In these last couple weeks I have been working on the fall forgiveness system and also the max boob sizes and upgrades to it. I managed to finish the fall forgiveness system and I also now have a menu option you can change to choose what you want the max breast size to be. It won't affect your upgrades at all and will be purely aesthetic! I'll attach a screenshot showing it.
In terms of the boob upgrade levels, it's all completely organized and ready for the upgrade implementation, but I have held off on it for a bit while testing the sizes to make sure they are working right. Things seem to be working well so in the following weeks I'll be working on implementing the actual upgrades.
In regards to that, as of right now I plan to have two upgrade methods. The first is through an item you can find which will increase your max size by one. You'll be able to find or buy a few of these. The second method is that you will have to store up power levels/boob size and find special shrines. Then you will have to donate your 'power' to them and once you have donated enough, it will trigger you getting another max size increase. As well, these statues will be fairly 'flat' so to say and once you finish depositing your power into them, they will gain a sudden 'boost' to their size. So you can look forward to that if it interests you!
As for the fall forgiveness system, I believe I've implemented it well enough and I'll explain it. To start with, you will not get any fall forgiveness and you must find a 'wing' upgrade which will increase your max number of forgiven falls by one. And you will be able to find three of these in game. Whenever you visit one of the safe zones/cabin areas, it will refresh your forgiveness charges. These are indicated by the little wing on your energy bar. It changes color the more/less you have.
When falling off an edge, one charge will be subtracted and you will be teleported up to a pre-set location. I have made a teleportation system and built it to be manual this way you shouldn't be able to get stuck with an automated system. It's a tiny bit of extra work when building each level, but it will lead to a better overall experience.
I uploaded a short vid to show how it works. There is also an image for what the first upgrade looks like. (It's located in the first mountain region behind the Star spell switch.)
When you are out of charges however, you will still lose all your power level. I haven't implemented anything else currently in regards to that, but I do plan on making it so you can buy/find some upgrades which will lower the amount of power you lose on dying. Basically try to keep up with the rate the player increases their max power level so you never feel crushed when you die, but you are still punished for it.
This will eventually lead to not needing the symbols for your weapon power level, though I will try to separate the two so that when you die you still need to pick up three of them to reach max power level even if your chest size is huge. This way it still feels impactful to pick up the symbols beyond just seeing the booba get bigger.
Overall, that sort of thing I'll just need to continue exploring and see in general how everyone feels about it. I don't really want to get rid of the weapon power levels even if it would make developing new weapons easier.
Finally, I've started into developing new content. Beach levels are up next with crystalline caverns to accompany them as well as some new enemy types! As well I've already started work on another hidden shrine too. So things are just steadily chugging along right now. Thanks everyone who's been with me this far!
With Elf picked last round, we'll be removing that option for this round and bring back thay'valay! No changes this round, just following standard rotation. (Filimuri and Elf are currently out)
While creating Kerli, I asked my friend Ulviel to help me figure her horn out for the portrait as the horn is meant to be mildly transparent, but also glow in the dark. Apparently they decided to just go ahead and sketch her. (It helped of course!) So enjoy this lovely little extra piece of art of her!
Well I have to admit that I am actually a bit surprised by these results. I didn't think that both ghost AND slime would remain tied the whole way through. I figured that someone would want something else.
And I really have nothing but good news as I had been thinking about it a lot when I saw how close the poll was earlier on. How does one make a slime/ghost girl? Well ghosts are frequently filled with ectoplasm right and that's pretty slimey? So we'll be sure to have a nice sloshy ghost elf this time around! She'll fit right into one of the upcoming tile recolors actually.
As for how exactly we're going to make her transform? Well I'm not 100% on that quite yet, but I do think that I will lean more toward something full body and inflation oriented. It's either that or going for straight up BE again for her. I just feel like full body might feel more appropriate. Plus I am planning to add an enemy that has full body inflation so this will give me some practice if I do go with it.
And here we can see Kerli with her ritual which ends in her getting powered up! Seems that her unusual magic has some unique effects!
