Hey there, last time I wrote about the big pieces of work coming up. This time I'll tell you what happened and what else is going on now. Sooo...

ARTWORK remains ongoing. If you've been watching instagram/twitter/facebook you've seen some of the new sketches yes! For the most part though, lots of colouring.

The game is now working NATIVELY on the iPad with hi-resolution art. Best game. This required adjusting the maps so they pull in the correct assets depending on the device/res. Unfortunately particles are not doing this, so might require some programmatic encouragement.

CLASSES & ABILITIES are feeling pretty on point. A lot of effort went in place to make the abilities play off each other so that after you use one, it creates an advantage to further exploit. This seems to be working.

The first pass at the STORY was finished during the first week of January and I'm still alive. Haven't touched it since because it's incredibly mentally/emotionally taxing/draining. The beginning isn't very good, so you probably wouldn't like it. BUT I have some ideas to make it cool so don't worry. 🤞

Recently Forged

I added custom action/animations for pretty much all the damage dealing abilities. Lots of particles. Everywhere.

Whenever I work on something I adjust something unrelated, so in addition to everything mentioned so far, there are a bunch of smaller things that would take too much time to mention. It's a lot of work.

New FIGHT UI/UX

👇 Look at it 👇

👆 Now look at it again 👆

If you've been paying any attention, you'll notice somethings are different. Since Taylor's joined, we've been spending a lot of time to create a comprehensive visual UI/UX identity for the game. What you see here is the first step of this larger expedition.

I was going to write a more in depth explanation of the Battle System as it relates to the screenshot but, as there is quite a bit to discuss, I'll save that for a separate post.

How's the game coming along?

You ask. And I appreciate it. All of the above has been going to a schedule. Not too fast, not too slow. One bowl of porridge at a time. But definitely not finished yet.

What's left to work on then?

You ask. And I appreciate it. Quite a few things actually. As I mentioned, there is some iterating required on the story in order for you to play it and think "neat". Now that the story structure and classes & abilities are in place though, I can sink a bit more time into designing the boss fights and enemy encounters. They should be challenging, but not unfairly one shot you. I build the puzzle you must solve before being annihilated.

I mentioned all the ability actions/animations I added, well I need to add a bunch more. In addition to the usual abilities there are also BURST abilities, which most of you can think of as a limit break. These ones should look extra special.

As new assets come in, it takes a bit of time update the game, especially if they include fancy animations. This isn't a huge amount of work, but it adds up. There are a ton of other things I have prioritized, I'm not sure if I'm going to do them though. I'll let you know!

As the game approaches a playable/releasable state (which is the main goal here), there will be a ton of work surrounding what's comes next. Most of it I probably don't even know about yet. I'm looking into it. That is, I'm going to...as soon as I'm done writing this. Also in case any of you have been poking around the website, outside this blog, you'll notice it is a bit...static. That will change as well.

Farewell and Goodnight

Hope this gives you an idea of what goes into this game, and why you probably haven't heard from me in a while!