Vilya's Workblog

Note: This is the last blog post of this year :O

I'll be back again January 4th!

I'm going away to visit my parents for a few days, then it's back home to celebrate christmas with my boyfriend and the cats! I'll probably keep working now and then throughout the holidays, but it will definitely be more sporadic so I'm not gonna focus on making any blog posts during this time.

BUT! First it's time for another Mt Bloom background! We were missing a "transition map" between one of the cave systems and the map with the statue, so I went ahead and whipped one together.

Unfortunately I failed to record a bunch of stuff (don't ask me why!!! I swear I pressed the record button!!!!), including the bridge which kind of appears out of nowhere now. OH WELL... T_T

Now, I wish you all a happy holiday and I hope you have enough time to do the things you enjoy! Merry Christmas :D ♥

A strange portrait indeed, but there it is. Some kind of mysterious mushroom man! Who is he? I guess you'll have to play the game and find out! :D

Line Art

Color Blocking

Shadows

Highlights

Details

Finished Sprite

Just a heads up - I'll cut this week short (last post should be on Wednesday), for some much needed Christmas holidays! I'm going to visit my parents for a few days, before coming back here to celebrate the holidays. So after Wednesday there will be a bit of a break until early January or so. Just thought I'd let you know!

So! One more background needed before the Flower Challenge is complete - the room you gain entry to once you beat the challenge!

In this room you'll find a chest with one of the items that will help you advance through the cave and gain access to the time travel village. Since there's already lots of maps in this cave system, I didn't want to make this one too big or advanced. Instead, it's just a regular room, with some random decorations, serving one purpose: to house the chest you're after!

Sketch

Walls & Floor

Some basic greenery, stairs & chest

Decorative statues & wall decor

Items added with the editor

Finally: some decorative flowers!

Process GIF with some additional steps :)

During our latest fast food meeting we didn't talk only about the mini-boss - we discussed the upcoming enemies of the temple as well!

We weren't sure exactly what route we wanted to go for the temple enemies, if we wanted to take the undead route or "abandoned & overgrown" route, but in the end we settled for the later (we have a bunch of upcoming undead things later in the game anyway)!

During our brainstorm session, we came up with 4 different types of enemies for the temple, all of which are subject to change as we prototype, but who we're quite happy with right now:

The Statue
The statue will work pretty similarly to the puzzle block enemy in one of the caves of Seasonne - basically, it'll be a statue that jumps around the map, sending shockwaves in a couple different patterns, that deal damage upon impact.

Moneys
The monkey enemies will be quick and annoying, jumping around you. They will also be able to throw any barrels they find in the environment, so be careful!

Earthworms
These little fellas will burrow around underground, dealing damage with their spiked backs. They're invincible as long as they're underground, but will come up to look around every once in a while.

Summon Vines
This enemy isn't an attacker itself, but summons vines here and there that whip you if you get too close to them - pretty much like your own summon plant ability. We haven't decided if you can kill the summoned vines one by one, yet, or if they will be unkillable until you defeat their summoner, at which point they all disappear.

These are all pretty basic, so we might end up adding more enemies to the bunch - but we'll start off with these and see how it feels. It's gonna be a lot easier telling what other enemy type is needed once we have a working prototype up and running, after all!

It's time for another bunch of hats!

This is the third batch so far, this one featuring three Mt Bloom themed hats: a mushroom cap, the crystal backs of the Spinsects turned into fashion, as well as a mask inspired by their mouth. There's also a duck beak that I started working on a while back, but forgot about, so I finished that one as well :)

Enjoy!

As I mentioned a while ago, we've started working on the Poison Challenge as well! Before, we just played around with the effects, but now we've actually made a prototype of the challenge itself.

Here's a little walkthrough of what it looks like right now! As always, the graphics are 100% WIP:

The challenge begins with a quick and easy trial, to get from one safe part of the area to another! The distance here is very short and there aren't any obstacles, it's mainly there for the player to learn how the poison works (that is, you don't take damage if you're not in it)!

After that, you have to run through a slightly longer corridor, where you'll actually be forced to take a bit of damage. However, at the next safe area, there will be crystals with health orbs inside of them (not made yet, so for now the orbs are just floating there), which teaches the player that destroying these crystals will give you HP.

Next up, you're actually forced into a little bit of a fight. I'm pretty sure it's impossible not to take any damage here as well - even if you dodge all the enemies, the poison will get you eventually.

However! There will be a bunch of those crystals with health orbs in them here as well, so at strategic times in the battle you can go grab one or two to keep yourself afloat. Remember not to use them all at once, or if your HP is full, or you might get in trouble later in the fight!

After the battle, you'll run through the corridor and reach another safe space, where you can replenish your health with more health orbs, yay!

But you're not done yet! After another poisonous corridor, a new battle takes place, and this one is a bit more tough than the previous one. As always, there are crystals with health orbs present, but in this battle it's even more important to think twice about when to use them!

