Next up, we decided to give this cabin a bit of an upgrade decoration wise, to put some emphasis on the fact that there's a weird circus troupe thing going on in this mini challenge where you need to light torches:
Finally, let's take a look at some animations for the final boss of the dungeon... Our dear friend Luke!
First up a bunch of sketches for what he could look like in this boss version:
And the first batch of animations made for him combo'd together:
And since we decided to put Pine in one of the cabins, we thought we'd put in a bunch of Flying Fortress decorations in there as well:
Speaking of expressions, here are some more, featuring the rest of the main story cast in the Ghost Ship:
Time for a bunch of smaller graphic assets needed here and there throughout the game! Starting off with a super cute very scary chest:
And a skeleton key, because which ghost ship would be complete without them:
We also weren't quite happy with how fresh and clean these shelves looked, so we wore them down a bit:
Finally, a couple expressions for the captain, to give the cutscenes a bit more oomph:
For those of you who have opted into Steam's client beta, you'll have noticed that there's a new library style in the works, which calls for new and improved graphics to showcase each game. For starters, here's what the header of each game looks like now, and more specifically what the default was and how we changed it around adding our own graphics:
Unfortunately for us, being a pixel game and all, the automatic resizing won't do us many favours, but it could be worse!
You library has a more clean view featuring cover art as well, like so:
And, finally... Making the ghost world version of the room!
And after that, it's time to make some Ghost Ship special phase shift blocks:
These blocks will only be visible in the ghost world, so better keep your wits about you when you try to phase through this challenge!
Next we're adding all of the Flying Fortress details, to give the room a more high tech feel to fit the Phase Puzzle course:
Time to start making one of the final rooms in the Ghost Ship - the Phase Puzzle room! Here's where Kailan, the Flying Fortress engineer from ancient times, has set up a Phase Puzzle course for you that you need to pass to get to the eye boss!
We're starting with the basics, following a sketched designed made by Teddy after he prototyped the puzzle:
Another week has gone past and more plans have been made for the final dungeon! As homework over the week we decided that each of us had to come up with two ideas for things that could happen in the various floors of the dungeons. When we met up again it became clear that each of us was quite divided between two various ways of dealing with the dungeon: either as a pure gameplay mechanical experience, or one where old friends from the rest of the game return in various ways, allowing for more story focused floors.
One such thing we'd like to include is the ghost of Tessen, whom you met in Tai Ming, as well as Naniva helping you out with the Temple of Seasons floor. A couple weeks ago I mentioned a beast of some kind that will resummon bosses for you to fight - in one such idea we'd like a resummoned winter that wreacks havoc on the Seasonne floor, adding icy winds or spikes for you to deal with aside from fighting the regular enemies.
For Pillar Mountains, we have ideas of adding your mother in some way, and in the Ghost Ship floor reintroduce some other old ghosts from Tai Ming, namely those of Sizou and Mana. However, all of these are just in the idea stage at the moment - so we'll see how many of them (if any) end up in the final design of the dungeon.
Gameplay wise we're trying to spice up each of the floors a bit by adding elements or enemies from other areas of the game. One example of such an idea is to have a Phase Shift puzzle in the Flying Fortress floor, where you have to change the layout of the course by using season orbs that will change the various blocks; causing roots to overgrow some, while others are revealed.
We've also finally played through the Ghost Ship up to the very last portion of it (the creepy Startington and the last boss battle of the dungeon). This portion of the game takes us about 1 and a half hour to complete, and even though it's taken us a very long time, we're really happy with how the dungeon looks and feels at this point. It also has some of our top favourite boss fights, so we hope you'll enjoy those as well!
Next up for us will be to complete the creepy Startington portion and boss fight, which are both now well under way before we can finally upload it all to Frontline. Hang in there guys! :)
One such thing we'd like to include is the ghost of Tessen, whom you met in Tai Ming, as well as Naniva helping you out with the Temple of Seasons floor. A couple weeks ago I mentioned a beast of some kind that will resummon bosses for you to fight - in one such idea we'd like a resummoned winter that wreacks havoc on the Seasonne floor, adding icy winds or spikes for you to deal with aside from fighting the regular enemies.
For Pillar Mountains, we have ideas of adding your mother in some way, and in the Ghost Ship floor reintroduce some other old ghosts from Tai Ming, namely those of Sizou and Mana. However, all of these are just in the idea stage at the moment - so we'll see how many of them (if any) end up in the final design of the dungeon.
Gameplay wise we're trying to spice up each of the floors a bit by adding elements or enemies from other areas of the game. One example of such an idea is to have a Phase Shift puzzle in the Flying Fortress floor, where you have to change the layout of the course by using season orbs that will change the various blocks; causing roots to overgrow some, while others are revealed.
