working on some small things with the next build. Mostly I started making a couple new areas and I've been working on making a small boat segment. It won't really be like the last one as I plan to make it so you can actually ride it and it moves. So it'll have to use the same code as moving platforms basically. I am slightly worried about implementing the nose of the ship since on the previous boat ride you can stand on it, but on this one the nose will be like a platform which will let you just walk right through it which may cause some players to unwittingly fall off the boat.
Depending on how working on it goes it could end up restrictive and I'd like it not to be. I just don't want anyone to accidentally fall off is all.
With that said, if you do fall off, I wanted to have a small underwater segment to go with it. (Since I don't want to kill the player for falling off and making fall forgiveness work with a moving platform would take away development time from more important things) Really, the boat is just there as a way to skip the underwater segment if you'd like. It 'might' have something valuable down there though... maybe... or maybe you won't be able to get the valuable just yet. We'll see.
As for the next area itself, I forget how much I said about it. I am likely going to add just one new basic enemy type who won't be anything special (And non-inflatable). This will be more of a little experiment. I would like to make it a small centralized area with a few branching paths with you being able to just leave the area and go forward into the next without having to trouble yourself with it if you don't want to. Or you will be able to visit a few small branch off areas. As well, this little area will have almost no candy in it of both types, but I am going to make it so your energy doesn't drain in these areas. So it should feel like a more relaxed area with no pressure to let you explore.
And I would also like to have a small side quest here for you to do. Maybe two. I'll have to add a few NPCs as well. So consider this next update to be something of an experiment.
On the subject of NPCs, right now I only have some generic talimari NPCs that walk around cities. I'm waiting until the polishing segment of the game to add a lot more variety, but I thought I'd mention that I plan to do so later down the line.
And that's really all to say just yet. But yeah, warming up on getting back into making content and working on big snek cake!
You happen upon a woman amidst the falling leaves with the lower half of a snake. Creatures like this are not natural to the world, but she appears civilized enough. A fanciful fur lined coat and her well groomed appearance reassure. Even speaking with her she seems rather normal too. It's only upon viewing her eyes though that you realize she must've been an a'garian before her transformation.
But then again, most a'garian mutations are highly unpredictable and can range severely so she must simply be one of the lucky ones with no readily visible flaws. She introduces herself as Licorice stating she was given the name when she transformed and simply kept it after. You get to talking and she seems quite pleasant. However, when you risk a few jokes you get to hear her laugh and finally spot the mouthful of clean, neatly arranged, razors and a saliva slick tongue turning her otherwise polite appearance grim.
Licorice seems to have taken a liking to you and asks if you'd like to come rest at her home. The evenings are quite cold and her reptilian half is less fond of it. She could really use someone to help keep her warm.
Finished her core design after a few days of being busy. It wasn't too hard to do her snake elements, though I am hopeful her tail doesn't look too awkward on the 2d plane. I have another snake girl I designed before who I am thinking I may need to adjust her later to fit better.
As far as Licorice's design goes, I was definitely inspired by some other characters I'd seen. The outfit and hair were mostly lifted from other characters, but I tried to give the designs some variance. Her face though I made through my usual process and just adapted the face to the hair.
In regards to the pixel art itself though, I'm a little meh on using cross hatching to show her scales, but couldn't really think of a better way to do it. I got hung up on that for too long as it was. Otherwise things went pretty smoothly, just a lot of adjusting on the tail figuring it out, etc. I figured that the best way to represent her a snake too was just that she used to be a candy snake girl, but somehow managed to be removed from the candy long enough to change back to normal... sort of. I mean normal but now partly a snake girl.
As for the animation, I'm going to try a heavy butt theme and see how it goes. I might add a little boob grow too, but mostly going to focus on getting a huge booty that looks good. Former candy snake with big cake. Heh.
Also I put in some of the autumn tileset stuff I've been poking my nose into working on. Mostly just a remix of the field tileset, but I'll have a few unique elements in it.
For such humble servants they may find themselves rewarded. In what fashion? Well that really depends on their desires. Many have wishlists which they never write.
And while many attribute these 'granted wishes' to Glimmer, others suspect that Malphosia may be the one granting these specific kinds of 'gifts' on Glimmer's behalf.
Hopefully the extra little details I added helps sell the BE here since I didn't go massive on size! Definitely a little more simple animation for sure, but I hope everyone enjoys.
Zila was a gift to the northern alliances after they aided the emnei in restoring many cavern blood connections. A seemingly innocuous creature born as a mixture of thay'valay and emnei blood. Zila became the first saint between the two races and she dedicates her life to rewarding good deeds done over the year. And for those with less moral goals, she will pursue them to frighten or punish them using the power of crystals. Crystals which are sent to her from across the land along with humble requests for gifts which Zila, along with the aid of other bloodborn, attempt to deliver come the holidays.
In the modern era this tradition has spread and most opt to, instead, hold their own gift giving and cheer bringing events. Though Zila still happily accepts crystals, she's seen as more of mascot for the holidays and many dress up in similar garb before spending their time bringing gifts and good tiding to others. (Or just doing so because they like how her outfit looks.)
