New Stuff

This post will detail all the stuff I've done from 31 July till 15 August.

Level Select Stars

Now that the game has several difficulty modes, I needed a way to indicate on what difficulty a level was completed on. Previously, I had the level buttons be Stars, and it turned out to be very ugly. I couldn't find a way to present this data in a nice, presentable way, but I think today I've gotten somewhere. I wanted a simple dot above the pink circle, but I think a star is a bit more interesting and more symbolic.

The stars didn't have to be too big, and I think it works nicely.
No stars = Yet to be completed
Grey stars = Completed on Easy Difficulty
Gold stars = Completed on Normal or Hard

World Map
 One of my old ideas for the Level Selection stage was to have a world map and make each area clickable, to assess each area's levels. This idea was scrapped. The game didn't need a world map.

Yet today, I was bored and had some spare time at work, so I drew a more detailed world map (never had any true sketches) and I wonder if I can use this in any part of the game... maybe to show the different areas all in one screen at the start?

Another thing I realise is that some of the iconic scenes in the game are included in the world map, so the world map actually tells a story as you "travel through" it. There are even scenes in the world map that you wouldn't recognize as "iconic" till later parts in the game, such as the cliff at the edge, which isn't explored as part of the main storyline, but as a sort of "flashback" in very late-game.

The world map is rather complex and I actually am progressing quite fast thanks to my WACOM which makes drawing something so detailed easier.

I guess it also pieces the events of the story more solidly than using the 4-box icon to represent each area.

The world map would look much better than this, right?

Auto move
This game gets more AI-intensive every once in awhile. There's lots of things my friend wants to see in the game and one feature is "auto move".

Forest Vines v3
I had spent a few hours revising the spikes/vines sprite.

These are how the new spikes in the game will look like.

Testing my new spike patterns

Spikes in the game had undergone much revision and my previous spikes, while looked more fitting in the forest theme, looked very thick and wasn't very ordinary. I made them a lot thinner, but the real challenge was getting the vines to "touch" each other correctly.

I use a series of connected spikes, and they can be rearranged in certain patterns to prevent spikes from showing up in a repetitive manner.

For example, in the screenshot above, Spike #2 can be connected to not just Spike #3 but to Spike #5 and Spike #6 as well, which means I can set up my spikes in several different combinations so the game doesn't look so "artificially generated".

The tough part which I spent a lot of time on was not the drawing, but to arrange the width of the edges of the spike to pixel perfectly match and look smooth when connecting to other spikes.

I also drew two new spike frames #8 and #9 (not in screenshot), to reduce the repetitiveness of some single, stand-alone spikes in the game which made the environment look fake with my old spikes.

Returning to Introvert

29 July

So I was away for about 4 months - partially due to real life commitments and also partially because I lost motivation to continue developing the game.

But recently, I was coding another game for a friend and while involved in this secondary project, I also saw a lot of inspiration and I had this vision of a forest themed map for my own game. I visualized a small log which I wanted the player to go through, and at the other end, when he comes out of the log, he'd see himself as a better person and the environment around him becomes more "cheerful".

 Pictured: A log I was going to use

I ended up doing something quite different though, and excluded the log altogether.

ScenicForest.jpg

It took me two days to complete it, with all the background layers and parallax scrolling, it was really worth it. It is one of my best drawings with my new drawing tablet, the WACOM, and I feel like I should have gotten it sooner since it makes my drawings and turtle characters less rigid than using a Pen Tool, which restricts freehand drawing. I added one of David's music to this map and this scene really brings out David's music to showcase its potential.

Implementing the map into the game...

Also drawing a new 64 x 128 px turtle sprite for the new forest theme. Above was a placeholder turtle graphic scaled up by 400% I added to navigate the map. Drawing a new, unpixelated turtle would look better, which is what I'm doing now. It's my first time animating freely without the constrictions of a mouse.

Turtle Jump Sequence (Drawing the limbs)

I also discussed how the game was going so far with my friend, Li Hao, and when I look back at the game, I realize it has come very far from when I first started. It would be ready for release, but things just had room for improvement so I kept re-drawing and re-designing the game. This meant that I didn't get around to release the game even though completion was probably just around the corner.

I was told that this game was an achievement in itself, even if it weren't published. I was told that for a first game, it was really good, but personally I'd be more than happy to see it through to its release.

It's come a long way now...

There were a couple of changes I made to the game in the past few days (had a long weekend), mostly to improve player experience.

I also looked at the old game trailer and Li Hao said the trailer was pretty good, even though it was very outdated and showcased a lot of the game's outdated graphics. In fact it was so far back (1 year+ ago) that it actually gave me some nostalgia just looking at it.

When the time comes (probably at least a couple more months), I shall make a new trailer, to showcase the new graphics and features of the game and it shall hopefully be my final trailer before the game is set for release.