New Wins!

If you saw my last post (and why the hell did you not?) you saw that I hated the way some of my older sprites and animations looked like (pardon my language) poopoo.

I used the enemy known as the Vespa as an example. The Vespa is also know as the mutated wasp. He is also known as Honey Bear when he comes over for dinner and a movie at my place. Even though he didn't stay the night, last Tuesday, because someone wants to take things slow while other people in the relationship want to get straight to the dirty stuff. But I digress. Despite his personality flaws, I did The Vespa the favor of redoing his sprites.

This is the very first Vespa that I did. This back when I wanted to keep the enemies very colorful and somewhat cartoony. looking back on this I still do enjoy the design. I haven't seen this in a couple of months. I might incorporate the face design in something else.

This is what the Vespa turned into after I decided on a certain color palette I wanted the enemies to follow. I wanted them to look more organic and mutated. And since most of the background comprises of guts which are primarily pinks, oranges, and reds. I thought green would be a nice contrast. Still, this animation is just... ugh.

This is (hopefully) my last rendition of the Vespa. He is more sporadic and I really enjoy his wings a lot more. They have a greater sense of speed. The second version of the Vespa looks lazy. The new one looks more menacing in it's behavior. I still made this one move around but staying within the 32 pixels in width (the wings overlap, I don't care) so it can chase you up narrow passageways.

 "I just noticed you need to shade his head more when it turns. Just saying."

 Hey. Nobody invited you to this party.

A Real Gut Buster

So what you see above is just a small tech demo. It shows an example of how destroying certain tiles might look in the final game. These tiles are intestinal tracts, so when they burst it sends blood, bile, and entrails everywhere. The final game won't have you using a Windows cursor to perform biopsies like above. You will have a plethora of high power tools to rip open your patients the Earth.

We want the digging in the game to feel rewarding to the player -- to give a visual indication that you are tearing apart something tangible. Particle effects are one way video games convey this message. Whether you're smashing barrels or breaking pots, actually watching the object explode is often more rewarding than the items you find inside. Why else do we destroy these harmless decorations?

Indeed they do, Tinky. Indeed they do.

But the tiles in Into This World are not just for decoration. They are the very structure of the environment you navigate. So your tools and weapons need to feel powerful -- and what better way to show this power than through interpretive dance particle explosions!

That's all I've got at the moment. There's lots of secret stuff going on behind the scenes. Stuff not ready for mortal eyes. When the time comes, you shall be summoned.