I'm actually quite happy to return to my roots as an expansion artist with this one since hourglass expansion is actually my favorite style of growth. I just love the way an hourglass figure looks and love to see how the expansion interacts with the clothing.
As with the other post, I went ahead and attached the files manually here just in case there are some issues with compression. Hope you enjoy!
Didn't think it would take me as long as it did, though this time it was more a conceptual issue. How exactly does one make a character occult oriented if it's normal in that particular character's race to practice dark abyssal rituals? The filimuri are naturally from the abyss and even have their loosely followed laws from several ancient tablets referred to as 'the abyss tablets'.
However, I also didn't want to just make her some holy priestess with awkward views either. That would feel like a cop out. So I went for something more directly related to what occultism actually is. More of a mystic or witchy type character who uses magic that is not well understood and not related to gods or religion. I did add her tablet influence though, but added it in an esoteric mannerism. (Attached to her back) The filimuri don't actually carry tablets like this to cast spells, but we'll say that she carries it as part of her beliefs and how she works rituals. It should feel 'strange enough' for other races, but also foreign enough to her own race. And then this is also a story that Illaria is telling so having her be unusual should fit.
Though since I also felt there would be the expectation that she would be 'cult-like' or 'spooky' I got some help from a few friends and decided on adding a hood and the kind of spooky shadow face with glowing eyes as well. In order to see her pretty face, you'll need to knock her hood off. (By transforming her) Or, well, you can just see her here too.
Finally, her transformation is just her being enhanced by her beliefs which will be in the next post for patrons on a limited release.
I'm still learning Patreon, but I think I have a good hand on it now. With that said, I was unaware that Patreon would filter some messages so I've opened things up a bit more. If for some reason you made a comment and it seemingly vanished, I didn't do that. Unless I run into issues doing this I'll try to keep it like this.
Good day! A bit late on this, but it's another case where I was working on finishing something right up until the last minute. In this case I've got good news to report and that's that I finished doing the full revamp of all her sprites and even got her wingmilk expansion and blueberry expansions all done! That is just for her baseline wizard sprite though and there are some remnants of the old system I'm still cleaning up right now. Generally speaking though, the old system is cleaned out of gameplay almost entirely. I won't know for sure until after I've had more time testing, and also when the next build is available for patrons.
There are a few side effects of the new system that I have yet to resolve and a couple that I am not even really sure I will change. To give an example, the invulnerability flash system relies on image alpha and making the player sprite reduce it's alpha while increasing the alpha of a shader. Effectively Aria's sprite is replaced by a completely purple version of itself briefly and it looks like she's flashing purple. You also see this when you take damage.
The side effect of the new system is that both her sprite and her new booba sprite fade out and it causes a blending effect. Fortunately I don't think it looks bad and instead kind of makes it feel almost like an xray effect where you can see her body behind her massive booba briefly. I don't think the effect looks bad. Somewhat the opposite actually. I attached an example of it as the file 'shadershow' if you want to see what I mean.
I'm actually not too sure how to solve this particular issue without changing to a completely different flash system. I could definitely do that if a very large number of people think the flash looks really bad and distracting, but otherwise I am going to leave it how it is for now.
The other side effect is the outline shader not working properly. So casting ground required spells looks odd. I'll just have to look into this one a bit more later, but I think that the sprites are just naturally being cropped by game maker and it's causing the shaders to not properly display sometimes. Though I consider this low priority for now. Something to come back to later.
Though since Aria's Phoenix Dash sprite is designed with an outline it's not a problem there.
In regards to all the new boob sizes, I've made a short video trying to show them off a bit. Everything seems well enough currently. (Though I have to fill out Aria's other 'skins' so she doesn't run around with big wizard boobs in Milan's home. As much as Milan would like that, it wouldn't make much sense) I'm glad to be finished with the revamp to her boob sizes, though there is still a bit of work to put in on it. I still need to make it so that the boob sizes are locked behind upgrades that you find. For now they are all unlocked and you just have to get the symbols to increase your bust, but you will have to find the upgrade items for anything beyond what it was previously.
