Next up, another part of the player's house in Startington we can't forget about; your own room! Like the rest of Startington, it's about time it gets the appropriate visual upgrade:
Now, with all of the other Startington houses having new and fresh graphics, it's beyond time that the player's own house get a bit of an upgrade as well! Without further ado:
As mentioned before, I'm quite done with Ghost Ship stuff for now, but there's one ghost I have a feeling we'll get to see at some point so I thought I might as well ghostify her portrait now while I'm kind of in the zone with the ghost stuff!
Who? Tannie of course!
Of course, I have no proof we'll actually ever use this portrait, I suppose it depends on where we decide to take certain quests or side quests, but we've been talking so much about it that the chance seems pretty darn high she will appear in some shape, at some time...
So, new week and new Monday, which brings with it another meeting! This time around we've talked a lot about the near future, basically where we're heading from here and what's the most important on our to-do lists.
For Teddy and Fred, this mainly means the Luke battle and the cutscenes directly after and a final one leading up to where Frontline will end this time.
For me, there's a lot more improvements to the earlier stages of the game, particularly around Evergrind City and the like.
And for all of us, it's still the quest for the perfect final dungeon. We've already had a bunch of meetings discussion a variety of ideas, but seeing as we want a lot of floors, there's still some work to be done and more floor ideas to shape - and eventually, actual floors to design. This week our homework is the sit down for 20 minutes to an hour here and there and create those ideas, so that next week we have even more of them to discuss. This will continue on while we finish up the rest of the ship until we have enough ideas, and eventually, proper designs, that we can make a whitebox sketch version of the final dungeon which we can run through and try out without the mechanics being implemented yet.
The main thing we want to avoid is one of the pitfalls that made work on the Ghost Ship such a struggle; in every other previous case where we designed an area or a dungeon, we had a clear design in mind before we actually started making the proper graphics. With the Ghost Ship, we did a whole ton of just winging it and designing as we went on, and it's fair to say that designing a dungeon like that didn't work out as well for us as the other way at all. So - no more of that, and more pre-design like we did before! With some luck, we won't struggle as much this time, and it won't be as long before an update hits ever again (touch wood) :)
For Teddy and Fred, this mainly means the Luke battle and the cutscenes directly after and a final one leading up to where Frontline will end this time.
For me, there's a lot more improvements to the earlier stages of the game, particularly around Evergrind City and the like.
And for all of us, it's still the quest for the perfect final dungeon. We've already had a bunch of meetings discussion a variety of ideas, but seeing as we want a lot of floors, there's still some work to be done and more floor ideas to shape - and eventually, actual floors to design. This week our homework is the sit down for 20 minutes to an hour here and there and create those ideas, so that next week we have even more of them to discuss. This will continue on while we finish up the rest of the ship until we have enough ideas, and eventually, proper designs, that we can make a whitebox sketch version of the final dungeon which we can run through and try out without the mechanics being implemented yet.
The main thing we want to avoid is one of the pitfalls that made work on the Ghost Ship such a struggle; in every other previous case where we designed an area or a dungeon, we had a clear design in mind before we actually started making the proper graphics. With the Ghost Ship, we did a whole ton of just winging it and designing as we went on, and it's fair to say that designing a dungeon like that didn't work out as well for us as the other way at all. So - no more of that, and more pre-design like we did before! With some luck, we won't struggle as much this time, and it won't be as long before an update hits ever again (touch wood) :)
Time to take a look at what's cooking with the Luke battle! The prototyping stage is in full swing, and we're currently experimenting with a set of attacks and combos for him to throw at you:
No Grindea battle is complete without a bit of dodging as well, so naturally what other skill would Luke master than Smash:
So far so good, we're feeling quite excited about this battle and hope you guys will too... :)
Next up, what I now honestly believe will be my final contribution to the Ghost Ship for now (or at at least until we finalize the boss battle and I'll have to make any changes to the boss area and such): Luke's boss portrait!
Some minor adjustments to the Startington Spooky version, featuring more clutter, stacks of books, and a mysterious night sky:
Next up on my list of things is putting someone in that ghostlike shop to manage business there! It took a while for us to decide on a design for this guy; should he be human, a ghost, or something else entirely? In the end though we decided to go for something of a shadowlike demonic creature, just to mix things up a bit lore wise (plus it would be cool to design an actual creature based off of the darkness we've introduced this far in the ghost ship).
Without further ado:
So, time for some Spookington fixes! First up, a couple new expressions for some of the characters you'll meet there, namely Jonathan (cured of his cough!) and Luke's mom (who is a little concerned):
The pathway up to Spookington felt a little claustrophobic so we're turning it into utter darkness, as far as the eye can see:
And as part of the mechanics on this town, we'll be using a couple globes, which in this version were what we'd like to call programmer art, now replaced with the real deal:
Finally, adding some more stuff to your childhood home in this Spookington version, making it a bit more messy:
Meanwhile in the animation department (sorry for the standard late post, haha), some further additions to spooky Startington, which will further increase the creep factor of the place:
Meanwhile, the spooky Startington bit, or should I call it the Spookington bit, has been finished enough for us to try it out! Here are some screens from my playthrough:
Next up, another ghost portrait, featuring a long dead diva, who used to be a hell of a singer on the Ghost ship:
Another part of this new spooky Startington is a nice little picnic which all of your friends and family will take part in! It will be available both in a nice bright version and an abandoned, dark version after things have taken a turn for the worse:
Moving on with a new week and new spooky Startington stuff, it's time to spookify some trees and bushes:
Also making the whole place fly (cause why not?):
For the third and final challenge of spooky Startington we'll be using this puzzle, which of course in turn needs the appropriate puzzle background:
Finally, as part of the new creepy Startington, Fred has been working on some old NPCs that will be returning:
Next, an old man looking for his wife, lost somewhere on the ship:
There are also a couple more Ghost portraits to be made, with the first one being a spooky Tai Ming seamstress :
