Vilya's Workblog

Time for the last outdoor transformation post for a little while! I'm moving back to doing interiors until we've finished designing a certain boss fight...

But more on that later - first, let's take a look at the top left part of the map:

This part of the map features what we currently call the "government building", and a small graveyard. As always, my first step is to fix the ground color - this was actually automatically done when I changed colors on the previous parts of this island, as they're all part of the same layer. So, changing the color on one part of the island changes it everywhere on the island :)

Next, the building itself. As with the lab from yesterday, I don't know exactly what the inside will look like, as I haven't created it yet. So chances are I'll go back and change things around with the exterior once I know what's gonna take place indoors. For now though, some general cracks & dulled down colors.

As for the graveyard, there needs to be more graves added (time has passed, and life is short, a fact that's also true for most people in Grindea), and they also need to become more worn. The statue watching over them should show some signs of wear as well: moss and a couple more cracks.

Finally, I add more trees and bamboo with the editor, as well as a few details here and there - for instance, closing off the cave, which will only be accessible in the past after you find the correct key :)

***

Now, as I mentioned in the beginning of the post, I'll pause the demolition of the outdoors for now, until we've prototyped a boss fight. Since the only area I haven't been working on yet is the HQ, I'm sure you might be able to guess that there will be a boss fight taking place in the courtyard of the HQ!

The reason I don't want to transform the area is because we're not sure if it's big enough yet -it's kind of important that you can move freely during boss fights, especially if you're doing multiplayer with 4 people. Chances are I'll have to remake part of the HQ courtyard if we realize the area we picked isn't big enough, so instead I'll focus on other things until we've tried the boss fight out in a placeholder courtyard.

Anyway! As always, here's a GIF showing the entire work in progress, as well as many of the tiny steps (I'll begin recording videos again once I need to create more items from scratch - I haven't really been making a lot of new props during these past-to-present transformations so far):

Okay, returning to the outdoors! This time I'm gonna demolish the area around the ape lab, which looked like this in the past:

For the present, it's pretty much the same as with the previous outdoors: darken the colors, add cracks and more plants. Beginning with the ground:

Next up, the surrounding props! The bridge has fallen to disrepair, with only a few planks left. No way of crossing there, in other words. For the Monkey sign, I fade the colors, turning the bright red into a more wood-like color, as time has worn the paint and brightness away. Same with the market stands, which now are empty:

For the house, I darken the colors and add a bunch of cracks. I still haven't decided what to do with the chimneys: perhaps I'll break some of them altogether? Since I'm not sure what the insides will look like yet, I'll probably have to go back to this house later and add or change things that will work well with the interior - perhaps breaking a window or two:

Finally, I add more props with our editor (again, this is not exactly how it'll look in the end, as the game engine will transform some of these items into their proper Present versions), and fix the pathway which has become partly overgrown:

And here's a GIF of the entire thing, plus many of the smaller steps:

Time for another portrait! This time I was trying to channel the Asian theme of Tai Ming, which I should be doing with more NPCs in the future.

Still a bunch to do, after all... :)

GIF

Step-By-Step

Finished Sprite

There's still a lot of planning to be made for the next two Tai Ming zones, which means we need to have a lot of meetings! As always, we combine meetings and food, and this time we went to a new place - Mel's Diner, which serve what could be Gotland's most delicious hamburgers!

On the agenda this time was the locked cave I've mentioned in an earlier post, whjich will play an important role in the second zone. Previously, we just had a vague idea about it being a place to fight and solve a puzzle or two on your way to complete a quest leading you to the next part of the dungeon, but with this meeting, it's all fleshed out!

Basically, the cave has turned into a series of puzzle challenges of various types. Some involve time travelling, others don't - but the idea is that "hidden" inside the cave is a WIP 'Puzzle World', a place where the people of Tai Ming were supposed to be able to go to challenge themselves with some puzzles (after paying a hefty entry fee).

Putting this area next to the graveyard might not have been the best marketing decision, of course.. Not the best place for something resembling a puzzle-themed amusement park!

There will be five different rooms, plus an entry room where you'll be introduced to the theme park WIP and its owner!

Room #1: Ancient Statue (enemy) Puzzle

Here you'll have to use the statue enemies in a creative way to solve a puzzle with several buttons!

Room #2: A Key + Monkeys
Here you need a key to get to the next room. Only problem is, there are a bunch of monkeys also wanting the key, and they won't let you have it! You'll have to kill the right monkey before he throws the key to one of his friends.

Room #3: Path Puzzle
In this puzzle there will be statues (or other things), which you can move around in the past, that will fall in different direction in the present. With this knowledge, you have to push the right statue to the right place in order to fill a series of holes in your path to the next room!

Room #4: Combat Room
The puzzle here has long since stopped working, and instead you'll have to battle a series of enemies.

Room #5: Phase Shifting
A puzzle room originally sponsored by the crew at the Flying Fortress, now it's an advanced phase shifting puzzle where you have to shift through time!

As always, typically of Pixel Ferrets, we've probably overdone this a bit - turning our vague encounter & 1-2 puzzle cave into a ancient half completed theme park-ish thing! However, there aren't that many rooms, and the mechanics will hopefully be kind of straight forward (here's to hoping)! :)

Are you ready for some super early Monkey previews? Good, cause here they are:

So as always, this is a very early prototype. For instance, we feel like the throw is a bit too high, so it won't be that extreme once these guys are implemented for real! It also shouldn't turn into a brawler bot as it attacks you... ;)

Anyway, so the monkey has two attacks: it can hit you or it can throw another enemy at you.

Each enemy it throws will have have a different kind of impact as it lands: the statue sends shockwaves in 4 directions, the plant releases a ton of seeds, and the thorn-worms will simply do a ton of damage.

Oh yeah, right now the thorn worm don't have the proper sprite for when they're carried, so they kind of look like silly Digletts getting carried around, but in the future they will be rolled up!

You might wonder why we didn't implement this enemy before releasing the first zone, but the answer is simple: it doesn't appear until you've completed a (mandatory) quest in the second zone :)

Hope you look forward to it mixing things up!

Just a quick note - as you might notice, the usual URL for this blog now points to www.vilyaroo.com instead! Slightly better than blogspot.com/se/de etc, right?

I'm also in the process of updating the design of the blog, so expect a revamp of sorts sometime in the near future. Going for a clean, black & white design that I really like so far - but I still have some things I need to fix before it's ready!

In the meanwhile, here's a pic of cutie Link sleeping until tomorrow's post:

His fur still hasn't grown out since his trials at the animal hospital,
perhaps since it's been so hot here this summer!

Continuing where we left off yesterday, it's time to move to the Inn Island, and work on demolishing things there! As usual, here's a reminder of what the place looked like before I started *ahem* ruining things:

Like yesterday, we begin with changing the ground color to a darker, duller shade:

...and making sure the grass grows over the path here and there, losing the stones to time:

Next up, recoloring props! Here I've worked on the walls (which basically just got a color change and some cracks & holes borrowed from the walls from yesterday), the bridge, the sign and the barrels:

Then it's time to ruin the house, adding plenty of cracks to the walls to make up for the lack of cracks yesterday:

As for the other house, I decide to make it in the same style as Sizou's house in the first zone, completely bare:

...and since you have no business going into this house, there's a bunch of rubble barring the way:

I'm actually not super excited with the way this building looks (too much darkness on the inside), so I might return to this and actually add remnants of the interior, or ruin the wall closest to us, or add some trash or vines working as part of a roof, or something! We'll see!

Anyway, here's the last part, adding new present-only props and moving some things around with the editor:

And of course, the mandatory step-by-step GIF! :)

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