I also haven't yet started work on Aria's 'fall forgiveness' system. That will be up on the block next too. So I'll be working on getting the boob size unlockable upgrades and the fall forgiveness system. As well, the NPC from last month, a filimuri occultist, is still in the works.
Another thing that I did was that I changed Aria's ledge grab sprites. Previously she clutched the edge and then had a loose grip for the sprite that showed she was ready to fall. You can see the new sprites in the vid. I changed them because with the new boob sizes it would be really hard to explain how she's able to clutch the ledge so close to her chest without her boobs squished out everywhere. I felt like the effort to do that wouldn't be worth it and the boobs wouldn't look good either. I went for an open and higher grab so she hangs further down. It shouldn't affect the actual functionality of it, but you will notice she hangs further down now and with a looser hang style. I made her ears go up when you hold the down key.
As well, her boobs get squished when they are particularly big and hanging. I may revisit the way they look in the future, but I think they look good enough for now.
I will also start work on the menu option that will let you set your max boob size.
One last thing to note is that I may have to go back and fix some areas. Aria's larger size is so big that it actually clips across a whole tile. This means that special measures I took to make stages look good by placing foreground blocks may not look good when her boobs stick out on the opposite end of the FG blocks. Or it may not really be noticeable. Testing is required.
Here's some art of Aria after drinking wingmilk and giving herself a nice little spring to start flying. This was the first form that I did of Aria even before her breast size powerups. The idea was given to me by a friend of mine who wasn't really even into inflation and it's the whole reason this game is being made!
I don't know that there is a huge amount to say this log. I have just been working on the sprite system and 'upgrading' Aria's sizes. Though I will at least link her running animation to show off how she looks at all the sizes while running. I kind of feel like this is probably what most people want to see right now. A very bouncy, jiggly Aria. It was also the hardest of the sprite animations to do so happy to get it done!
I've done a few others as well, but there's still some work to do in regards to spriting. Most of the code is long done though. I just need to add all the sprites so I can reference them. Kind of a scenario where I can't continue programming until the sprites are done. So that's what I'm doing.
Considering the data on it, I think it will be ideal to do the sizes, but then make it so you have to work to unlock them. As well, I will likely have an option in the menu that lets you select what you want the max size to be. This should act a kind of 'everyone wins' solution. So if you don't like the massive boob sizes, you can just select the maximum cosmetic size to show. It won't affect how many symbols you can hold or anything like that though.
Edit: Seems there's some compression in the .gifs. Download the attached versions for a better quality image.
Seems in Aria's story even the magical absorptive properties of thay'valay can't resist a magical blueberry pie. Of course the effects are only temporary.
Here's Valesvulom's proper blueberrification. Since thay'valay live in colder environments due to their heavy cold resistance, I went ahead and put her into a snowy environment. Of course I made a clean version too. Also made a more designed portrait BG like the other NPCs.
My apologies for this taking as long as it did! The fact thay'valay are more than double the size of the other NPCs so far I had to make this from scratch for the most part and could really only reference Aria's blueberry tf somewhat. There's a LOT more frames to her transformation and I put in a lot more detail (because I can't resist bursting belts). I hope the extra work made it extra satisfying! Though it did take away quite a bit of time from my work on Aria's boob size sprites. That'll be the next thing I'm working on.
Also I will start showing some of the animations publicly after a month or two delay starting with the oldest tfs unless people are heavily opposed to the idea.
Seems that the next NPC will be a filimuri occultist! This will be rather fitting for a race which abides the laws etched on the surface of tablets referred to as the 'Abyss Tablets'. Unlike most of the other races, the filimuri can breathe underwater and are no strangers to the depths of the ocean. So it's not at all unexpected to a have one who enjoys worshiping some otherworldly entities... or at least tries to summon creatures for their own personal gain.
In this case, I think it would be most fitting to have a more 'inadequate' member of their race who's looking to solve that through otherworldly means. Perhaps she'll get a little more than she asks for resulting in excessive shapeliness and appeal. Either way, it'll be fun.
