Since me and Teddy went to Stockholm unexpectedly and left Fred to his own devices for a bit more than a week, it was high time to get together at our favorite fast food place and make a new plan for some upcoming Tai Ming things!

Zone01 is nearing completion - or at least, we're implementing more and more of it as I type this. There are still some things for all of us to do: a couple more NPC's to be added, another cutscene or two to play out, etc... But, as we're coming closer to Zone02, it's always a good idea to make new lists of things needed for that area, and so today we talked about every single cutscene and main story element that need an animation or new graphics of some sort!

Of course, there's another super important part of Zone02 that couldn't be ignored for longer - the second boss of the dungeon!

This boss is based on the enemy seen above, a cave worm of sorts. Only it'll be a loooot bigger!

The worm will have 3 main attacks, which are detailed in Swedish (and masterfully illustrated) in the images above and below. 

Attack #1: The worm dives underground, leaving part of his body visible while he digs his way ahead. He'll then surface and dive again, kind of like a dolphin, only everytime he surfaces more of his body will be visible. You'll take damage both from the worm diving onto you, but also from his spiked body if you touch it. However, you can still hit him while he does this, so if you're careful you can get some nice damage in during this attack!

Attack #2: The worm surfaces head first, and spits a bunch of the regular enemy worms at you. These will damage you on impact, and will bounce once on the floor before they resume the regular enemy worm-pattern and become an additional obstacle on the playfield. 

Attack #3: The worm uses his tail to whip you, dealing damage if you get hit!

Special: We're not 100% sure about this yet, but hopefully it'll be cool! So, after you've dealt enough damage, the worm will summon another worm to the playfield, making the challenge twice as hard! Double the boss, double the fun, right...? :)

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Whew! I'm back guys!!!~~

After almost two weeks of absolute crazy, things are calming down a little. I have 500000 scratches on my hands, but at least that's a sign that Link the cat is feeling better (he does NOT want to take his medicine peacefully)! On Monday we're going back to have him checked out to see if he is still responding will to the medicine, but for now he seems stable and active enough, getting a little more energetic every day, so I'm hopeful! :)

I've slowly gone back to working after making sure the apartment is safe for a sick cat (we had to keep the other cat away from him for a while, taking turns keeping them in different parts of the apartments cause they hate each other when one of them is sick - or at least, Dante hates Link when he is, Dante has never been sick himself - lucky bastard (or is it Link that's unlucky?)). Hopefully things should be back to normal from now on, with the regular updates Sunday-Thursday :)

As a first step, here's a little something I made the other day - a stack of barrels:

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Remember how I said I'd be going home to visit my parents and then celebrate Teddy's birthday (which is tomorrow, BTW)? Well, fate had other plans for me.

Last Sunday we went to the emergency vet with one of the cats, who had become weak randomly. Since he is only 4 years old and hadn't pooped in a while we assumed it was a some kind of constipation which would be easily solved by the vet - no biggie, right?

Well, instead, he only felt worse and worse, all while the vet had no clue what was happening.

After two days and a ~500 USD bill JUST for travelling between our home and the vet, sometimes multiple times per day (we actually haven't received the actual vet bill yet, so that's gonna be fun), we were actually sent to the capital, to what is likely the best animal hospital in the country. From our island that's a 5 hour trip, 3 of which are on a ferry, with a possibly dying cat. Fun, fun times.

Turns out, at the hospital @ Stockholm, they couldn't tell what was wrong either. They ran more and more tests with the cat in their critical care unit for several days, and apparently he only turned worse and worse. Luckily, Teddy's mother lives in Stockholm so he came with me and we stayed there, waiting for a single phonecall every day where they'd let us know how he was doing.

After x tests, they figured out not only is he severely anemic, which is likely the cause of his miserable state (though they couldn't tell us what caused the anaemia..) he also has early signs of a heart disease (but if all goes well that's not something that will bother him for many years yet). They gave him medicine, but to our dismay nothing seemed to help, again for multiple days.

Yesterday the vet reached a breaking point: either he gets better today from the medicine he's been given, or there's nothing that can be done, and he has to be put down. Well, today we received news he was sliiightly better and could come out of the critical care unit and receive treatment at home for the next two days, with another checkup on Tuesday. Since there's no way we're gonna travel back and forth 5 hours each way between now and Tuesday, we're currently staying at Teddy's mothers place, hoping everything will be fine.

Link (the cat) has only shown slight improvements that need to be much bigger on Tuesday, or we'll still have to put him down since it's incredibly unlikely he'll ever get better if he isn't by then. If it comes to that, at least he got 2 days with people who know and love him, rather than spending his whole last week in the hands of strangers.

