Small update.
Posted by EchoJerichoX on June 13 2011 19:38:19

Hey everybody, long time no update.

I have gone in and fixed a lot of old bugs with some of the game's core mechanics that were -- albeit rarely -- noticeably affecting the flow of the game at times. On top of that, there is yet another change of plans: The AI Demo 2.0 levels will be taking place in a snowy tundra, a la Phendrana Drifts. As a result, it gave me a good excuse to add the map feature to the game. This should be an easy carry-over. On that topic, here is a VERY early dev screenshot of the spawn for the new AI Demo:

Photobucket


The red grid lines are markers used as a guide for showing where sections of the room will be located on the map. the bright spots are actualyl lights, which stand out a LOT in bright environments. Tweaking will be required here, which I am working on. Most importantly, you may have noticed all the whitish-gray specks all over? That is the snow. In a still image, you don't get much appreciation for it, but it still looks neat!

For this stretch of development, my goals are to at least do the following:
1: Complete tilesets and graphics for snow environments.
2: Add (or re-add, depending on how you look at it) the map feature.
3. (Maybe) Add Arachnus as a boss. Yes, I have sprites for him that I made in top-down. They look pretty neat. I'll keep this under wraps for now.

Besides those things, I really just need to make the Jet Boost work and do some testing to make sure everything is smooth. However, as anyone who has followed this project for a while knows, it is never as simple as adding a double-tap dash feature. Our movement/collision system is very complex to make the movement/collisions so smooth. It will not be easy, even though I created a dash engine on the side.

More has been done that many are not aware of. Mostly side-experiments, but all things I intend to work into the game. More on that another time.

As always, thanks for sticking with us.
- Echo