I'm not yet finished with Valesvulom's animation, but here is the start of it and you can see how she will end up. I tend to finish the first and last image of an animation, then work inward. As you can probably imagine, her sprite is significantly larger than the others and requires a bit more time to animate. With that said, it shouldn't take too much longer to finish her blueberrification. When I do, I'll upload it and tag it properly.
Here is the next NPC, Valesvulom! (Her name means blueberry in thay'varash) This is what you could expect something of a thay'valay thief to look like. Even if she's a very tall woman, she still has quick fingers and loose fitting garb. (And a taste for blueberry pie) As for her animation, I haven't finished it yet, working on it now. Though I will upload what I currently have just to show.
So recently I posted Aria's sizes as well as a symbol counter as part of my devlog. While reviewing the sizing, I was asked how the boob sizing would work with the transformations which got me to wondering if this would be too many sizes.
So the purpose of this poll is to ask what the ideal max gameplay size is. As in the maximum size that Aria will be able to expand to by picking up symbols. Keep in mind that her massive mammaries would likely block gameplay elements making them a visual hassle to deal with for the player.
As well, I talked about the issues with her transformations in the devlog and the transformations themselves are less impactful if she already has enormous melons. Technically, the smaller they are, the more punch her breasts swelling up has lmao.
Of course, I can always come back to the larger sizes later if there is demand for them and add them into a sandbox area of the game for players to experience. Just consider what you think works best in gameplay.
Figured I would put this one up in the pixel art section even if all the boob sizes don't get used. (Though they probably will unless something happens preventing it)
Here is the track that will play during the gargoyle boss fight. This is an unmodified version. The end version has been converted to .ogg for file size concerns.
As of the last build, I've been mostly working on the sprite system rework for Aria, but I have a few new things otherwise.
One new thing I added was a trinket which causes Aria's phoenix dash to leave behind embers while dashing which float down inconsistently and can do some slight damage to enemies. A small nuanced trinket which you will be able to get by defeating the hyper charged gargoyle, then passing the challenge inside the temple behind the normally closed door.
As of right now, this trinket isn't exceptionally useful, but just adds a small amount of potential extra damage and mechanics to the dash. Enemies touching the embers can get stunned a moment too, but generally I don't think it's too useful on it's own. Each ember only does a half point of damage which is still not too bad. Later on I plan to have a dash upgrade which increases the damage of the dash and it's associated powerups and that will also affect the embers.
The second new thing is that I got the music for the gargoyle boss fight done and it's been added. I'll put it up on here after this devlog if you want to have a listen to it. It's done by the same musician who did the golem head music (And most of the other tracks in the game) Franco Trincavelli or 'Eclipse Audio'.
In regards to Aria's sprite system, that's been what's most on my mind and what I've spent a lot of the time on. To explain how it works currently...
Aria has individual sprites for all of her animations and forms. This means, for example, she has three sprites, each with different breast sizes. So for her charge shot animation, she has 8 individual sprites in that animation. But in that sprite, it just plays the animation as normal with some pauses for when she is charging, and a slight pause during her recoil. (I attached an example here to show as Ex 1 Blaster.gif)
Now this works well enough for simple linear sizes and baking the 'boob bounce' into animations, but starts to cause a problem with something like... running for example. In Aria's running animation, the first two boob sizes she runs as normal. However, the third size her breasts will 'deviate' a bit and appear as though they are bouncing up and down.
The problem here is that the run animation is eight frames long, but adding in this 'bounce deviation' adds 4 frames to it. (Every other frame gets one more added to create the illusion of bounce) Normally I could bake this into the animation and just halve the animation speed, but the problem is that it's now 12 frames long and that is not 'double' the length of the previous animation. This makes it appear like she's delayed running.
To fix this, I just added a few duplicate frames and then I sped up the animation speed as I said. (I uploaded an example of how it currently works as Ex 2 Running)
So what's the problem?
Well now there are extra duplicate frames in the running animation which will bloat texture page sizes.
Could I do it this way? Sure. Would it cause a problem later? Maybe. Probably.