After this, you are finally done, and you'll pass through a room where your reward - the treasure chest - will be. From that room another set of stairs will lead you to the beginning of the room, where you can exit back into the rest of Mt Bloom safely :)

It's a little bit different from the other two challenges, but I think it's gonna be fun. We're gonna make sure it doesn't get too stressful in Normal, which I know will be a concern - hopefully we'll be able to reach a balance where it's challenging without causing a lot of anxiety!

Finally time to replace the temporary Flower Challenge BG with a real one! This time around, I use the mockup we used for the challenge to figure out where the wall and floor should meet, and make a quick sketch:

I then add the walls in a way so that they follow along the red lines:

After that, it's time to add the door, and some moss & vines along the walls! Fred is gonna make vines covering the door as well, that will disappear once you beat the challenge:

I then start adding mushrooms, bushes and the like using our editor, in which we add everything that need to be sorted. I also throw in a bunch of vines on the floor, as well:

Finally, the map is decorated with flowers:

Done! And here's a GIF with a couple more steps added in between:

There's still a few characters that need to be made before Mt Bloom is properly finished - after all, what's an area without NPCs and side quests, right?

This guy will actually be part of the main quest, and will, in his own way, help you get through the cave and into the time travel town!

Line Art

Color Blocking

Shadows

Highlights

Details

Finished Sprite

Ooops! This should have been posted last Friday, but I forgot to schedule the post again. For some reason those "publish" and "schedule post"-buttons are scary and hard to remember.. ;)

Anyway: more flower prototyping! Finally the graphics are getting implemented, and it starts to look like the way it should. As before, the main goal is to manage the spawning flowers while making sure the big one isn't able to heal and shield them:

Once you've dealt enough damage to the big one, it'll get angry and spew a ~~solar~~ beam towards you. We experimented with it spitting seeds at you, but we thought this looked better and more clear in the end:

As you get further into the battle, the flower will launch multiple beams, with a maximum of 3 towards the end of the fight:

At the same time, the flowers around it will explode, launching projectiles you have to dodge. We're still thinking about whether the exploding flowers should look different from the poisonous ones, and whether they should explode earlier than in these GIFs or if it's better the way it is now, that they have a little charge time before the explosion.

Once we've made the final adjustments to this fight (which is almost ready now!) I'll finally be able to make a proper background for it - this is just a placeholder made by copy-pasting previously made areas. In the final version, there will be a door blocked by vines, which will open up once you defeat the flower :)

We had one of our awesome fast food meetings again! And this time we managed to decide on a lot of important stuff, especially things concerning upcoming enemies.

SO! Today I'm gonna share some details about the mini-boss you'll be facing as you enter the time travel temple/village thing~ As some of you have guessed already, this will be the undead woman I painted a portrait of before!

We already knew we wanted her to throw fans at the players, but today we went ahead and designed her attacks in more detail. One of the key parts of the encounter will be that she keeps one or more fans spinning in a circle around her, which deal damage if you touch them. Therefore you'll have to mind your positioning so you don't get hit, and if you use long-range spells you better time them well, or you'll end up hitting the fans instead! As we aim to have her float and dash around the map quite quickly at times, this may be easier said than done.

A couple of sketches

She'll also be able to jump to a player, or teleport players close to her, after which she spawns a ton of fans around herself, trapping the player(s) inside with her. During this time you'll have to move carefully with her, or take damage from the spinning fans!

She'll also have a basic attack, using either her long sleeves or one of the ribbons floating around her. We haven't decided which yet - I guess it'll depend on what her final design looks like.

Finally, we want her to throw her fans across the room in at least one or two different patterns, which means more dodging for the player. Wohoo!

Of course, all of these ideas are subject to change as we start prototyping the battle. Most likely some or all of them will differ somehow, and we might come up with new attacks as well. But, I think we have a nice starting point now, which allows Fred to start designing her appearance once he's done with the remaining Mt Bloom stuff! :3

Time to briefly return to two of the backgrounds I've been making recently! First up, the one with the large statue:

As you can see, the stone rings look pretty empty, and there isn't exactly a lot of moss or greenery around the statue, which IMO makes it look a bit out of place. So, I decided to do something about it, and added a new type of crystal in each of the rings, as well as a ton of moss and greenery around the statue!

Secondly, it's the Spinsect map! We talked a bit about it, and thought it would be cool to add some holes in the wall, from where the occasional Spinsect could look out!

Here's a quick gif of the process:

And here's the background with the new holes, as well as the rock you'll be breaking with the help of the Spinsects, made by Fred:

Now we're off to assemble a couple of new chairs for the office that arrived today! IKEA power, wohoo! 8D

Oh boy! Last night there was a storm outside that was so loud I couldn't sleep all night. After 6 hours I simply gave up and started working on one of the portraits I've on my to-do list instead.

Since I was super tired I didn't wanna go through the hassle of recording it, but I saved enough steps to make a step-by-step gif at the end: