And for the last post before the Christmas break (we will be back on Jan 1st!), there's a bunch of NPCs made by Fred! Some of these have portraits that have been showed before, but the two on the right are brand new archaeologists that will be inspecting the old ruins and skeletons found in the desert!
Hope you guys have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! See you again on January 1st~ [.....]
The next interface up on the design table belongs to the Bank and involves trading essence for gold, and gold for essence! For this interface we'll use the Quantum Lumber interface from Housing as a base:
The main difference between the Lumber interface and the Bank's interface is that instead of Lumber we'll deal with Essence (obviously), and that you'll be able to either buy Essence by handing in gold, or sell Essence and get gold back for it.
From the beginning we thought [.....]
Remember Trunk, the sidekick who will fill the role of (a more cheerful and optimistic) Bag in Arcade Mode? In order to communicate with you properly, he of course needs to have his own portrait:
And here's the final version, slightly cut off to fit the text box:
[.....]
More interface design, this time featuring the Arena! As a reminder, here's what it looks like in Story Mode:
There are two categories, Challenges and VS. Challenges won't be available in Arcade Mode, but there will be something else:
Boss practice! For those of you who have troubles with bosses, we know it's really difficult and annoying to get chances of practicing against them as you have to survive a whole lot of regular enemies first. To give players a chance to polish [.....]
As we continue working on and implementing Arcadia rework, it's only natural that our weekly meeting has a lot to do with establishing the smaller details of how everything will work! This week we've decided on a bunch of stuff:
Early Gold Quests In order to quickly get your first building(s) up and running, we'll add a couple early quests with gold rewards to speed things up and get your into the whole building thing as soon as possible! Some will probably be reused from old Arcadia, while a couple will be brand new.
Balancing Gold Rewards for Slow Builds How much gold you get per run/room will be balanced is a tough one, because we [.....]
Time for Fred's Friday, featuring a return to the desert and more of its inhabitants! Here's a whole bunch of the iterations for four of the characters you'll meet in the harbor town, with the final versions inside each green circle:
...And an animation for that poor winter fae, who has been lured into the desert by his friend! Poor thing is suffering from the less than ideal weather for a winter loving creature!
[.....]
Next up, we'll continue the interface business by taking a look at the interface of one of the more important new features: Treats and Curses!
For this interface the important part is having enough room for a bunch of treats/curses, with a text box featuring a description of each treat/curse, a title bar (so you know which interface you're in), as well as some way of letting the player know when treats/curses don't work together - for example if you have on treat that disables [.....]
Time to get those new interfaces going! First up, the main interface as you run around Arcadia. Here's the old version of the interface:
And here's a basic suggestion with a new gold indicator and slots for Treats/Curses:
Now, the treats and curses will affect your score multiplier by a certain percentage each: either they'll increase your score or they'll reduce your score. More score equals more rewards (and a higher place on the high score list!), so we felt it was [.....]
Since this day is likely filled with meetings where we need to finalize the things mentioned yesterday, have a WIP gif of yet another sailor moving into the harbor town!
Finished portrait, with and without hat:
[.....]
Alright, back to business! As mentioned before, we're at the point where we need to design a lot of interface stuff and decide how things will work together and unlock in terms of the new Arcadia rework features.
These include new interface indicator for gold, treats and curses when you're running around inside Arcadia itself. Here we decided to combine Treats and Curses. Previously we said you could pick either Treats or Curses, and have three of each, but since then we have changed our minds: now, you'll be able to pick and choose between Treats and Curses, but you can only pick 3 in total. It's good to keep in mind that 3 isn't a 100% [.....]
It's the first Fred's Friday written in our new office (!!!) (...more about the move later)! And it's time to introduce a new character of quite some importance: the Trunk!
This little guys will be the equivalent of Bag, but for Arcade Mode. We didn't have a character like this in Arcade Mode previously, but the more we thought about it, the more we felt it was lacking somehow. It kind of felt strange to have bag say random things when he isn't even a character [.....]
We're in our new office!! Yesterday we finally made the move, but we had already started preparing the day before. Here's the old office in our apartment's guest room, as it used to be, and fully packed:
The saddest thing we'll be leaving behind is the cats! It's been so nice to be able to spend all day long with our lovely two cats, who will have to wait alone at home for us to return from the office every day now ;_;
Yesterday, [.....]
And now, the final part of the Arcadia rework: the Dojo interior! This is another building that exists in Story Mode, and may have its old version replaced by this new Arcade version. It's designed to have a big enough fighting area for you to prove yourself in a set of challenges, as well as a shield block training session we may include in the earlier parts of story mode: we'll see!
Without further ado, the WIP video:
And the finished version! I thought [.....]
The second to last interior before all the interior designs of the new and improved Arcadia are completed, belongs to the Aquarium! This place will feature a set of fishes that you captured during your run, as well as the typical souvenirs:
In the sketch, I included a set of fish shaped balloons, but I think we'll let Fred make those from start to finish since they will need to be animated to really have that proper balloon feel! For now, here's what the Aquarium [.....]
This week, let's jump straight into continuing the interior spree of the Arcadia Rework! It's time to take a look at the Cinema, another of those brand new buildings that don't exist in Story Mode. Here, you'll be able to watch replays of your previous Arcade runs, and even share them with your friends.
While most of this will take place in one of the ticket booths near the entrance, we couldn't resist adding a bit of a cinema feel with a big screen and [.....]
Time to move on from fishes and do some desert work instead! Fred has been making a ton of NPCs lately, and here are some of the ones you'll meet during your adventure:
Can you figure out which NPC belongs to which portrait (hit the portrait label on the right bar to check all the portraits out)?
[.....]
Cheers!