So currently I am going back over this system to fix it. The way that I plan to do this is by giving Aria one 'core' animation and then a pasted on 'boob size'. By doing this, I will only need one running animation for Aria, but I will still need a 'running' animation for the boob sizes too. The difference is the size of the sprites. I will have one set of eight frames for her visual run, but then I can vary the frames of the boobs and the boobs themselves will actually have varied sizes to their sprites. This ends up taking up less sprite space overall on each texture page by quite a lot. (In Ex 3 Boob Size example you can see the middle boob sprite. That's the actual sprite that would be used combined with the core sprite on the far left. The core sprite will never change, but the boob sprite would. overall the boob sprite will always be smaller.)
BUT! More importantly! This opens up the potential sprite design and additions.
Currently I am only using this system for Aria's boob size, though changing it to individual sprites for her body allow me to add 'other' changes to her. In this case I could do everything from allow her to wear armor to transforming just parts of her body. Or I could make her butt or belly expand too.
This is important because I've been considering giving Aria a spell or two that affect her butt/belly while still keeping the normal animations. Under the old system, I would have needed one sprite per every change. So if Aria could make her boobs, belly, and butt all expand separately, then I would need about seven sprites for every single frame instead! And it would grow exponentially with every size I added!
Under this system though, each sprite is just layered on.
Now if I did add like armor or something to the game, I would still need to individually change the sprites of armor based on whatever additional sizes I had, but that's a different issue and I could still use this layering system to make it work without much problem.
There is only one problem with this system that I have run into and that's the 'Boob Milk' and 'Blueberry Pie' powerups. Those use a specific animation that transitions into a specific 'set' of animations. Now while I don't have to change any of the animations for when she is fully a blueberry and is rolling/jumping around, it does pose an issue with her 'turning into a blueberry' while her breasts are bigger than usual. I had a trick with both of these powerups where the first frame shown was always her boobs as 'big as possible' so you'd never notice the sudden jump.
With even bigger boobs though, it would be weird to see your breasts shrink, then suddenly inflate. For the blueberry inflation animation, this isn't too hard a fix. I just add in a couple extra variations to the inflation animation and it should still be difficult/impossible to really notice the difference. (Ex 4 Blueberry shows a potential 'max boob size' blueberrification next to the normal animation.)
Under the current system, I'd just layer the boobs on over it until the animation hits a certain frame, then turn them off. It's the same with her belly and butt, though the belly and butt would have to be done with more 'finesse' if I did them. (I'm not making any promises on doing anything belly or butt related, just want to show that there is potential for it)
Though the breast inflation powerup does pose a major issue since just her 'boobs' inflate. With the 'max breast' size though, I could easily just have a simple animation of her being lifted by her already huge boobs instead. The deflation animation for her boobs is the same as the inflation one.
But if I did belly and butt? Well then they would need their own set of animations to go with and that would take significantly longer.
I COULD make it so that you couldn't pick up the boob inflation powerup if you had any belly or butt to avoid it, but that would feel like a cop out. Except if it's a powerup vs a powerup. You may notice that you can't pick up the boob milk powerup AND the blueberry powerup. That's intentional due to conflicting animations.
Which leads into the last powerup I have planned and any potential future powerups. I do plan on having Aria having a poundcake form. That form has Aria gaining some height and her booty grows rather large. I have been fiddling with it conceptually, but with this change it's looking like I will have to add the additional boobs sizes to it too. (Which I am 100% on board with!) Though it does steer in a certain direction as to what kind of powerup it will be. Since it'll contain extra boob sizes, I think it would stand to reason that it could last quite a long time. And in this case, it would also prevent you from getting the blueberry or boob milk powerups. And, as such, it would be ideal to do the extra butt sizes for. But that's a big 'if'.
I still haven't solidified what that powerup will do yet, but it does have the potential for extra butt sizes. And with the new system it would work and still be efficient without having to export tons of sprites and fill up texture pages potentially slowing down the game. If you're curious about that, you can see in the EX 3 what the poundcake form's base will likely look like.
As a final note, you may be wondering to yourself just how many boob sizes I will add? Well, I have done some boob sprites to show what I think should be every possible size. I also added in a symbol counter to show how many you will need to reach that size. (Ex 5 Sizes and Symbols) Keep in mind that this change will not add additional 'power levels' to the weapons. You will still just have the three for the first three powerups and the color of Aria's Health meter will show you what your power level is.
I think it's a good time to mention that with this new system in place, I will likely add ways for it to get drained or ways for you to 'spend' it. A potential example might be a statue you can donate your 'excess power' to and once you've donated enough, you will get a trinket or special upgrade or unlock of some kind.
As well, you'll likely be able to find or purchase upgrades which prevent, or lower, the amount of 'power' you lose when passing out or some such thing. I'll keep improving on the system as we go.
Feel free to tell me how you feel about all of this! The game is still developing!
Edit: Changed to v0.4.5.3, slightly modifed some initial startup code. The game will start windowed now if you haven't run it already.
Edit: Changed to v0.4.5.2, fixed an issue where reaching the last intermission didn't save that location for teleportation. Should be fixed in both new version. Check the version in the top right corner when on the main menu to see that you have the latest version.
I have mostly finished both the giant golem head and the gargoyle boss encounters. This build should be playable without issue on your savegame. However, your game settings will likely need to be deleted as I've added some new resolution settings. I haven't been able to really test all of them, but if you encounter issues, please feel free to email me at silverearsentertainment@gmail.com or directly on here.
You can find your save game and settings at "C:\Users\<yourpcname>\AppData\Local\Aria_s_Dreamland_Dissonance" .
(I have included a text file in the zip folder of the dev build which describes debug keys and instructions. The dev build shows transition and boss triggers for example. Unfortunately the debug keys are set and cannot be rebound so if you have any of the debug keys bound and are using them you will have to rebind those keys or delete your settings file. Worth noting, some debug commands can get you stuck or bug you out such as spawning blueberry pie or milk when you are in a tight area.)
(Also the last intermission area may not save properly just yet. I'm working to fix it and will upload a new build when I can.)
The following are some update notes about this build with some changes that I recall. I'm not going to keep a comprehensive list of changes I make to the game while it's still being developed, but I'll try to take note on each build of major changes or things to note about it. They'll be here.
Update notes:
-In this version of the game Shopia no longer appears in the intermission 'cabin' areas until after you have found her for the first time. Then she will appear at all intermission locations.
-This area was also added in this build including some new minor story elements.
-The Golem Head boss and the Gargoyle boss were added. (Worth noting, both bosses take half damage from DOT effects. DOT effects are indicated by the blue flame damage indicator instead of the yellowish orange one) (As noted in the devlog I posted, the gargoyle boss is still missing some things such as a death animation and her hyper death dialogue) (Also, I haven't had much time to really test them, so bugs might show up)
-A new powerup was added that lets you grab ledges. You get it after defeating the Gargoyle boss. (You will have to pick it up, but it's near impossible to miss as you shouldn't be able to normally leave the room without it)
-I made minor modifications to some weapons including the wind blade's hitbox.
-There are a couple more rooms to explore centered around the new ledge grab powerup and with some phoenix dash elements. (They come after the bosses)
-Aria's jump system was modified to provide a jump buffer. When pressing the jump button shortly before hitting the ground, the game will automatically attempt to jump. (If you notice any strange behavior in jumping, or just find it less enjoyable, please let me know as this is a new system I put in to make jumping smoother and I think I worked out most of the kinks. It SHOULD be unnoticeable)
-Resolution options were added. (I went with what I believe to be the best method to implement this by adding black bars to screens that have a wider aspect ratio. This was done so that the camera doesn't see outside the map showing you cut off graphics)
If you have a non-standard monitor, please give feedback on the resolution changes as I'm new to it and want to make sure it works well enough.
One final thing in regards to the build number. I had originally intended the demo to contain the golem head boss and it would've been the end of build 0.4, but things didn't quite go as planned. I decided to just push the gargoyle boss into 0.4. So the next build will be starting on 0.5.
At the current time I'm working on the final parts to the gargoyle boss. I still have one ability to program in before she'll be playable. She is also missing a couple animations and could use a few sfx. (You can beat her and move onto the next intermission. You can also beat her in hypercharge to access the secret temple area. However, she will not have her ending lines or death animation just yet. I'll add those after. I mostly want to get her core fight done!) I'm hoping to finish her either tonight or early tomorrow and have a playable build up. I haven't really had much time to test how balanced she'll be though so she might be very hard or very easy.
Most of her hypercharge elements are good to go, though I would like to consider modifying some timers and such on her abilities based on it too. I'm holding back on making her 'hard' until I go back and do the actual hard difficulty. Though her hypercharge form is still meant to be decently hard.
Another thing I noticed while fiddling around is how melee unfriendly she is. I'd like to do something about this as well, though I'm not fully sure what could be done yet that wouldn't trivialize her. Right now some of her projectiles can be swiped out of the air with the blade, but her melee attack hurts a lot, winds up fairly quickly, and is hard to avoid.
I'm not sure I have said it yet, but I do intend the blade weapon to be a bit harder to use with the reward being in getting more interactions. For example, the blade instantly destroys armor and can destroy many projectiles. It can also break gobbo spears too. The downside is... well it's a melee attack. It doesn't have very long range either.
I do have some ideas for upgrades you can find in hidden temples, or purchased from the shop, which should help. An example is I plan to have an upgrade do a short range wave. Though I do want to be careful as the added benefits I've kind of grandfathered into it can easily make it go from awful to overpowered with one upgrade.
For now I just plan to continue giving it some little extras for some enemy types. In the case of the gargoyle boss, I will likely add the ability to 'parry' her first melee if you attack in a certain window causing her to get briefly stunned. I also figured it might be fun that if you do this to her while she's hyper charged, that she'll boob bounce you back immediately afterward. I can definitely see her being easy when hyper charged if there is no consequence for parrying her. This is especially true with how I programmed her to try and melee you if you get close with only the exception of her super attack overriding it.
Either way, this 'parry' isn't in the game yet and I don't think I will add it for this coming build. Though after I put the build up, I will start testing her more in a specialized sense and see how it all goes. (Of course if anyone plays the build, I'd greatly enjoy feedback!)
And that's part of what the next two weeks will be, but not all of it. After I release the build, I'm going to get back to her and finish her fully. Then when she's done, I am going to test her for a bit. After I feel she's in a good spot, I will conclude v0.4 as done. That means moving onto the next big set up things. Mostly to note is that my next priority is going to be reworking Aria's sprite system to accommodate greater boob sizes and make it a bit more dynamic. When I get to working on that, I'll talk a little more about it.
With thay'valay picked, they'll be off the poll this time around. And elves will now make a return! I'll keep talimari off the poll for one more month as well, then they will come back.
For our third NPC, it seems she'll be a thay'valay thief! Of course one wouldn't expect a member of such a large race to be a thief as sneaking around would be rather difficult. That doesn't mean she can't try! (And possibly fail miserably) Perhaps we could have a silly Indiana Jones moment as our new NPC blows up into an enormous blueberry shape, bursting her belts and tight leather outfit in the process. Such a huge race must make for an even bigger blueberry than Aria. Or maybe we just want to see just how enormous the curvature of such a race can get.
Of course whichever one I go with, we can always have the other later. ^^ I'll have the next NPC poll up soon.
Here's the melee and hammer animations. You'll notice the very 'jiggly' hyper melee animation has an extra animation at the end. This is because when you inflate her, her melee attack gains an additional attack at the end of the combo where she will shove her boobage into you. I want to try and make it so that if you jump and land on her boobs during this attack that you will instead bounce up and not get hurt since I worry the third part of the chain may cause her to 'corner' Aria in a bad way. Alternatively I may make it hurt like normal but just bounce Aria upward to allow you to air control out of the corner.
One other thing! Her melee attack doesn't show any special effects, but there is a claw swipe and slam effect I have made.
A quick little display on how the hammer slam looks. It's missing the screen shake in this vid, but will have some in the actual fight. Her boobage size will also vary on if you inflated her or not, but I decided I would show the inflated size in action!
