As we draw close to releasing the stable version of Tai Ming, there's - as usual - a bunch of tiny fixes needed. Time for a mixed bag! [.....]
When we talked about adding new items to the shops, we totally forgot about one pretty important store: the hat salesman! Time to make a few new hats for that guy :) [.....]
The Tai Ming Arcade floors poses an interesting challenge that none of the other floors do. After all, Tai Ming is a town, and a town you can explore both in the past and present, so how do we properly convey that over a set of not-overly-decorated rooms where you battle a ton of monsters?
The first thing we decided was that there would have to be enemies in both past and present state rooms: we definitely want to include the time travel aspect in some way, and keeping the past rooms enemy-free (as they are in Story Mode) just isn't an option.
As for the layout of the floors, we have two options.
Option [.....]
And here's the third and final additional character to be added to Tai Ming before the stable patch: a merchant!
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We'll end this week with a second Tai Ming housing miniatures batch! A few left to go... :)
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And here's the second sailor, helping the first unloading some crates filled with items to be sold in Tai Ming!
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And now, time to complete this guy's portrait! He's been charged with helping a merchant deliver goods to Tai Ming, and as you might be able to tell from his expression he's not exactly thrilled to be forced from the sea!
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We'll begin this week with another one of these text heavy posts! This time, we'll take a look at the desert enemies, mainly designed by our animator Fred~ [.....]
As you might know by now, the next dungeon is going to be a ghost ship. What you might not know, though, is that the ghost ship will be populated with the possessed spirits of sailors from the Merchant Isles. [.....]
Time for some more housing miniatures! Since the Tai Ming-themed ones are sooo many, I'm going to divide them into groups depending on which item type they are. Some batches will be bigger, other smaller. This is one of the smaller batches, featuring the 'small items', or things you can stick on tables and other surfaces! [.....]
With the Arcade Mode rework drawing closer, we sat down to iron out more of the houses that will be available so I can begin work on the new Arcadia design. We also changed a few things around:
Candy and Muffin were said to have a house in the last Arcade Mode meeting. That has been changed into two vendor stands near the exit to the Arcade Mode run, in order to avoid having to load into a house every time you want to try out new treats or curses.
The Alchemist Remedi will also appear somewhere close to the exit, and like candy and Muffin he will be available without moving into a building, although [.....]
Since I'm waiting for Fred to complete the additional NPCs that will appear in Tai Ming's first zone, here's a preview of a couple more Mount Bloom room types for Arcade Mode! [.....]
Let's jump straight into the stable priority stuff! First up: shop upgrades for when you reach Tai Ming! [.....]
So this isn't exactly a Monday meeting as much as a continuation of Friday's meeting.. But anyway!
So, what happens next? Once we've polished up Tai Ming for a stable release, there are a ton of things we want to add before moving on to the next area, and many of these will probably get their own Frontline and Stable releases:
1. Housing
We've talked about it a lot, and it's finally on its way! Almost all basic batches are completed, although we'll keep adding items as we come up with them. All that remains is polishing up the interface and for Teddy to implement like a hundred items...
2. Support Skills
Seeing as there's [.....]