So yeah. Currently I'm sitting in Teddy's mother's bed, while she sleeps in the living room, with a terribly sick cat next to me who barely eats. I haven't been near a computer since last Sunday when we first went to the vet with Link, and I honestly don't know when I'll be back to a regular work schedule. It could be anything between a few days to one or two more weeks depending on how things go.

I know that some of you might not understand why I'm doing all this "just" for a cat, but to me the cats are like family members. They're always there for me and it's my responsibility to make sure they feel good and are properly taken care of. Before this is done, I expect the vet bill will be more than 2-3 months worth of salaries. It's a ton of money and a ton of time, but I really love this cat and I seriously pray he will be OK even though I'm not even religious. He's only 4 years old, this is just way too soon :(

So anyway, as you might understand, the blog will be resting for a little while. I'll try to start working again after Tuesday when he's either well enough to come home with us to the island, or he's so bad we had to put him down. BUT, even if I start working then the blog might be down for another week or two. I just want all my non-work attention to be on Link and helping him get well again.

I hope you guys understand, and I'll be back as soon as I can! Without you guys I wouldn't be able to keep a cat at all, much less pay these hefty vet bills. So thank you all for supporting us and know the game is ALWAYS on my mind, I just need to do my best to try and save my best friend right now.

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Now that the house on the left and the HQ are in place, it's time to add the stuff in between! Namely, the exit to the third and final Tai Ming zone~

This door has 3 strange stones/crystals attached to it which will play an important part in your Tai Ming quest! How? I guess you'll have to play and find out.. ;)

The Map before we begin

Adding the door

Connecting the paths

A carpet for some townsfolk to sit and chat on!

Importing props from the editor :)

Decorations!

There's a part to the left of the path that's quite clean, and that's cause I'll be adding a stone path leading up to the final part of the map - the graveyard! But, that's for next time... See you then! :)

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Before I forget it, I just wanna let you know that I'll be going on a break from this Wednesday to the next, going to visit my parents and celebrate Teddy's birthday (yes that's right, another Pixel Ferret member is turning old)! So, the blog will pause after tomorrow's post and resume as usual next Wednesday :)

Moving on! We take a jump to the left from the HQ, adding another building to the map :)

I call this building the government building for now, because I don't have a better name for it. Basically it's where the administrative work of Tai Ming happens. It also has a staircase leading up to the roof, which is kind of strange, and might serve some kind of purpose in your quest!

The sketch

What the map looked like before we started

Adding a copy of one of the other houses as a base!

Changing colors & textures~

Changing the land a bit, adding stairs and some strange dirt!

A puzzle background & sign appears!

Importing props from the editor...

And finally, some decorations :)

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Remember this little area in the second Tai Ming zone?

As you might have guessed (and as I might have mentioned), these are a bunch of shops that you'll be able to shop at while adventuring in Tai Ming. There will be a blacksmith which sells swords, armors and shields, a potion shop, a hat shop and an accessory shop! The fish carpet is just for show, and won't have any use for the player, much like Haddock's shop in Evergrind City :)

Right now these shops will carry the same items that can be found in Evergrind during and after the festival, as you'll go straight from there to these maps (after exploring Mount Bloom for a bit, of course). In the future we might add new stuff to these shops, but right now they're mainly there so you don't have to travel all the way back to Evergrind City if you need new supplies!

Anyway! Since you'll be able to shop here, these stores needed their own title interface:

Hopefully you can guess which interface belongs to which shop...! :D

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The boss prototyping continues, and we've made more patterns!

First up, a more advanced version of the bullet hell we showed last time! This version would replace the previous version we showed, being more difficult as the fans come from two different directions. The version you see below would probably be the hard version, though, as it's incredibly hard to dodge all of them:

Next, a pattern based on a suggestion from the forums, where the fans create a pendulum of sorts, where you have to find the gap between the fans in order not to get hurt and find your way up to the boss. In this initial prototype, where the gap appears is random, and when I recorded this a lot of the openings were at the top. Once it's implemented it should be more varied, with more openings appearing further down:

Here's another pattern, kind of similar to the previous one in a way, where you have to dodge horizontal fans with small gaps in between. This was so hard for me, I took damage almost every time! It's likely this will become the hard version and the normal version will have bigger gaps:

Next up, another variation of a bullet hell move, where she puts you in the circle and launches fans at you that you have to dodge:

And finally, a move where you can see where the fans will move ahead of time - don't stand on the indicator on the floor or you'll get hit by them for sure!

The idea is that the boss will choose a move randomly from these and the previous ones, and depending on how hurt she is will launch an easier or harder version of the move. In hard mode, the harder version of the move will be the default, with an even more difficult version launched if she has taken a lot of damage!

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