Now, back to those portraits! This guy is a card player found in the Saloon near the desert town. After this there are 10 portraits left, though Fred keeps adding new NPCs so we'll see where it all ends! :D Did you know that so far, not counting the portraits I haven't made yet, there's 40 NPCs unique to the desert area!? In other words there will likely be over 50 before we're done! Oh my...
Finished version:
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Some more quick stuff, this time a bunch of rewards for the various quests (fae wings for your head! wohoo!), as well as the camera used for the photography quests and a sack of bird feed for another quest featuring another well-known face from Story Mode, who wishes to see some birds in Arcadia!
I've been particularly bad at hitting that 'record' button so once more I forgot to record a whole section, namely the bird feed bag... Oh well :D
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No we haven't gone crazy! This isn't exactly a Temple of Seasons room as much as it is an extra Arcade Mode room :)
This, too, will feature in a newly added quest, and is based off of a room from story mode, though for the sake of Arcade Mode we're mixing it up a little, making it a mixed seasons room rather than a simple autumn room:
Do you have any ideas of whom you might meet here? Finished thing:
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This week we've taken a slight break from the desert to add some final touches to Arcade Mode in preparation to launch the rework to the stable beta! Aside from the sound effects, we wanted to add a couple of new quests and mechanics, one which is brand new and will probably also make an appearance in some form in Story Mode: Photography!
Above you can see the first WIP of the photography mode, basically it's a camera you equip which allows you to take [.....]
Fred continues to make desert NPCs as well! Since I made the portrait for Mandrake, he began making his sprite as well:
When we designed this guy we though it'd be fun to make him a really buff guy. There's this stereotype that professors are bookish and quiet, so this time we wanted to mix things up a little and make him a very charismatic, body building type of guy. Cause why not? :D
In the desert town, there's another new NPC throwing coins into [.....]
The next portrait is of one character you might have come across before, though not personally. You see, this is Professor Mandrake, who has been corresponding with Ivy recently. Such a swell guy, helping her with her research!
As you might guess, he will also be found in the desert. What he's doing there? Why, wouldn't you like to know!? You'll just have to play and see ;)
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Next up we have another portrait! This guy is strolling along the market, looking at the wares. How interesting!
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Moving on with the desert stuff, there are still a bunch of interiors to finish. By now I've made so many random items across the game that a lot of them can be reused in various ways, and for this room in particular I used a bunch of old stuff either as is or after making some slight changes to them.
This house, you see, is a warehouse that stores a ton of random objects, so what better place to reuse a bunch of those random [.....]
This week we've finally started going through (and implementing) the sound effects! As usual when we start this part of development, we've sent out a request for a bazillion sounds to our trusted sound effect person, Fark who then promptly provides us with what we asked for, sometimes with several options!
To decide on these options, we go through each sound effect one by one and select our favorites. We tend to do this separately when we have the time, so to note others of our preference we [.....]
The boss work continues! Fred has worked hard with the new epic Solem boss, who gets an epic laser attack through a mystical gem, oh my!!
Previously we said all Solems will have the laser attack, but we then changed our minds and decided that it would simply make them a bit too crazy for regular enemies. Saving the attack for a boss is totally OK though!
No ancient ruin is complete without its own sets of traps, of course, and since we all [.....]
The second portrait features a guy lying on the beach getting an intense sunburn. Do not do this at home kids, this is not very healthy for your skin! The character is based on this sprite made by Fred:
WIP video (also featuring the creation of the final sprite this time, woohoo):
...and the finished thing:
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This week's first portrait features a girl walking around in the desert town! I call her a beach girl even though she will probably be walking around in the market, as she is dressed like someone strolling along the beach! She's probably visiting the town as a tourist, having a relaxing vacation.
WIP video:
Finished sprite:
[.....]
Next up we have a random house that will be right next to the market! We don't really have any fixed plans for this house yet, so I'm just whipping together a quick basic house that can be inhabited by pretty much any of the NPCs already made:
Maybe in the future we'll have a more specific idea of who lives here and what kind of person they are, in order to make the place more personal. Until then, it's just another example of [.....]
The next desert interior we'll take a look at is the house boat in the harbor area! In this version the door is centered while the exterior has it more to the left, so I'll move that around later to suit the outside version.
Other than that the interior is slightly different compared to the regular houses, with different kinds of windows and another type of bed. There's also some slight color variations and edits of some of the props!
WIP & finished version below:
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So obviously Fred keeps busy doing desert things as well! Not only does he continue making NPCs, he has also started working on one of the bosses you will face in this area. Below you can see the work in progress and final version of the boss you'll fight inside the temple mentioned earlier:
Basically it's a more advanced version of the Solems which will appear in the desert as regular enemies, powered by a mysterious crystal, oh my!
Fred has also been working [.....]
So the NEXT one this week ( did you know there are 14 more after this to be precise? Oh my)! I'm not sure exactly what this guy's backstory will be but I believe Fred intended for him to be one of Master Ji's graduated students (it is based off a NPC sprite he made). The WIP:
Finished portrait:
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The first portrait this week (yeah, I'll probably start posting at least two per week to keep up with Fred's output and be able to post them all before we're done with the town, haha) belongs a character made by Fred quite a while ago, a guy who fell asleep on the beach while reading. Here's a reminder of what he looks like:
I don't know whether he will wake up later or not, for now though I opted to make his portrait asleep as [.....]
Before I can do any work on the ghost ship, I need to finish up this church, among other things! Using the clock tower as a base, I create this random holy space in the middle of the port town. Who might you find here? You might be able to guess!
Finished interior, for now:
[.....]
After having gone many weeks now without having any meetings (we've all been busy doing our parts for the Arcadia rework and desert) it was finally time for us to have another discussion about future events in the game!
Very soon we hope that Teddy will have rid Arcade Mode of the more severe bugs, and as such be ready to move on to the desert. Story wise, there are a couple of important things happening here before the player is ready to move on to the [.....]
Cheers!