Towra would happen to fall into the former category. She always struggled with family troubles. As a result, she relished in the magical holiday season when her family would get together on both sides and set aside their differences to celebrate. So she took it upon herself to make sure that all could enjoy the holiday season as she did. And so why wouldn't someone so dedicated be deserving of some reward? And what reward could be better than being filled with holiday cheer?
Was a bit torn on making her a mixed breed, but decided against it. She was going to be part filimuri with a horn on her forehead for uh... no reason at all. None. Definitely not a glowing horn for sight in dark blizzardy storms. Anyway, her tf is going to be a nice simple reward of bigger boobage.
Currently I'm just working through the monthly NPCs. The current one I am working on is the Saint NPC from Dec. I've already got her sprite made, just need to do her portrait and then I'll post her. Then I will do her animation which I'm just going to go ahead and do some BE for her. After that, I will be doing the snek a'garian lady. I already finished both Ridra the vampire and Mun the shrine guardian. Hopefully everyone enjoyed them!
Here's a little peek at the new NPC Towra
After I've finished the next two ladies though I'll be back to working on the next area. I already have an idea of what to do with it, just need to construct it. It'll mostly just be reusing assets that are already made, but I'll cook up a few new tiles. I'll also have a little bit more story and I want to add another minor quest potentially. I'm not sure if I will 100% be able to do it, but the next area might be just a little bit more open, kind of mixing things up a bit. I don't want to promise anything just yet, but it might be something nice and unique to have considering most of the game has been linear up to this point. Though I will say that it isn't going to be a modification to the main game. The regular progression of the game will remain semi-linear with the branching paths.
Consider it some experimenting and we'll see how everyone who plays it feels about it.
It should be notable that one of the reasons I haven't allowed players to go forward and back (screens) was that I was trying to set out to make the game more linear so that the player would always know where to go. In metroidvania type games that I have played, it's easy to stop playing for a few days, then come back and just not know what you are doing or where you are going. Not that you can't remedy this with a good quest journal, but I'm very much inexperienced and wanted to try my best to avoid that sort of trouble for my first game. Well... that and because of the transition system in my game, anytime you visit a new room, it gets reset. That means that enemies will reset along with golden candy, etc. Not that I couldn't design the maps to be played forward and back, just that it's a small detail to consider and how a player may be able to exploit it and also some enemy spawns are set up right at the end of a screen and I'd have to go back through all of the maps and double check them.
Which who knows? Maybe there will even be an upgrade at the end of the game that makes it so you do have full freedom to go forward and back. (But there are definitely some areas you are not going to be able to go back through like the boss areas.)
With that said, there have been requests for a map, a bestiary, and an item list. I'd like to add all three of these if possible, though I will say that the map and item list will be easier to implement than the bestiary. I may even experiment during this build and see if I can add a simple map for the next build. We'll see how that goes!
For now though, I don't really have too much else to report. I'm just going to continue working!
When Malphosia left, she told few and gave her reasoning to even fewer. Those she took with her were so small in number that there presence went unnoticed. Those left behind found abandoned workstations or old artifacts for which they had no use for. Without a reply from the goddess and her powers in the world seemingly unresponsive, most worshipers gave up and left the shrines abandoned.
Many shrines were plundered and vandalized, but most remained either hidden or well defended by golems and gargoyles. Yet not all shrines are fully abandoned. Some are still maintained by what few guardians remain in the world. Staunch believers in their goddess, these shrine guardians have heard her words and kept to their promises to protect the shrines.
As one such guardian, Mun remains and may even have some knowledge of why Malphosia left as well as some other potential advice. Though her time defending the shrine has also left her standoffish and paranoid. A hoarder of magical energy as one might call her. Maybe she isn't ready to handle all of it at once and you might need to actually help her reverse the effects if you want to know more.
Here's Mun's tf! This one was... well it is daunting due to what I really wanted to do. Instead of just making her a blimp, I wanted to make her method of 'defending' be that she just got so big she filled a doorway. At first I had her bloating around a doorway, but I didn't like the look so swapped it to more of a 'filling the whole room' kind of feeling. A fellow artist suggested the puffs of air to imply she was getting really tight. Hopefully everyone likes this!
The next girl will be a talimari Saint! And I am 100% taking it easy on her tf. She's just going to get some big ol fat melons and that's all! (Ok maybe I won't be able to help myself and maybe I'll make them extra big)
So results are in and for January it seems we'll have an a'garian snekgirl. Fitting considering the year of course! Even though snek girls aren't really their own sort of species, there are plenty of ways for someone to accidentally, or intentionally, get transformed into one. A'garians becoming snek or snek adjacent is no surprise considering their affiliations.