We've also finally played through the Ghost Ship up to the very last portion of it (the creepy Startington and the last boss battle of the dungeon). This portion of the game takes us about 1 and a half hour to complete, and even though it's taken us a very long time, we're really happy with how the dungeon looks and feels at this point. It also has some of our top favourite boss fights, so we hope you'll enjoy those as well!
Next up for us will be to complete the creepy Startington portion and boss fight, which are both now well under way before we can finally upload it all to Frontline. Hang in there guys! :)
And finally, the third and final revamped Startington interior:
Second house, same principle: touching everything up to the standard of graphics we use today:
The Startington interiors have long been outdated (they were, after all, among the first things I made), and what better opportunity is there to upgrade them than now that we're looking into making a creepy version of Startington?
We'll still keep the old versions of the graphics, but only use them for the ghost versions of these houses - we believe that their slightly shrunken, gnarly appearance will only help make the difference between the regular houses and the creepy houses more prominent.
Now it's time for something slightly different; namely, creating a ghostlike thing that will block players paths here and there in the ghost ship! First up, a few different suggestions:
In the end, we decided to go for the ghastly substance, but were unsure about which color to use, so I made a couple different options (ending up with the original one after all):
And finally, making versions of the substance for the other door directions as well:
This Monday we've started discussing the last boss of this dungeon, which is one of the final things we need to add. As many of you have already guessed, and which might be quite obvious at this point, the opponent you'll be facing is none other than your dear old friend Luke, and today we sat down to discuss what sort of feeling we want this battle to have.
For starters, we want the battle to take place on the ship, outside, and in the rain! This far we haven't had any rain in Grindea, and it's about time the weather changes. We also believe this will help set the tone for the fight. As for the actual fighting bit, we want Luke to use heavy attacks which will cause smoke and wood chips to spray from the surroundings.
Some of his attacks will be inspired by the two hand skill tree that is open to the player character, and he'll combo others by mixing and matching them in different ways; meaning he might start with one attack which may have two different endings to keep you on your toes. He'll also be starting some of this attacks by running towards the player, and we want the overall fight to be high paced with little rest; he won't be idling around as much as Marino, for instance. Finally, towards the end, he'll start using berserk mode to make things even harder for the player!
We've also discussed the last room we've yet to make for the Ghost Ship; a phase shift puzzle with ghastly features! Once this is made and implemented it's only the boss and the final creepy Startington stuff remaining before the dungeon is completed - finally we can see the light at the end of the tunnel :)
The phase shift puzzle room will not only feature a phase shift puzzle featuring the ghost skill, but also another old friend from the past: Kailan, whom you last met in Tai Ming where he was showcasing the phase shift technology to the town's inhabitants. Do you remember who he is? If not, you'll get a reminder when I get around to making the ghost version of his portrait :)
For starters, we want the battle to take place on the ship, outside, and in the rain! This far we haven't had any rain in Grindea, and it's about time the weather changes. We also believe this will help set the tone for the fight. As for the actual fighting bit, we want Luke to use heavy attacks which will cause smoke and wood chips to spray from the surroundings.
Some of his attacks will be inspired by the two hand skill tree that is open to the player character, and he'll combo others by mixing and matching them in different ways; meaning he might start with one attack which may have two different endings to keep you on your toes. He'll also be starting some of this attacks by running towards the player, and we want the overall fight to be high paced with little rest; he won't be idling around as much as Marino, for instance. Finally, towards the end, he'll start using berserk mode to make things even harder for the player!
We've also discussed the last room we've yet to make for the Ghost Ship; a phase shift puzzle with ghastly features! Once this is made and implemented it's only the boss and the final creepy Startington stuff remaining before the dungeon is completed - finally we can see the light at the end of the tunnel :)
The phase shift puzzle room will not only feature a phase shift puzzle featuring the ghost skill, but also another old friend from the past: Kailan, whom you last met in Tai Ming where he was showcasing the phase shift technology to the town's inhabitants. Do you remember who he is? If not, you'll get a reminder when I get around to making the ghost version of his portrait :)
We'll end this week with a bunch of gifs from the second boss fight of the dungeon: the Evil Eye or the Twilight Beholder, that has finally been finished! This boss uses a lot of lasers and creepy eyes to try to eliminate you, so you better keep your wits about you :)
And same thing for the third house:
The second house creepified:
Next up, it's time for us to "creepify" the interiors of the Startington houses! Our idea is that the player will enter each house in its original form and complete a challenge in there, after which the building will deteriorate and become dark and gloomy:
