A happy Tuesday to you all. Tuesday is definitely the weakest day of the week; the energy from the weekend is gone thanks to Monday using it all up, the mid-week sigh of progress that Wednesday brings is still a way's off, and the "almost to the weekend" feeling that Thursday and Friday bring is not present. But that's why we post on Tuesdays! Something to brighten the kinda-sorta beginning of the week doldrums. That being said, let's dive into some Undead Darlings banter, eh?
This past week was a lot of reconnecting and preparatory work. Planning, what-have-you. By the time you read this, we'll have had a hangout session with our battle programmer to discuss the underlying logic and mechanics of the battle system. We've gotten to the point where we are able to link the different "sections" of the game together. Meaning, you can now traverse 3D areas, engage battle encounters, and trigger event scenes all in one map. This sounds like a "duh" thing to say, but there's a lot involved to get to that point. First, we've built the battle system, exploration, and event scene engines separately. They now have compatible code and can talk to one another in a common map! It's basically taking ingredients of a pie and then putting them all in…in a pie… It's pie season, by the way. Eat a pie.
Unfortunately, none of this is pretty enough to show yet (maybe next week, even if ugly and basic!), so instead how about some numbers to munch on?
- Current Game Text Word Count: 113,802 (!!)
- Scenes for Vertical Slice Demo: Complete!
- In-game CG images: 15 of 23 complete, colored, delivered
- Images Needed for Vertical Slice Demo: Complete!
- Music Tracks: 2 of ~20 complete and delivered
- Tracks needed for Vertical Slice Demo: 3 to 5
- Battle Track, Event Track(s), Exploration Track
- Enemy Designs: 6 of ~35 (+ "enhanced palette swaps")
- Enemies Needed for Vertical Slice Demo: 6
- Can use existing ones if scheduling is shaky for the artist
- Battle Animations: 90 still needed
- Animations Needed for Vertical Slice Demo: 15
- Demo uses basic spell and weapon animations
You may notice a few items missing, like 3D Object count, wall texture count, and sound effect design. The first two have just started, and we are settling on a final look for the stylized dungeons and objects. Sound effect design is one of the final tasks, since it's easier to match sounds to an animation than vice-versa. As we get visual elements delivered to us, you can count on us showing them off, even if they're kind of silly or weird out of context. Especially if they're silly or weird out of context, actually…
That's it for this week! We've gotten very close to completing the engine of this undead truck; soon there will be plenty of sexy shots of the truck's body to share, as it were. Also be on the lookout for some opportunities to give your suggestions, feedback, and ideas in forthcoming posts!