As for style of inflation, I am thinking it will likely be belly and bosom oriented! I haven't done too many snek girls before so this one might be a bit of a challenge to animate. Currently I am still working through Mun's inflation (She ends up quite huge and the size she's at has really tripped me up a bit getting it all animated. I think I might be able to reuse it for Smolder's blimp form though if I am actually able to program that in)
So after sending out the last build, I spent a good bit of time just correcting errors and even spotting them. One major issue I had with the last build was that a couple of the areas literally couldn't even be reached due to my own failure of course. Thanks to everyone who helped me find the issues!
In regards to them... the first was that I did a very silly thing and put the raw spell down where a pickup was meant to be. The second was that I completely forgot that you couldn't access Bristle without going back to Lascidial and being forced to swap to the wind force spell. I fixed that by adding in another location (the new inn) which, unfortunately, would force everyone to redo the final area who had already done it. (Or redo whatever area they had done last if they chose to teleport elsewhere.)
I'll have to keep this sort of thing in mind as I make the rest of the levels.
In the new build I also experimented with having the player need to find items to assemble a statue, then pay to have it repaired. I'm hopeful that all the trouble feels worthwhile! A lot of the upgrades in the game can be quite helpful, but I do admit that some can also feel weak. (Like the ones which give you extra energy for specific candy). Not all of the upgrades will be amazing, but if you're going to spend a bunch of currency and time pursuing one then I feel it should be worth it.
I do still have plenty of 'more effective' upgrade ideas.
Just to give an example, I'm thinking about adding in two more upgrades for the grahstery lantern. One which will make it so that chompy will 'jump' to a new target if the one he's chomping on dies. The second upgrade idea I had was that whenever chompy's target expires an explosion will occur. So the idea is that a kind of 'chain reaction' could occur where chompy's target dies, an explosion occurs, chompy finds a new target, the explosion hurts/kills that target, another explosion occurs, chompy finds a new target, etc. I'd want this kind of thing to make the niche weapon more interesting/satisfying while still feeling 'random' as to how effective it is at any given time.
I also intend to completely revamp the wind blade weapon due to some suggestions by a supporter. I'm realizing now that even giving the wind blade armor/weapon and projectile clearing capabilities that it's just not enjoyable to use. It's just too sluggish even for the steadier pace of the game.
So I will likely give it a full make over to make it much more fluid. It's worth noting that I had plans to implement a faster melee weapon into the game alongside the wind blade that just wouldn't destroy weapons/armor, but I will rethink that particular weapon.
Instead, the next weapon I am planning is for something of an auto-aim bow. It will use a similar aiming system to the phantom blaster, but be much more mobile.
I'd like it to fire as fast as, or faster than, the charge cards with the trade off being that it has ammo. (Probably five shots per reload) So you would have five very mobile shots you can fire, then have to pause briefly to reload. In terms of damage output, I am thinking that by default you will get a damage boost for each shot you land on an enemy up to a small cap.
I also will likely add the first wind force spell upgrade to the game which will grant the next arrow in the quiver the ability to instantly inflate an enemy you shoot. I have other ideas for upgrades for it too, but I think I will have to implement the weapon first before really making any extra decisions.
Also, on the subject of the phantom blaster, I'm happy with how it works, but not so much how effective it is compared to the other weapons. I'm likely going to add something to it to make the long charge and wind down more worth it. (Probably not an upgrade either)
But on the subject of the next build, I have been thinking and I may make it a mixed beach/dock/town segment and allow you to move back and forth between the areas as a slight test. I may remove energy drain from this area completely, but I'm not 100% certain just yet. I'll talk more about it once I get started on it.
Before that, I am working on the NPCs of the month! I finished Ridra's tf and I'm going to work on Mun next. Then I have a talimari saint to do! And if it takes till the end of the month, I will likely then just roll into the next NPC and get them out of the way before starting on the next build.
Though once that is done and once the next area is finished, that means we'll be moving into the dark forest area which will contain the next boss and the next major build. So that's what's on the immediate agenda. The bow weapon and likely another spell will be included in this build and I'll put extra time into it.
Here we can see Ridra having her first taste of enchanted blood. How come this causes her to blow up like a water balloon? Well, such enchanted blood supplies are kept to be used by clerics in minuscule doses during healing. A single bottle is usually given to a cleric on a battlefield meant to be used to treat innumerable patients. A mixture of the enchanted blood, their own magic, and some help from their god, a cleric can heal many injuries.
Of course it would also be inadvisable to drink such a concoction even if one weren't a blood sucker. Though there are plenty of other ways to achieve such tightly filled water balloon status if that was what one was after.
Starting to get caught up on the expandable ladies. Here's Ridra! And a little portrait of her post drinking blood. (Also I added in another expression. I should note that when I go to implement these NPCs that I will likely do a few extra expressions for each depending on their conversations with Aria.) I'll be sure to include Ridra's feelings on the end results in her dialogue.
I've gone ahead and added a fan art section to my Patreon. This will have fan art pieces of anything related to the game in some way. I won't have anything TOO sexual or explicit though. If you have any fan art or know of any, feel free to link me to it!
Everything I put into this collection will be free to view of course. Check each post for the artist who drew it.
A raised area near the beach. It's not visible here, but in the bottom of that little cave area leads out to...