Most of the progress I've made in these past two weeks were made in the first week. I think it's no surprise that the holidays have slowed my progress, but I had hoped I might've been able to get a build up with the two bosses in it before the end of the year. I'm not sure if that will happen, but I'm going to try in the next few days.
In regards to what I've actually gotten done, I sorted out more of the gargoyle boss's AI. I also mapped out and finished up the special shrine you can get into if you beat her after inflating her. I think the ledge grab code is working well, it just needs testing and whatnot. I do also need to configure the item that allows ledge grabbing so that it unlocks it, but that shouldn't take much of anything at all to do. Just need to input it into the database and have a toggle for ledge grabbing.
I also started her hammerslam attack which is coded to use the zones I talked about in the other devlog. She'll detect where Aria is, then use attacks based on it. The hammer is currently coded so that she'll use it if she's above you and you're below her. As well she'll use it if she has Aria cornered, leaping into the air enough for you to run under her before slamming the hammer down. I have a small .gif that shows how the hammer attack looks too. When she slams the hammer into the ground, it create a short range shockwave in either direction and jerks the screen too. Aria will also be forced to hop a short distance similar to the golem head slam. The biggest difference between the two is that the gargoyle is actively trying to smash you. (Also, if you get hit dead on by the hammer you'll suffer a lot of extra damage)
I haven't programmed her melee attack yet, but I got all the sprites for it done too. I'll upload them as well as the hammer sprites too so patrons can see how the sprites are coming.
I haven't talked about it yet, but in the previous preview I had of the gargoyle's jumping AI, I displayed her boss room. With the golem head boss, he releases energy diamonds that will heal you whenever you do enough damage giving you a soft incentive to be aggressive, but not punishing you for being safe. (You get the diamonds no matter how fast you go, it gives them off at set HP intervals) In the case of the gargoyle though, you'll be encouraged to think about the arena a bit since the only HP items are present when the fight starts. So you can get your HP back whenever you like, but in a limited amount. I'll adjust this if it's not enough, too much, or just too hard to avoid picking up.
Something else I just want to quick point out is that I do have plans to add an aspect ratio option to the graphics just so that you're aware. If you have a special resolution, feel free to tell me about it. If you think some of the screen is being cut off, let me know. As of right now I plan on adding the most common resolutions I can find and I will be adding in the steam deck aspect ratio too. (I'd like the game to be steam deck compatible so I'll find a way to test it and make sure it work!) In addition, I'll try to add an auto detect feature for the very first time you start the game. (I'm sure this kind of thing isn't too hard to do, but I haven't done it before)
I think that's all to discuss for now. I hope to have another build soon which will let you test the new bosses. When I do this build, I'm likely to offer a secondary 'dev build' which will let you cheat a bit too and also teleport to the bosses if you want to just test them directly. It shouldn't be too hard to do. Thanks everyone! Have a wonderful new year!
Here's Rue's transformation! In game she'll have a fairy that circles her before casting magic on her or jumping into her belly. Something like that. The frame rates may vary in game as well. I've dolled up Rue's idle animation to make her feel cozier. In game I will likely have a few fairies hovering around her afterward too. Have to keep her safe! I also went ahead and gave Rue a couple extra portraits since her breasts get so big I felt it would help emphasize things a bit by making them show up in her portrait too.
Worth noting there is a fourth picture, not sure how it will show to others though, just click through them I suppose. The fourth one is her 'after' dialogue portrait that will show. Seems she's accepted her situation and is rather content.
Here is the second NPC, Rue. A young adult talimari just now setting out on her first journey into the world! Her mother always told her to study to become a wizard. Something about counteracting strange magical effects? Whatever that means.
As I had hinted at in the poll results, Rue's TF has her undergoing some BE and belly expansion/pregnancy. In game her TF will be triggered as an indirect result of the player using a TF item resulting in an interaction with a very mischievous fairy. Don't worry for Rue though as it's only temporary and she'll be in a safe zone. Fairies have to take care of their potential new young after all!
